pilgrims who went towards Italy and Europe . Among them there was King Donough O ' Brien , youngest son of Brian Boru , who , once he arrived in Rome in 1064 , renounced his title and entered the Roman monastery of " Santo Stefano Rotondo ", where a memorial tells us about his death .
The Visio Tungdali of 1149 , written by the Irish monk , Marcus , influenced Dante in his Divina Commedia , as well as many others European writers . At the same time the highest Italian Poet excercised a great fascination upon many Irish writers , including Ciaran Carson , Louis MacNiece , Seamus Heaney , W . B . Yeats , both Nobel Prize for Literature .
The knowledge of reading & bookmaking made of them counsellors in Charlemagne ’ s Court and of other kings , teachers and educators , publishers and very well respected people in many other fields . According to Arthur Porter , from Ireland , England learned her later writing . From these monks Europe received again culture and values , hope and an Irish style of Christianity . Daniel-Rops , the most important historian of Church History , writes : The history of this Celtic Christianity is a history which has not always met with the notice it deserves , but anyone who studies it fairly , will find , it is of capital importance .
They left us with master pieces like the Book of Kells , the most beautiful manuscript , created between the 8th and the 9th century . Also the development of a form of confession fully private , of which an equivalent did not exist in the continent , is attributed to them . They were truly at the centre of the new Christian life in Ireland and Europe , as St . Columbanus and St . Cathaldus . Coumbanus left from the , the most eminent representative of Irish ascetics , land of the ultimi habitatores mundi – the inhabitants of the world ’ s edge - , from the small port of Bangor , offering a great contribution to the common
European house , as a restorer of civilization in the old Continent .
At the age of 50 , he started his pilgrimage throughout Europe , passingfrom England and Cornwal to Britanny around 592 ; then he went from the Northern Provinces of Gaul , descending along the Moselle , up to Oberland and to the Uri canton in the heart of Switzerland , in Costance ; Bregenz in Austria was his next stop ; finally , Milan , Pavia and Piacenza saw him as pilgrim before settling in
Bobbio , in the Spring of 613 . Tradition wants that he stopped also in San Colombano al Lambro , on the river of the same name , of which the poet Redi wrote : bel colle / cui bacia il Lambro il piede / ed a cui Colombano il nome diede .( beautiful hill whose foot the Lambro kisses and to whom Columbanus gave the name ).