Mary McAleese and the Man Who Saved Europe

We Europeans are three quarters of a billion people,

spread across more than 50 states.

Our shared continent has a dreadful recent history

of hate-filled conflict, in which millions died,

of political borders drawn and redrawn,

of clashes between old and new ideologies.

It's a continent in rapid transition, but to where?

And while there are many signs of hope,

there are also many worrying signs of division.

This is the story of a man who, 1,400 years ago,

brought fresh, radical thinking

to a Europe that was in crisis.

His ideas saved Europe, then.

They are needed again, today.

That man was an outsider, who came from what was seen as a primitive

and backward land -

his name was Columbanus.

Columbanus arrived in a Europe

that was bitterly divided by religious differences.

It was also violently divided by tribal allegiances.

People's lives were made considerably worse by very poor leadership

in both Church and State.

In the midst of this chaos,

Columbanus offered hope.

He and his disciples built monasteries that became beacons

of Western learning and civilisation

throughout the Dark Ages.

Columbanus also risked his life,

when he demanded much higher standards of leadership

from very powerful kings, from bishops,

and even from popes.

And he brought a big idea of unity

that offered a solution to division.

It's an idea of pulling together in partnership,

still capable of inspiring today's secular Continent,

as it struggles to accommodate the diversity of its people.

And so, I'm following in the footsteps of Columbanus,

tracing a journey into a world in crisis

nearly 1,400 years ago,

seeking answers for the often-fractured Europe of today.

The Roman Empire -

from the first to the fifth century,

that empire brought an advanced civilisation

to a massive landmass that stretched from the sands of North Africa

to the ramparts of Hadrian's Wall.

The territories of this powerful empire

benefited from its engineering, its law and order,

and the sophisticated learning of Greek and Roman civilisation.

Columbanus brought a lot to Europe,

yet interestingly, he was a rank outsider.

He came from the only country in Western Europe to stay outside

of the Roman Empire.

Yet his achievements took place

against the backdrop of its rise and fall.

Ireland lay on the edge of Europe, beyond the Roman Empire.

An island without books, roads and towns.

An island so remote and so apart

that Columbanus and his fellow Irish

were viewed as mere barbarians.

But by the time Columbanus was born in the sixth century,

Europe was in a state of flux.

Columbanus' life played out in a Europe

plunged into violent chaos by the collapse of the Roman Empire

following attacks by barbarian tribes.

In this Europe of the Dark Ages,

his vision, talents and faith had a unique impact.

While Roman civilisation collapsed,

so-called uncivilised Ireland

was undergoing a radical social and cultural revolution.

It was the fruits of this Irish revolution

that Columbanus would bring to Europe.

We're told that Columbanus was a popular and attractive young man,

born in the centre of Ireland, in Leinster,

probably to a wealthy, land-owning family, around the year 550.

Columbanus was the first Irishman to leave a body of written work.

He was also the first to have a biography written about him

shortly after his death.

However, we should read that book with care,

because it conveys Columbanus as a very saintly hero.

You know, I really am tired

of these old-fashioned, traditional lives of the saints -

they're so syrupy and full of gross exaggerations.

There was a real Columbanus,

and we need to find the real Columbanus.

He was born into an Iron Age world -

ancient traditions, practised for centuries,

were a part of daily life -

some primitive and brutal.

Recent archaeological evidence reveals that children

were ritually sacrificed.

But the old ways were changing -

this ancient well in County Tyrone was once sacred to the Druids.

They saw their religion in the landscape around them,

their gods in the trees, fire and water.

Around the time of Columbanus, such old pagan traditions

were being adopted by Christians,

and places like this well

also became sacred to them.

Archaeologist Edel Bhreathnach

believes this adoption of Christianity,

illustrates that the remote island of Hibernia

wasn't nearly as isolated as some people might think.

When we think of Columbanus and of his background in Ireland,

it's a period of huge explosion, of change.

We are in touch with the Roman Empire, we're trading,

and, especially, I go back to Leinster,

and where he's coming from,

down the east coast of Ireland,

more and more we, for example, are finding

Mediterranean and Gaulish pottery.

