The conversion of the Saxons to Christianity by Augustine and his associates in 597 was an event which signalized the period of the Heptarchy, or the seven Saxon Kingdoms. At this time the English were in a state of the grossest and most deplorable ignorance. Incessant anarchy and war retained them in barbarism, and treacheries, rebellions, and massacres, during the whole of this gloomy period, occupy the page of history. A remarkable fact in the history of Saxon Heptarchy, is that Ireland was the great means of imparting the benefit of learning and of the knowledge of Christianity. Scarcely was Ireland thoroughly converted to Christianity, when great schools and seminaries of learning began to spring up in various parts of the country; the most celebrated of them, after that of Armagh, where it is said there were seven thousand students, were Clonard, in Meath; Clonmacnoise, on the banks of the Shannon, in the King's County; Bangor, in the Ards of Ulster, County Down, founded in 558; and Lismore, in Waterford, founded about the year 633. These and many other schools in Ireland attracted a vast concourse of students, several of whom came from Britain, Gaul, and other countries, drawn hither by the reputation for sanctity and learning which Ireland enjoyed throughout Europe. It was an age of simplicity, and may well be called the golden age of Ireland; for while swarms of barbarians were inundating Europe, each wave of desolation plunging the nations over which it passed in social chaos and demoralisation, Ireland was engaged in prayer and study, and the general gloom of Europe only made her light shine the more brilliantly by the contrast, and enhanced her glorious distinction as the " Island of Saints." Leland, in his history of Ireland, vol. i., p. xxii., writes- "A confiux of strangers or foreigners to a retired island, at a time when Europe was in ignorance and confusion, gave peculiar lustre to this seat of learning." Nor is it improbable or surprising that 7,000 students studied at Armagh, agreeably to the account of Irish writers, though the seminary of Armagh was but one of those numerous colleges erected in Ireland. Bede tells us that in his time (672-735) multitudes of the English youth flocked to Ireland for education, and that they were not only received with friendship and hospitality, but were supplied at establishments like those of Armagh, Clonmacnoise, etc., with books, food, and every other necessary, free of charge. Dr. O'Donovan, in "The Dublin Penny Journal," vol. i., p.94, gives a translation of a poem (written in the Irish language by Alfred, King of the Northumbrian Saxons, about the year 685, during his exile in Ireland, where he was known by the name of Flann Fion), in which the royal bard records : - "I found in Armagh, the splendid, Meekness, wisdom, circumspection, Fasting in obedience to the Son of God, Noble, prosperous sages. I found in each great church, Whether internal, on shore, or island, Learning, wisdom, devotion to God, Holy welcome, and protection." To the labours of two Celtic prelates, Finian and Aidan, the North of England and the Kingdom of Mercia, the great central plateau of England, composed of seventeen of the midland counties, owe their conversion to Christianity, as the venerable Bede testifies. That the Irish missionaries in the fifth and sixth centuries taught the Anglo-Saxons of the North appears clearly from the letters of Adhelm to Ussher. " When learning was almost extinguished on the Continent," writes Lingard, "a faint light was emitted from the shores of Erin ; strangers from Britain, Gaul, and from Germany resorted to the Irish schools." See Ussher, vi. 419. AD 657, Tomyn, Abbot and Bishop of Armagh, died. It is said he was the most learned of his countrymen, in an age most fruitful of learned men. Colgan has collected all that is known of this prelate in his "Acta Sanctorum." During his time, Armagh was twice consumed by accidental fire, viz :-in 670 and 687. In this century a Culdean Monastery and Church were built in Armagh, and Cearnagh, the Prior, died there in 779. Congusa was advanced to the primacy of Armagh in 730, and under the year 732, the Annals of the four masters cite a poem written by this prelate, wherein he exhorts Aidh Allan, King of Ireland, to revenge the crime of sacrilege committed by Aedh Rony, King of Ulster, who had invaded and pillaged some churches in the diocese of Armagh. In the days of Primate Suibhney, AD 734, Flaghertagh, King of Ireland, abdicated his sceptre and embraced a monastic life at Armagh, where he died in the year 760.