It was of no avail that they adhered in other respects in the main to the older teaching, that they professed to hold to the same ethical system, that they adhered, except in a few unimportant details, to the old regulations of the order of the Buddhist mendicant recluses.
There are seven other similar structures in the group. Inishmore also bears the name of Aran-na-naomh, Aran-of-the-Saints, from the number of religious recluses who took up their abode in it, and gave a celebrity to the holy wells, altars and shrines, to which many are still attracted.
A form nearer to the Greek original, "anachoret," is sometimes used of the early Christian recluses in the East.
Some of these recluses only ate every second day, while others succeeded in confining the necessity to a single week-day.
Three very short ones are dedications of caves to the use of an order of recluses.