We also are finding how Christianity may have trickled in -

with things like the shrines

or the relics of saints

obviously being brought in

by many people who are Christian.

Ireland is getting all sorts of new ideas,

and, of course, the great idea was Christianity.

These finds show that Ireland was not isolated,

but was trading with the rest of Europe

and, with that contact, came ideas.

Columbanus was born into an Ireland that was absorbing a variety

of new outside influences.

Tell me about Columbanus's people's faith.

What was their faith?

The likelihood is that his parents would have been Christian,

his grandparents, perhaps not.

They could have been far more attached

to the earlier belief system.

So, Columbanus is not awakening as a child into just, I suspect,

one particular religion.

He is in a society that is really in flux.

I find it just intriguing to think

that Columbanus's Ireland is such an exciting place -

open to the world, trading goods, services, ideas...

and the biggest idea is Christianity.

New ideas did not only come from Rome.

Fresh finds reveal that Ireland was also trading with,

and, therefore, open to ideas from, Africa.

Christians had gone off into the wilderness of the desert

and forsaken all material comforts

to get closer to their new Christian god.

These African Desert Fathers lead lives of extreme self-sacrifice,

aiming to purify not only themselves,

but their religion and their society.

And their example inspired young Irish men and women.

Ireland did not have deserts,

but it did have wilderness.

Early Irish Christians sought out remote islands, cliffs,

and mountainsides, where they lived simple lives of personal sacrifice

and prayer.

These Christians came together in monastic communities.

More and more of these communities were appearing throughout Ireland.

One of the most famous was Bangor Abbey.

And it was to here in Bangor that the young Columbanus

decided to come to join this new life

of sacrifice and faith, and become a monk.

You know, I am wondering why a handsome, attractive young nobleman,

who could have had an easy life,

would turn his back on his family

and make his future in a monastery.

I've come to the church built on the site of Bangor Abbey,

to discover what exactly Columbanus

would have experienced when he first came here.

The abbey was only a few years old when Columbanus arrived,

but it had already gained a reputation for a tough daily regime.

It's a harsh regime.

They're coming from a military background,

except instead of fighting other people, what they're doing is,

they're fighting their own bodies and their own temptations.

You live separately in individual huts,

but you gather together in the church every three hours.

You don't sleep at night -

you are standing guard and your job is to pray.

They would fast a lot.

They pushed themselves,

to offer themselves up for God.

One of the ways in which they pushed themselves is they would

go into the lake and they could be standing in the lake -

maybe in cross vigil, with their arms up,

and they could be reciting 100 Our Fathers like that.

The rules are very strict about total obedience to the Abbot.

You don't backchat, you don't gossip,

you don't ever question what he says.

He is the guy in charge.

So, they created a tight-knit community,

partly by the harshness and the rigour of the regime.

That regime which he aspired to be part of,

that seems to be very, very harsh and difficult...

Why would anybody undertake such a life voluntarily?

I mean, we say "harshness" in the negative sense,

but people admired that.

And there are people who want to be the very best

and who'll push themselves to the ultimate extreme,

in order to be the best.

I really do have to admire the fact that Columbanus chose

to come to Bangor, to this monastery,

because it had the reputation of offering

the harshest form of monastic life.

That tells us a lot about the character of the man.

Columbanus's Bangor Abbey

was a place where young men sought to purify the world,

through purifying themselves.

But it also became one of the first urban centres in Ireland.

The surviving ruins of Glendalough

give us a better understanding

of what foundations like Bangor Abbey must have been like.

As well as the church,

the monks had a refectory,

where they gathered to eat food produced in the surrounding fields

or fished in the lough.

More importantly, perhaps, for Columbanus,

there was also a scriptorium

where books were made, as well as a library and a school.

In these places, a depth of scholarship developed

which, through Columbanus, would come to have a major impact

on so-called Dark Age Europe.

