Miracle men – An Irishman’s Diary about Saint Columbanus, Martin O’Neill, and France

Fresh from the excitements of the Aviva Stadium on Monday night, I’m struck by the auspiciousness of a series of events happening in Bangor, Co Down, this coming weekend. They celebrate the life of what the organisers say is “arguably the most famous Irishman of all time”.

No, it’s not Roy Keane, or indeed any other footballer, they have in mind. It’s Saint Columbanus.

And in fact the events are timed to commemorate that holy man’s death, which by tradition happened 1,400 years ago this week, on November 21st, 615.

But the thing for which Columbanus is most renowned was leading a dozen missionaries from Bangor to France, where they performed many miracles.

So similarities with another northerner, Martin O’Neill – whose supernatural achievements over the past month include conjuring a defeat of the world champions and invoking a magical fog to disguise the Irish goal in Bosnia – are striking.

That there will now be two teams from this island (led by two managers called O’Neill) at Euro 2016 itself sounds like a spectre invoked by a medieval monk to confuse his enemies. In any case it means that Irish missionaries, of a kind, will be all over France next June.

The horrors of last Friday in Paris will, alas, hang over what should be a joyous tournament. But I note from the email about the Columbanus 1400 festival that the sixth- and seventh-century monasteries founded by the saint and his followers were “islands of peace and order as warring hordes swept across Europe and it descended into chaos”.

And I know that might be asking a lot of the Irish fans, north and south, next year, who’ll be mainly intent on communal beer-drinking rather than founding monasteries. Still, regarding the angels, they’ll be on the same general side.

It must be noted that, unlike them (we hope), Columbanus was not always welcome in France. He quarrelled with the local bishops and also earned the enmity of the court of Burgundy after he objected to the king having a mistress (considered a basic human right by Frenchmen, even then). In fact, his 20 years in the country ended with a deportation order by which he was supposed to return to Ireland, except that a chance storm – or was it? – prevented his ship sailing, whereupon he and his followers turned back and crossed the Alps instead.

It is to this twist of events that one of the followers, St Gall, now has a Swiss city named after him, and by extension a professional soccer club, one of the Continent’s oldest. They even play in green.

Columbanus has no such distinction. But it may be of more than passing relevance to fans heading to Euro 2016 that he does have strong associations with another subject dear to many of their hearts.

Two of his miracles are said to have involved beer – albeit that, in one, he destroyed a vat of the stuff, with his mere breath. Even this, however, need not worry the beer lover. He only destroyed it, goes the story, because it was being offered in sacrifice to the pagan god Woden. The Christian God, he told the heathens, also loved beer, but only when drunk in his name.

Puritans need not despair of the saint either, confusingly, because the famous “Rules of Columbanus” included admonitions to drink in a manner such as “to avoid intoxication”. So maybe, were he alive today, Columbanus would be a craft-beer snob – never indulging longer than it took him to enjoy a drink’s hoppy undertones or crisp finish.

In any case, speaking of finishes, beer may have featured in his own, according to one quotation, which has him saying: “It is my design to die in the brew house; let ale be placed to my mouth when I am expiring, that when choirs of angels come they may say, ‘May God be propitious to this drinker.’”

There are no drink-themed events at the festival in Bangor, I note. The programme will instead include such highlights as “To Seek a Heathen Place and Sound a Bell”, the story of Columbanus and his followers in what’s described as “a haunting weave of voices and music”.

The music is by uilleann piper David Power. The words are by two women – masters of poetry (Bangor-born Kerry Hardie) and prose (writer and broadcaster Olivia O’Leary), respectively. And their combined effect will be no doubt heightened by the venue, the ancient Bangor Abbey, where the event takes place on Sunday afternoon. Details of that and the rest of the weekend are at friendsofcolumbanusbangor.co.uk @FrankmcnallyIT