Bangor, once the site of one of the largest schools in Ireland, was the jumping –off point of the famous missionary journeys of Columbanus and Gall. The development there of Irish language and literature in the sixth and seventh centuries assumed in this region of Loch Lao something of the impetus and cohesiveness of a cultural movement, produced by Nualitrides or New Men of Letters. Here were to be compiled in all probabity the original Chronicles of Ireland, and the beautiful poetry The Voyage of Bran. In this region also the old traditions of Ulster were preserved which were moulded into the Gaelic masterpiece The Cattle Raid of Cooley (Tain bo Cuailnge)..The ancient Ulster Chronicle has been attributed to Sinlan Moccu Min, who as Sinlanus is described in the list of Abbots in the Bangor Antiphonary as the “ famed teacher of the World” (famosus mundi magister).
The greatest journey made by Columbanus, Gall and their party, was made longer by the need to take a wide detour whereby they would avoid contact with Burgundian adversaries. Finally, after much hardship they established their new headquarters close to Lake Constance at Bregenz (which lies in present-day Austria close to its borders with Switzerland and Germany). Here they built a small cloistered monastery, laid out a garden and planted fruit trees. But nature proved more yielding to their efforts than the local people, many of whom were deeply resentful of Gall who had the effrontery to smash their pagan images and throw them into the lake.
When some of the monks were murdered, Columbanus realised that once again he must uproot himself and his community and seek elsewhere for a sanctuary. However, not all his monks were prepared to embark on further travel into the unknown, including Gall, who throughout these years of hardship had probably been Columbanus’ closest companion. When Gall broke the news to his ageing friend, their parting must have been one of the most sorrowful occasions in both their lives.
Although by now more than seventy years of age, Columbanus crossed the snow-covered Alps through the St Gothard’s pass and made his way to the court of the Lombard king, who granted him a suitable place, at Bobbio, where he could found a new monastery. Columbanus was to die a year later but Bobbio was to grow in stature, attracting some of the finest scholars of the time and containing a splendid library of over 700 books, and became the most important monastic centre in Northern Italy. Several dozen manuscripts, some lavishly illuminated, have survived from the first three centuries of Bobbio's existence. The largest extant body of Old Irish glosses passed through the monastery before ending up in Milan.
Before he died Columbanus sent a messenger to seek out his old friend Gall, to let him know that the bitterness of their parting had been finally set aside. The great emperor Charlemagne was to build one of his most famous foundations — the Monastery of St Gallen — near the spot where Columbanus’ old travelling companion had lived the austere life of a hermit. A modern monastery now stands there today, of which it has been written: “The monastery… has in its library beautiful Irish manuscripts made by some of these travelling scholars.
The library has also preserved a fine plan of Charlemagne’s monastery with its sties and stables, its sheepfolds and fowl houses, threshing floors and market gardens… As well as this farm neatly laid out in a great rectangle around the central church, the monastery of St Gallen had a hostel and a kitchen for its guests, schools and accommodation for the abbot and his monks, a doctor’s clinic, an infirmary and a cemetery. Such settlements formed the high culture of Europe in the reign of Charlemagne.
St Gallen has been described as eminently distinguished as the chief seat of learning of ancient Germany. It reached the height of its fame in the ninth century under Moengal, an Irishman. Although celebrated for its beautiful manuscripts, its carvings and its miniatures, it remained true to the tradition of Bangor in regarding music as the greatest of all the arts. Through the teaching of Moengal the music school of St Gallen became the wonder and delight of Europe. Moengal has been identified with that abbot of whom the Annals of Ulster state,” 871 AD Moengal, the pilgrim Abbot of Bangor brought his old age to a happy close.” The famous pupils of Moengal included Notker balbulus, who wrote a large series of hymns and is considered one of the greatest musicians of the Middle Ages; Tuotillo who was a painter and sculptor as wel, as a poet and musician; and Rathpert Waldramon who was a great musician and librarian. These three men were among the finest contributors to European medieval hymn-writing.
G.S.M. Walker wrote of Columbanus: “A character so complex and so contrary, humble and haughty, harsh and tender, pedantic and impetuous by turns, had as its guiding and unifying pattern the ambition of sainthood. All his activities were subordinate to that one end and with the self-sacrifice that can seem so close to self-assertion he worked out his sole salvation by the wondrous pathway that he knew. He was a missionary through circumstance, a monk by vocation, a contemplative, too frequently driven to action by the world, a pilgrim on the road to Paradise.” Pope Pius XI has said, “The more light that is shed by scholars in the period known as the Middle Ages the clearer it becomes that it was thanks to the initiative and labours of Columbanus that the rebirth of Christian virtue and civilisation over a great part of Gaul, Germany and Italy took place.”
The French poet Leon Cathlin concurs in saying, “He is, with Charlemagne, the greatest figure of our Early Middle Ages,” and Daniel-Rops of the French Academy has also said that he was “a sort of prophet of Israel, brought back to life in the sixth century, as blunt in his speech as Isaias or Jeremias… For almost fifty years souls were stirred by the influence of St Columbanus. His passing through the country started a real contagion of holiness.” More recently, Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister who was a driving force behind the establishment of the European Economic Community, said: “Columbanus is the patron saint of those who seek to construct a united Europe.”
In 2012 we shall celebrate the 1400th anniversary of St Gall's hermitage. Having started with the Farset Steps of Columbanus Project in the mid '80's with the help of Tomas Cardinal O'Fiaich and Archbishop Robin, now Lord, Eames and continuing with the Ullans Academy's Feast of Columbanus with Dr Ian Paisley (Lord Bannside), Baroness Eileen Paisley, President Mary and Senator Martin McAleese, the Ullans Academy is honoured to liaise with the North Down Museum, Bangor; Jake Mac Siacais (Forbairt Feirste) of the Loch Lao (Belfast Lough) Project, with its link to the St Gallen Library, St Mary's College, an Culturlann McAdam/O'Fiaich and the new Belfast Council sponsored St Comgall's Centre on the Fall's Road; St Matthews Church on the Shankill Road and St Malachy's Church, to prepare for this anniversary.