Before his time,

we mustn't imagine that Irish culture was ignorant,

but what arrived with Christianity

wasn't just the knowledge

of the three sacred languages -

Latin, Greek and Hebrew -

but the whole array of Mediterranean Christian culture

that came with it.

So, Ireland has absorbed, and is absorbing, this wave of ideas.

What does it do with them?

-Does it do much with them?

-Oh, it does!

It does everything with them.

The first thing the Irish made themselves masters of

was grammar.

And they created a whole library of new Latin grammars.

And the second thing they did was to make themselves

the best mathematicians in Europe.

And the Irish very quickly become

the masters of this in the whole of Western Europe.

You've described to us how Ireland absorbed

so much that was rich from Europe. What did they do with that?

Did they return the compliment? Did they do anything with it?

They invented new forms of script.

In ancient Hebrew and Greek and Latin

the writing was continuous.

Scriptura continua.

But the Irish broke these up,

by putting spaces between words.

Most that you and I take for granted on a modern printed page

is an invention of the Irish in the 6th and 7th centuries.

Tell me, then, when Columbanus, in his forties

decides to head to Europe on a missionary endeavour,

what... What's in his thinking?

Well, he knows things that they don't.

He's got the zeal that the Irish have.

The Western Empire is running down and has run down.

There are no more Roman emperors in the West,

it's only barbarian kings.

At the Irish come with no army,

with no economic power...

only intellectual acumen.

The only thing they have is persuasiveness.

They are the masters of argument

and they are the exhibitors

of a peculiarly-rigorous religious life.

The Ireland Columbanus was leaving behind had,

through a mixture of trade, travel

and the religious culture of the monasteries,

been transformed.

No longer a remote windswept backwater,

it was, by the end of the 6th century,

a rich culture buzzing with ideas -

the biggest of which was Christianity.

The image I have is of an Ireland alive with learning,

and Columbanus, armed with great scholarship, intense spirituality -

wanting to spread this big idea

through the power of persuasion

and his own personal holiness.

Columbanus travelled to Europe with a spiritual and a political vision,

that would challenge the most powerful leaders of the continent...

A vision still relevant in today's pluralist and secular Europe.

Columbanus, now in his 40s, set sail from Bangor

leaving behind, once again, everything familiar.

Everything he's ever known,

and heads towards a chaotic Europe, to a life...

Well, who knows what it's going to hold for him?

Columbanus and the small group of disciples who travelled with him

may have landed at Cornwall first, where a church dedicated to him

still exists.

They continued on to France

and a Europe which he would enrich

by bringing scholarship and spirituality from Ireland -

and where he would risk his life

challenging those in power.

I've come to France to follow in the footsteps of Columbanus.

When he arrived here in the 7th century,

the continent was controlled by warring tribes.

Columbanus is a complete stranger in a foreign land.

No-one here has ever heard of Columbanus.

But he has a mission and he has a vision

and the big question is...

Where is he going to start?

From Brittany, Columbanus made his way to Annegray in eastern France,

where he built his first monastery.

Today, French and Irish archaeologists are undertaking

a major survey of the site.

As they dig, clues are emerging

that answer questions about Columbanus.

Why did he choose to build here?

And how did a so-called barbarian

manage to get the site in the first place?

We know just that he met the king.

The King of Burgundy - Sigebert.

And Sigebert give him this area.

This space.

It was probably a holy area.

-A holy place. A sacred place.

-Absolutely.

Because we found - you can see on this map -

we found the plan of a temple, a Roman temple,

just 20 metres from here.

So, a king gives a complete stranger from Ireland called Columbanus,

what you are telling me is, a very important Roman site?

It was an important Roman site.

But Columbanus was an important person.

And Columbanus was like - how to say? - le representant?

-The representative.

-The representative of the king.

Columbanus clearly impressed the King of Gaul.

Evidence from the dig suggests

that Columbanus shrewdly convinced the king to build a monastery

as a way of defining its territory.

This stranger from Ireland

was obviously an astute reader of men.

He negotiated fearlessly at the highest level,

he navigated a complex political landscape

and he took an ancient pagan site

and made it a new, sacred Christian place.

