sentences:  In the British Isles in the 5th century, the earliest monastic communities in Ireland, Wales and Strathclyde followed a different, distinctly Celtic model.It seems clear that the first Celtic monasteries were merely settlements where the Christians lived together — priests and laity, men, women, and children alike — as a kind of religious clan.At a later period actual monasteries both of monks and nuns were formed, and later still the eremitical life came into vogue.