dedicated themselves faithfully to monastic life, others rejoiced rather to give themselves to learning, going about from one master’s cell to another. ![]() The Venerable Bede, the “father of English history”, described the attractions of such places for his compatriots: “Many of the nobles of the English nation and lesser men also set out thither, forsaking their native island either for the grace of sacred learning or a more austere life. In keeping with an ancient Irish virtue, they also offered unlimited hospitality. It was, as Thomas Cahill writes in How the Irish Saved Civilisation, "a kind of university city, to which came thousands of hopeful students first from all over Ireland, then from England, and at last from everywhere in Europe".Ī millennium and a half before Donogh O’Malley had the same idea, Kevin and his monks provided free education. St Kevin's Bed is still there too, in the cliffside, and although it's not yet listed on Airbnb (give it time), he is almost certainly not the last person to have slept in it. Then he relented, and a monastic community grew up around him, gradually populating Glendalough Valley. If so, it was his misfortune as a famous holy man to attract followers. It’s possible that, in common with other hermits, he didn’t like people much. And he threw them off in winter to immerse himself for hours in the freezing lake below or, for a similar effect in summer, to plunge himself into forests of nettle. Perhaps his longevity owed something to the ascetic lifestyle he practised for years.Ī hermit, he slept in a metre-high cave (“St Kevin’s Bed”) on the side of a steep hill. ![]() ![]() But most of his life is undocumented, so we may have to take it on faith that he had been born in 498, as tradition also has it. He died 1,400 years ago, on June 3rd, 618, and was so well known by then that at least that date might be considered reliable. Not the least remarkable thing about St Kevin of Glendalough, if we can believe the stories, is that he lived to be 120.
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