We know that Columbanus was a spiritual genius,

but now we're finding out

that he was also something of a political genius.

So great was the demand to join the way of life

that Columbanus had brought from Ireland,

that, within a few years, he returned to the king

and negotiated a second monastery site, in nearby Luxeuil.

Today it's a thriving town,

built on a remarkable history.

CHURCH BELL RINGS

Sebastien and his team

are slowly uncovering that history, digging deep into the past,

at the site of Columbanus's second monastery.

They believe there was already a small, though weakened,

community of Christians here

who had survived the Barbarian invasions.

The city of Luxeuil was an antique...city

and in the middle of the 4th century,

there was some Barbarian invasion,

and, we imagine until now, the city was totally destroyed.

But in fact, it wasn't.

And when Columbanus arrived in this city,

he discovered a Christian community.

Because, in this place,

we are in a Christian church of the 5th century.

-Before Columbanus?

-Before Columbanus.

There was a Christian people

one century and an half before Columbanus. Yes.

When Columbanus arrived, Luxeuil was a city in decline.

And Christianity in the region

was also in decline.

So, what did he bring?

What did Columbanus bring to that situation?

Columbanus imposed a new spiritual energy.

He invented a new form of monastic way of life.

A monastic way of life that came from Ireland.

It was a way of life that quickly captured hearts and minds.

Soon Columbanus opened a third monastery at Fontaine.

This place is such an impressive site.

It's a very special place where you feel very deeply in the presence

of Columbanus and, in his world, as it was, at that time.

Here, among these ruins,

I really am getting a sense of the sheer scale of the challenge

facing Columbanus, to revitalise this people,

this church, in decline.

The monastery that Columbanus founded at Luxeuil would grow into

one of the most important monastic centres

of the early Middle Ages.

Over time, Luxeuil became the hub of a network

of over 50 monasteries throughout the Continent.

So, here we are now at the Abbey St Colomban.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

Sebastien has brought me to the monastic buildings.

The popularity and success of Columbanus's way of life

was due to more than his enthusiastic spirituality of sacrifice.

That was something else which he also brought from Ireland.

Luxeuil became a very famous abbey,

because when Columbanus and the first monks came,

-they bring with them...

-The scholarship?

..scholarship from Ireland.

So, in Luxeuil, it was like in the monastery in Ireland,

with a very important artistic and intellectual life.

As soon as they founded the monastery

the elite was sent in this monastery for their education.

And why was that?

What attracted wealthy parents

to send their children here?

Because the monks were very...

Had a very good education.

The sons of the European elite

became the monks' students,

and these students became the abbots, bishops and kings of Europe.

In an age before the printing press,

when the only way to preserve books was to copy them,

the monastery's scriptorium created

lavishly illuminated manuscripts

that became celebrated far beyond Gaul.

I can see why Columbanus stood out.

A wild-haired Irish scholar,

passionate about faith, learning and a new spiritual life.

But, crucially, he also offered sinners new hope.

One tradition that Columbanus brought from Ireland

had a revolutionary impact.

He taught that people could receive forgiveness from sin

time and time again -

they need only confess to a spiritual advisor -

their anam cara.

This was radically different from the Roman tradition of public penance

- the sinner clad in sackcloth and ashes -

and the belief that sins could only be washed away once.

For ordinary sinners like me,

it was a doctrine of hope.

Before Columbanus in the first centuries of Christianity,

the forgiveness of God was given only once in his life.

So, generally speaking, people were waiting

for the end of life to ask for forgiveness of God.

And sometimes, they were waiting too long

and it was not possible!

But for the Irish monks

and for Columbanus,

the idea was, every day we have to ask forgiveness to God,

and this is a new idea that the Irish monks

introduce into the Catholic Church.

So, he's saying you don't have to wait until the end of your life,

you can have forgiveness every day?

Exactly. Yes.

It's a new idea, that forgiveness of God is possible,

if you are sincere.

This sounds to me like a very different idea of God -

from the harsh, judgmental God,

to the gentle, loving, forgiving father.

