Kildare Abbey 1.6

Kildare Abbey is a former monastery in County Kildare, Ireland, founded by St Brigid in the 5th century, and destroyed in the 12th century.
Originally known as Druim Criaidh, or the Ridge of Clay, Kildare came to be known as Cill-Dara, or the Church of the Oak, from the stately oak-tree loved by St. Brigid. She founded a small oratory which soon expanded into a large double monastery, one portion being for women, the other for men. She procured St. Conleth to rule and ordain the monastery, and another bishop, St. Nadfraoich, to preach and teach the Gospel.
Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare in the eighth century, and the author of what is known as the Second Life of St. Brigid, calls Kildare \"the head-city of all the bishops\", and Conleth and his successors \"arch-bishops of the bishops of Ireland\", and goes on to refer to the primacy of honour and domestic jurisdiction acknowledged in the abbess of this city by all the abbesses of Ireland. To this primacy, maintained all along, is due the unique distinction enjoyed by Kildare of having recorded by the annalists, till comparatively recent times, the succession of its abbesses in parallel columns with that of its abbots.