"On every side of the island lay the watery fields, winding themselves into inlets and across bays. Great sheets of water, unbroken save by a group of smaller islands that rode like ships that had run to seed and blossom in tropical seas, with theā¦
"No record was kept of all the years that passed after the coming of the Danesmen till the Archbishop of Armagh sent a band of canons regular of the rule of Augustine..."