Yes.

This is the idea of God of love.

This new idea of God's forgiveness

became so popular in France,

the Columbanus wrote a guide book called A Penitential.

It advised what penances an anam cara should assign for specific sins.

This innovation became so successful

that it eventually was adopted by the wider Christian Church

as the sacrament of confession.

Columbanus brought other Irish practices and customs

that would have been strange to the French,

including a different date for celebrating

the major Christian festival of Easter.

THEY EXCHANGE GREETINGS

Merci beaucoup.

When Columbanus and his monks arrived

here in France to make their lives,

they looked strange.

They had very strange ideas and strange customs,

and yet, remarkably, the local people, the ordinary people,

really welcomed them and were open to them.

And because they were open, they benefited hugely.

Columbanus's monastic way of life

reinvigorated Christianity.

His learning underpinned the sophisticated scholarship

that informed generations

of European leaders.

The practice of the anam cara introduced a revolutionary concept

of forgiveness that transformed people's lives.

Little wonder, then, that Columbanus is still honoured in this area.

Particularly here in these woods,

where he spent time alone in the wilderness,

maintaining another Irish custom, that of making a retreat,

of finding God in the natural world around him.

Columbanus came to this very beautiful spot twice a year,

to prepare for Easter, to prepare for Christmas,

to take himself away from the monastery and just to be on retreat.

It is interesting that, so many people, 1,400 years later,

are still coming here to this spot,

writing in these books as if they could almost encounter him here,

physically, as well as spiritually.

There is no doubt that Columbanus made a big impact in Gaul,

but he also made enemies, by going against the grain

of the established church hierarchy. Columbanus seems to have been

very well received, generally,

but then he had problems with the bishops. What was it

about Columbanus that these bishops did not like?

Columbanus founded three ministries in this area

without any permission from bishops. He asked nothing from the bishop

of this area, only from the king.

Columbanus annoyed the bishops,

not only with his practice of foreign customs.

On the Continent, bishops expected abbots, like Columbanus,

to obey them.

But in Irish custom, an abbot was of equal rank to a bishop.

Not only did Columbanus see himself as equal,

his faith and life were built on a rejection of worldly values.

So, when he saw how well some princes of the church where living,

he was not impressed.

Some bishops were very honest.

But there were really bishops who, some of their wealth,

they were people from the high society, coming from families

who were very wealthy, and they chose the way of the Church

for political reasons.

So, they were living in towns,

sometimes with mistresses...

..and they had nothing to do with the Gospel.

Columbanus could not admit such a way of life for a Christian.

The bishops summoned Columbanus to account for his foreign customs.

He wrote to them,

criticising their comfortable lifestyles

and asking them to tolerate his different Irish ways.

He advocated unity, writing...

In Columbanus' world, people squabble incessantly over differences.

But in these letters, Columbanus sets out a radical new vision,

in which he challenges people to focus on what unites them,

what they share, rather than what divides them.

The letter is fascinating.

It may be one of the first written expressions of an international

shared sense of identity, which crosses boundaries of nationality

and race.

13 centuries later,

in the aftermath of World War II,

Columbanus' call for unity between peoples was heard again.

With the devastation, hatred and division of war still lingering

in the air, European leaders gathered in Luxeuil

in July, 1950, to mark the 1,400th anniversary of the birth

of Columbanus - and a new idea was born.

On the fringes of that gathering,

it is said a secret meeting at this house in Luxeuil

was attended by politicians across Europe,

including members of the then Irish government,

Sean MacBride and Taoiseach, John A Costello.

The idea of a Europe

united in diversity may very well have started here in this house,

in the name of Columbanus...

..because at that secret meeting, it is said that the seeds were sown

for what became the European Union.

During the anniversary celebrations, Robert Schuman, one of the founders

of the European Union, said...

And he referred to Columbanus as...

Back in 7thCentury Luxeuil, things started to go badly wrong

for Columbanus.

Although he worked with powerful leaders to achieve his aims,

Columbanus was not willing to compromise his principles for them.

