As Canair the Pious, a holy virgin of the Benntraige, prayed in the dark of night, she saw a pillar of fire erupt from the roof of every church in Ireland, one blazing brighter and higher than all the rest.

“Inis Cathaig,” Canair murmured, recognizing it as the place of her resurrection. She arose at once and followed the fiery beacon, visible even in the day. For three days and nights she walked toward it without rest, until at last she crossed the waters surrounding Inis Cathaig, or Scattery Island, as it is now known. Senán, the head of a community on Inis Cathaig, came to the shore to deny her entry, stranding her on the waves.

“Women are not allowed on this island. Go stay with the woman who lives on the isle to the east,” he declared.

“I have come for no isle but this one,” Canair replied.

“Women are not welcome here,” said Senán.

“How can you say that?” asked Canair. “You’re not better than Christ. Christ came to redeem women just as much as men. No less did Christ suffer for the sake of women than for the sake of men. Women served with and ministered unto Christ and his apostles. No less than men do women enter the heavenly kingdom. Why, then, should you not admit women to this island?”

“You sure are stubborn,” Senán said, then moved aside.

Stepping off the waves onto the shore, Canair's heart leapt with joy as she at last felt the promised land of her resurrection beneath her feet.

This tale, found in the Irish Life (biography) of Senán in the fifteenth-century Book of Lismore, seems remarkably contemporary in its defense of women’s equality in Christianity. I’d like to say that after Senán allowed Canair entry he recognized the incompatibility of sexism and Christian faith, that together they created a truly egalitarian community, one in which people of all sexes, ages, classes, temperaments, ethnicities, et cetera, were welcome to worship and serve God equally. And perhaps they did. But that's not what the sources say.

According to Senán's Irish Life (Canair has no Life of her own, at least not one that survives), Canair had little time to continue discussing the matter with Senán or anyone else, let alone to help build a model Christian community.