Fergal or Vergil, the surveyor and satirist, from Kilkenny, & Colman, as Patrons of Salzburg and the province of Lower Austria respectively.
Wendel in Saarland, one of the 16 regions of Germany; Willibrod in Luxembourg; Columcille or Columba from Derry, prince of Tirconell, went to Lindsfarne, Northumbria, to Iona in Scotland and then to Iceland; Fursa, the Visionary, travelled from Ireland to East Anglia, then to Lagny, just east of
Paris, and Peronne, which would be known in time as Peronna Scottorum, Peronne of the Irish and City of Fursey; Caidoc and Fricor advanced on Picardy; Rufus in Val d’ Aosta; Gall, Columbanus
best friend, founded St. Gallen in Switzerland; the scholar Donatus, scottorum sanguine creatus, was bishop of Fiesole from 826 to 877; Fiachra or Fiacre left Kilkenny and could claim to have opened the first Irish-run B & B in France when he established a priory and a guest house in the village of Brueil( now St. Fiacre), about 50 km east of Paris.
He became famous as a healer; today he is known as the patron saint of gardeners and his statue – a spade in one hand and a book in the other – can be found in churches across France; Brendan, the Navigator, reached Greenland and North America, to mention but a few. All of them had a profound influence on the history of Europe for centuries.
In 870 Heiric of Auxerre wrote in his Life of St. Germanus: Almost all of Ireland, despising the sea, is migrating to our shores with so many philosophers. This is The Irish Miracle, as Daniel Rops stated. The Irish Miracle is the second setting out of Christianity, from a country which had just been baptized, and which was immediately dreaming of giving Christ back to the world.
According to Arthur Kingsley Porter, Yale professor, the success of the Celtic Church was a religious and political event of the first magnitude. Also the French writer Montalembert wrote: " It has been said and cannot be sufficiently repeated, Ireland was then regarded by all Christian Europe as the principal centre of knowledge and piety – superior to anything that could be seen in any other country of Europe."
We have to agree with Card. Tòmàs O’ Fiaich, writing: Even after allowing that a number were doubtfully Irish, the achievement of the remainder, culturally as well religiously, borders on the incredible. It both challenges us & fills us with pride.
Irish monasticism is an important moment of history, equal to the one of Greece, centuries before, civilizing Rome, the conqueror, or to the later one of the Italian