When asked to condone the King's keeping of mistresses, he refused.

It was a dangerous and brave act by Columbanus.

The King had already killed a bishop who had criticised his private life.

In response, the King seizes Columbanus

and the other Irish monks from their monastery

and marches them 800 miles, to the port of Nantes,

to be shipped back to Ireland.

From his cell in Nantes, Columbanus writes a moving farewell letter

to his monks back in Luxeuil.

Columbanus is at his lowest ebb. He feels a complete and abject failure

and, yet, he is able to write to his fellow monks and tell them

to love and to forgive.

His community of monks is now made up of many different nationalities

and in his letter to them, Columbanus again stresses the power of unity

and also forgiveness.

He urges them to forgive the king who seized him.

That is a message which, it seems to me,

is as relevant in today's angry 21st century

as it was in the time of Columbanus.

Then, Columbanus' luck improves.

There is a storm in Nantes and the boat transporting and the other monks

back to Ireland is unable to leave port.

The captain, believing this is a sign from God,

releases the monks and, so, they are free men again.

Free, but not free to return to Gaul.

So, Columbanus and his Irish monks set out on yet another journey -

an epic trek across Europe and along the banks of the Rhine,

to Brigantium.

Now called Bregenz, it was here, on the shores of the Lake Constance,

that Columbanus founded his fourth monastery,

once again, after negotiations with the local king.

Statues mark his legacy today, but in the 7th century,

Columbanus, his disciples and their Christianity

were rejected by the people of Brigantium -

a rejection that would end in violence.

When two of his monks were brutally murdered,

Columbanus felt he had no choice but to leave.

Expelled from Gaul, rejected by Brigantium,

cast adrift from the monasteries he had trekked

far across Europe to build, at this point, Columbanus must have wondered

if his life's mission had come to nothing.

And yet, he did not give up. He was a man of great inner strength -

strength that is revealed in his writing.

You spent a lot of your career studying and translating Columbanus.

How does he, the person, come across to you, in terms of character?

I think, extremely driven and what impresses me about Columbanus

is really his energy and the energy comes across very strongly

in his writings.

By this stage, Columbanus is a good age?

Yeah, he is probably in his early 60s.

Yeah. And he has trudged across most of Western Europe, by this stage.

-Tell me about his spirituality.

-There is something mystical about

some of his writings, the sense that reason alone cannot comprehend God,

but also the idea that we are pilgrims on the Earth,

that we do not really have a home anywhere on Earth and so, our life

is a journey.

And we see this right throughout his religious odyssey on the Continent,

where he is continually being compelled forward.

And Rome and Italy had a very big attraction.

And so, he talks a lot about Rome in his letters,

not as the seat of empire, but as the Church of St Peter

and Paul and, so, he is attracted to Italy.

Behind me are the Alps and, beyond them, Italy.

And this wall of mountains, Columbanus has to climb

to get to Italy, if he is to start all over again.

While Columbanus headed for Italy,

one of his disciples, who had followed him all the way

from Ireland, chose to stay on the shores of Lake Constance

and build a hermitage in the wilderness.

That disciple's name was Gall

and his hermitage became the monastic town of St Gallen

in Switzerland, which grew into another major centre of spirituality

and scholarship in Europe.

In this modern Swiss town, you get a real sense of the impact

of those monastic foundations laid down by Columbanus

and his disciples, perhaps better than anywhere else in Europe.

St Gallen is a special place, because not only are the abbey buildings

still standing, but the library also survives.

I think the only way to greet this place, for the first time -

any time, perhaps - it is just with complete awe.

We have moved, literally, through centuries here.

Centuries of thinking, centuries of writing

that have influenced our world in Europe and right around the world.

It is quite a wonderful feeling to be in the place where a small group

of Irish monks, with great intellects and a great scholarly discipline,

who leave their country, who come here with very little

except what brainpower they have and, out of that, they create

a tradition of learning, of scholarship, of questioning -

a tradition of a real formidable intellectual endeavour

that continues in this library, to this day...

