Irish exports to the far side of Switzerland from the 7th Century
I recall some years ago now working for a day in the Kantonsschule at Heerbrugg in St Gallen, and being bowled over by the demi hero status I rapidly acquired amongst the staff there when I inadvertently revealed I’d been brought up and had lived so close to Bangor. I admit to having been completely confused. As it turns out the whole Swiss Canton is named after Gall, an Irish monk who travelled with Columbanus from Bangor to the shores of Lake Constance where he became a Hermit. Later when a monastic community was set up there, they took the name of the old Irish saint whose relics had been taken inside the church. Mairtin has news on the cultural links between Bangor and St Gallen which adhere to this day:
The Irish manuscripts at St Gallen are the oldest in the world and among the most beautiful depicting in stylish script and with great ornamentation the story of the Gospels. The Irish monks, who worked under a vow of silence did write small poems and notes in the glosses. One, said Frau Hufenus, wrote “rough parchment, thin ink”, giving out about the quality of his tools while another, correcting a poorly finished page, wrote: “too much beer”.
Which may explain why the locals became so endeared to those few old Irish monks…
GGN,
Apropos that earlier conversation: http://tinyurl.com/62x7l2
‘LOL, petty divert. Did you see me trying to blur Britian’s colonial past with ancient history?’
So you won’t answer the question….fine, its too awkward for your little colonial brain to compute !
‘only after the English arrived, never before. Ironic isn’t it?’
So ulster is irish only after the English came? So your saying the English brought the irish language to Ulster? Wow, so a part of IRELAND was only IRISH after the ENGLISH came???? Is that correct? May i quote you on that UMH?
Please keep going, your good value !
Mick,
Go raibh maith agaibh!
If I ever get round to scanning the main academic article on Fanad Irish I will be sure to email it to you.
GGN ,
A propos your earlier post ,
‘Though if there are more than 6 posts it is a sure thing that even this will be polluted.’
Sadly you got that right
Re the etymology my Irish Dictionary has the old root fic /fioca for farm which presumably was extant in Ulster /Donegal /Fanad Irish long before ‘feirm ‘ or feirmeor (farmer) which looks and sounds like hibernicisations of the english ‘farm’ . Fidhceallacht means chess playing . That latter could indeed be descriptive of our esteemed Mick
And what else is blogging except a 21s century combination of farming , reaping and sowing allied to the skills of chess playing 
The other names on the memorial are anglicised as Sweeney , Harkin and I think Sheils although I could be wrong on the latter.
Anyway that’s my tuppence .