Today, accompanied by my colleague in Pretani Associates, Helen Brooker, I attended the Annual St Comgall’s Lecture of the Friends of Bangor Abbey by Professor Jean-Michel Picard, U.C.D., talking on ‘Columbanus and the Antiphonary of Bangor’ with special reference to the hymn  ‘ Praecamur Patrem’ (Hymnum Apostolorum ut alii dicunt). Professor Picard demonstrated convincingly that this hymn could only have been written by Columbanus himself before he left Ireland.

Professor Picard (b Marseilles 1952) studied at the University of Provence in Aix-en-Provence, at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne and at the National University of Ireland (UCD). As a specialist in mediæval languages and literature, he has published several books and numerous articles on Irish hagiographical literature, on Hiberno-Latin language, and on the history of contacts between Ireland and the continent during the middle ages. Jean-Michel Picard is a professor in the UCD School of Languages and Literatures and a member of the Royal Irish Academy.