..and is part of Europe's patrimony, is part of the world's

intellectual patrimony.

This library remains a majestic monument to how the treasures

of European civilisation were preserved by Columbanus

and other Irish monks.

They played a crucial role

throughout Europe, you could say, because before Columbanus arrived

on the Continent, barbarian tribes like the Vandals

had gone through Europe and they had pretty much destroyed

all the civilisation of the Roman Empire.

But when the Irish monks arrived, they brought classical learning

with them and they valued classical scholarship very highly.

Their standard of Latin was very high, as well, so you could say

that the Irish helped save the Roman culture for us

and they brought back Christianity to the Continent.

And in this library, over 1,000 years later, you can still find

evidence of the monks who came from Ireland,

with the artistry and literacy skills to make books

in a time before printing presses,

when, without the copying of books by hand,

no knowledge would be passed on.

I think St Gallen has still got the largest collection

of Irish manuscripts on the Continent and, sometimes,

in these manuscripts, you find notes in the margins,

written by the scribes themselves. They are complaining about

the arduous task of writing or composing little poems,

-as well as commenting on the text.

-Is that not just typically Irish -

complaining and composing poetry?!

The exquisite artistry and delicate craft of the Irish scribes

is alive in the pages of the St Gallen manuscripts.

Each one painstakingly constructed from animal skin,

the inks skilfully extracted from minerals and plants.

This beautiful, old, 9th-Century Latin grammar is written in Irish.

It was probably written in Ireland and it was brought then here,

to St Gallen and, of course, is a jewel in the crown

of the collection here.

But it is very interesting -

besides the meticulously-written Latin grammar text,

those who were writing the text took the opportunity to

add their own comments from time to time. On this page,

at the top, someone has written, in Ogham script,

"I had too much beer last night. Now, I have a headache."

And at the bottom, someone has written, in Irish,

a very beautiful poem about his love of nature and how he would love

to be outdoors.

In the majesty of the buildings here in St Gallen,

we can see how people on the European mainland benefited by being

open to people they had previously seen as barbarian -

as less than human.

Columbanus and his disciples left a legacy of monastic foundations

that saved and transmitted the knowledge, not only of Christianity,

but of Greek and Roman classics,

which these monks copied and preserved.

Before Columbanus, the Irish were seen as uncivilised -

from the edge of the world. It is with him that the legend of Ireland

as a holy island, as the land of saints and scholars, begins.

While Gall was left behind in St Gallen,

Columbanus, by then in his 60s, set off on an arduous journey

over the Alps, into what is now northern Italy.

It was the kingdom of another barbarian tribe,

the Lombards.

He went to the King of Milan and negotiated land on the site

of an abandoned church in Bobbio.

It would be his fifth, and final, foundation.

When Columbanus arrived here, he began labouring

and chopping down trees

to build a monastery. That monastery, like Luxeuil and Gallen,

would become a major centre not only of spirituality,

but of culture.

As with his other foundations,

contacts between Bobbio and Ireland continued

for centuries after Columbanus, with Irish monks following

in his footsteps, bringing books and working in the scriptorium.

But Columbanus it was not content to build just a new monastery.

He also wanted to build a more united Europe.

That required good leadership, and he was not afraid to take on

the most powerful leader of all - the Pope.

Columbanus had noticed that the European continent was split,

not only by tribal and regional divisions,

but also by religion.

He felt that the situation was made worse

by poor leadership of various popes.

Columbanus wrote a blistering letter to the Pope,

in which he told him to wake up, do his job properly

and heal the divisions in Europe caused by his predecessors.

Columbanus made clear how he felt the Pope could become a better,

and purer, leader.

Tell me about this letter that Columbanus wrote from here

to the Pope. What makes Columbanus thinks he has the right to speak

-like this to the Pope?

-Columbanus believes that,

if you have a leader who is more concerned about material things,

about wealth, about status,

about prestige - either personal prestige or institutional wealth,

status and prestige - that leader is courting disaster,

because that leader will take his eye off the ball.

