Diarmuid Johnson: Music - Literature - Art
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Ceallach – Cín Lae Fíréin AD 590–620 (Leabhar Breac 2022)

Departing from Bangor, Co. Down, Ireland, in AD 591, a party of thirteen pilgrims set sail for distant shores, and in the ensuing years, under the auspices of St. Columbanus, founded several influential monasteries, first in Burgundy in eastern France, and ultimately in Bobbio in northern Italy. One of these pioneers, Ceallach, known in Latin as Gallus, established a forest retreat of his own in present day Switzerland, and soon this place developed into the major spiritual centre of St Gallen. 

​In Ceallach, Diarmuid Johnson delves into both the medieval sources of this tale, and into the realm of the imagination, to produce a rare gem of modern European literature. The book, written in literary Irish, and presented in the form of a diary, relates the perils of the initial sea-voyage undertaken by the monks, the hardship they endured in the Vosges mountains, the controversy surrounding the conflicting Celtic and Roman dates of Easter, the eviction of the monastic community from Luxeuil, and the wandering that eventually led them to the furthest reaches of the Merovingian empire on the banks of Lake Constance.
Portraits by Simon Blackley (Brussels 2022)