Author Archives: Ian Adamson

The order of the Columbans did not long survive its founder and merged with the Benedictines in the eighth century. However, in honour of St. Gall, as we have seen, there arose a monastery dedicated to him which became one … Continue reading →

  Today, with Helen Brooker (Upper Top Right), I  attended the funeral of my friend and colleague former Belfast city councillor and Progressive Unionist Party leader Alderman Hugh Smyth. Helen’s husband David had been Hugh’s surgeon and looked after his palliative care Hugh, … Continue reading →

    Too frail to accompany his abbot, Gallus, or as we know him now, St Gall, left Columbanus’s mission in 612 AD to stay in Swabia and live in a retreat by the Steinach. At this site in 720, … Continue reading →

In 627 AD Congal Claen or “One Eye,” a Prince of the Cruthin, became the Over-King of Ulster. He had ruled in Tara until his blinding by bees put him from his kingship. The following year Congal slew the High … Continue reading →

  The Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) strike was a successful general strike which took place 40 years ago between 15 May and 28 May 1974, during ” The Troubles”. The UWC was the brainchild of my old friend Harry Murray, a shop steward at Harland … Continue reading →

  Saint Molua, (c.530 – 592), (also known as Lua, Luan, Luanus, Lugaidh, Moloag, Molluog, Moluag, Murlach), was an Ulster missionary, and a contemporary of Comgall, Columbanus and Columba, who evangelized the Caledonian Cruthin or Picts in the sixth century. … Continue reading →

The end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh centuries AD was indeed the Golden Age of the Bangor monastery, for it became the centre of literature, both sacred and secular, in Europe. Here were compiled the oldest Chronicles … Continue reading →

In the spring of 612 AD war broke out between Austrasia and Burgundy. The Austrasian army was first defeated at Toul and then annihilated at Tolbiac. King Theudebert fled across the Rhine but was captured for his brother Theuderich by … Continue reading →

Pope Gregory the Great             Now the strict Penitential of Columbanus infringed on the authority of the local Frankish bishops. But it was only with his insistence on celebrating Easter according to the British calculation that … Continue reading →

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  ‘ … Continue reading →