He won't need his people, he will be more interested in wealth and power

and prestige. What Columbanus calls on the Bishop of Rome to do

is to keep his eye on what really matters, which is about unity,

about spiritual leadership,

to turn away from Earthly concerns. Then, and only then, can he give

heroic, true leadership.

Columbanus had very clear views about what made for good leadership.

A good leader was principled, prepared to sacrifice,

a person who gave service, was not interested in self-service.

With that kind of leadership, you could build trust,

you could build hope, you could lead people to a better place.

According to tradition,

Columbanus' own journey through life ended at the cave he used

as a retreat here in Bobbio 1,400 years ago,

on the 23rd of November, 615.

This beautiful tomb is the final resting place of Columbanus.

It's a very respectful and lovely memorial to a remarkable man,

but it's not the legacy or the memorial that Columbanus

would have wished. What he wished for is that the seeds

of his thinking would gather momentum through the generations,

transforming how we relate to each other.

Columbanus was buried here in the crypt of the monastery he founded,

now the Basilica in Bobbio.

1,400 years later, these buildings are no longer part of the monastery.

They are, however, used as a school for the young people of Bobbio.

Do you think Columbanus' ideas...

SHE SPEAKS ITALIAN

ALL: Yes.

You are all young Europeans. When you become a mother

or a father, will you teach your children about Columbanus?

Will you tell them about Columbanus?

ALL: Yes.

Let us take five words that are about Columbanus.

-Respecto.

-Respecto. Respect.

-Honesty.

-Honesty.

-Amour.

-Love.

-Peace.

-Peace.

Faith.

Faith.

-ALL:

-Courage.

-Courage. ALL:

-Courage.

'I suppose it is no surprise that the children here'

are fascinated by the history of Columbanus,

but what I find striking is how important he is to them,

what an inspiration he is to them today.

I can't imagine that Irish schoolchildren would be able to talk

about this remarkable Irish saint with the same level of knowledge

and passion. That is a great pity and a sign that there is important work

to be done to re-establish Columbanus' legacy

in his native land.

1,400 years after his death, the wild-haired Irish monk,

with his radical ideas, spirituality, scholarship and fearlessness,

continues to inspire.

But where did his inspiration come from?

I think I am still searching for the key to Columbanus.

-What would you say that key is?

-It is actually pretty simple.

His principles are about harmony and diversity and his ideas go back

way beyond Christianity.

People in the ancient world saw tremendous variety and tremendous

diversity in the world about them and Columbanus takes over

these ideas and talks about the diversity among human communities,

among peoples, among nations.

If they work together in peace and in harmony,

it makes life possible for everybody.

He uses the image of a choir, doesn't he?

The image of the choir was popular in political rhetoric

of the ancient world - different people singing different notes

in polyphony - people of different registers,

people with different abilities. But the result is a harmonious sound.

CHOIR SINGS HARMONY

A choir is a very powerful image for conveying Columbanus' philosophy

of harmony in diversity.

CHOIR CONTINUES TO SING

In Columbanus' view, sameness and monotony were boring and banal...

..and diversity was to be celebrated.

CHOIR CONTINUES TO SING

The variety of different voices makes the whole stronger.

CHOIR CONTINUES TO SING

Columbanus never made it to Rome,

but his ideas certainly did and they still offer solutions

in today's fragile Europe.

Although modern technology and globalisation

are bringing us closer together, we remain fearful of difference -

of religion, nationality, culture, even of sexuality.

Columbanus' story suggests that we should embrace and learn from

these differences and recognise the common humanity which unites us.

Being open to the other benefits us as individuals

and as a society.

What Columbanus is telling us is that the peoples of this very,

very diverse Europe have nothing to lose and everything to gain

by working well together.

By learning from Columbanus, our first European,

through harnessing our national and European identities

and pulling together,

it seems to me, the problems of Europe can be solved.

There is a line in the poem Wound, which speaks of a fabric

stitched and toughened in its down.

That is Columbanus' Europe -

a patchwork quilt of different peoples and histories,

painstakingly stitched together -

and all the stronger for the stitching.