Mary McAleese & An Chéad Eorpach

IN IRISH:

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.

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, 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 40s,

decides to head to Europe on a missionary endeavour,

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.

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.

IN IRISH:

We know he met the king. The King of Burgundy.

Sigebert.

Sigebert gave him this area, this space.

-It was probably a holy area.

-A holy place. A sacred place.

Yeah, absolutely. 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.

Columbanus was like, how to say...

le representant.

-The representative.

-The representative of the king.

IN IRISH:

The city of Luxeuil was an antique city.

In the middle of the 4th century, there was some Barbarian invasion.

We imagined, until now, that the city was totally destroyed.

But, in fact, it wasn't.

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 and a half centuries before Columbanus.

When Columbanus arrived, Luxeuil was a city in decline.

Christianity in the region was also in decline, so what did he bring?

What did Columbanus bring to that situation?

Columbanus impulsed a new spiritual energy.

He invented a new form of a monastic way of life.

A monastic way of life that came from Ireland.

IN IRISH:

So here we are at the Abbaye Saint-Colomban.

MAN SPEAKS FRENCH

MARY IN IRISH:

Luxeuil became very famous,

because when Columbanus and the first monks came,

they brought with them...

-A scholarship, was it?

-A scholarship from Ireland.

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

with a very important artistic and intellectual life.

As soon as they founded the monastery,

the elite was sent to the monastery for their education.

Why was that?

What attracted wealthy parents to send their children here?

Because the monks were very...

Had a very good education.

IN IRISH:

THEY SPEAK FRENCH

MARY IN IRISH:

Before Columbanus, in the first centuries of Christianity,

the forgiveness of God was given only once in life.

So, generally speaking,

people were waiting till the end of life to ask forgiveness of God.

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 the forgiveness of God.

This is a new idea that the Irish monks

introduced 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 the 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.

IN IRISH:

Bonjour.

Merci, monsieur. Merci beaucoup.

IN IRISH:

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 didn't like?

Columbanus founded three monasteries in this area

without any permission from bishops.

He asked nothing to the bishops of this area, only from the king.

IN IRISH:

Some bishops were very earnest.

They were really bishops.

Some of them were people from the high society

coming from very wealthy families.

They'd choose the way of the church for political reasons,

so they were living in towns, sometimes with mistresses,

and they had nothing to do with gospel.

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

IN IRISH:

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.

What impresses me about Columbanus is really his energy.

The energy comes across very strongly in his writings.

By this stage, Columbanus is a good age.

Yeah, he's probably in his early 60s.

Yeah, he's trudged across most of Western Europe by this stage.

Tell me about his spirituality.

Well, there's 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 don't really have a home anywhere on Earth,

so our life is a journey.

We see this right throughout his religious odyssey on the Continent,

where he's continually being compelled forward.

Rome and Italy had a very big attraction,

so he talks a lot about Rome in his letters.

Not as the seed of empire, but as the Church of St Peter and Paul.

So he's attracted to Italy.

IN IRISH:

Oh, 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.

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.

They brought back Christianity to the Continent.

IN IRISH:

St Gallen has still got the largest collection

of Irish manuscripts on the Continent.

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.

Isn't that just typically Irish? Complaining and composing poetry.

THEY LAUGH

IN IRISH:

IN IRISH:

Do you think Columbanus' ideas...

IN ITALIAN:

-KIDS:

-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?

Yes.

Let's take five words that are about Columbanus.

IN ITALIAN:

-Respect.

-Rispetto. Respect.

-Honesty.

-Honesty.

-Amore.

-Love.

-Peace.

-Peace.

-Faith.

-Faith. Faith.

-KIDS:

-Courage.

-Courage.

Courage.

IN IRISH:

IN IRISH:

THEY SING HYMN

MARY IN IRISH:

"A fabric stitched and toughened in its darn."

IN IRISH: