An anecdote from St. Canice's life, relayed below, contradicts the view many New Agers have concerning "idyllic" pre-Christian Ireland.
From here:
St. Canice or Kenny, founder of the Abbey, and patron of the parish, of Aghaboe, was born in the year 515 or 516, in Glengiven, in the region of Cianachta, in the present County of Londonderry. He was descended from the CorcoDalann or Ui Dalainn, a tribe whose ancestor, Dalann, is traced back to Fergus (King of Ulster a little before the Christian era), son of Ross, son of Rudhraighe. The Corco-Dalann were of little consequence, and their exact location is unknown, except that they dwelt in an island called in the Saint's Life "Insula Nuligi," and which is usually identified with Inis-Doimhle or Inis-Uladh, now the Little Island, in the Suir, south-east of Waterford. Lughadh Leithdhearg, our Saint's father, was a distinguished bard, and from the wandering disposition of men of his class, it is not difficult to conceive how he left the home of his youth, in the sunny south, and settled down in the far north, under the favour and protection of the chief of Cianachta.
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St. Canice exerted himself strenuously in withdrawing his countrymen from the barbarous customs handed down by their forefathers. On one occasion, whilst travelling through West Leinster, he found the people assembled, with their King, Cormac Mac Diarmaid, to enjoy the gruesome spectacle of a little boy, named Dolne, being subjected to the torture called Gialcherd. The Gialcherd consisted in casting young children high up in the air and receiving them in their fall on the points of lances held upright. On the Saint's arrival at the place of meeting, the spears were already fixed upright in the ground in preparation for the ghastly exhibition. He earnestly remonstrated with the King, and besought him to spare the little boy, but in vain; and savage custom would have had another victim had not Almighty God, at the prayer of the Saint, miraculously saved the child who, when flung on the spears, was neither killed nor injured. However, the terror of the horrible death from which he had been thus preserved, had the effect of distorting his eyes, so that he was called thenceforward Dome Lebdearc, i.e. Dolne of the crooked eyes. In after life he became famed for his sanctity, and founded a church, (round which grew up a town), called from him Kill-Dome.
Desiring to be alone with God as far as possible, St. Canice frequently retired from the society of men, and even from the companionship of his own brethren, and betook himself to some remote solitude for prayer and meditation.
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