St Columbanus and the Merovingians with Dr Alexander O'Hara

The Medieval Irish History Podcast

Happy New Year! To soothe fragile minds after the Christmas break we are easing you in to 2025 with St Columbanus part 2 — a further, more relaxed, reflection, on the career and legacy of Irish monastic founder Columbanus with Dr Alexander O'Hara. Do listen to our previous episode from November 22nd first if you get the chance.

In this episode, we hear lots of Columbanus' own words, from his own writings. Dr O'Hara discusses how Columbanus became a dynastic holy man to the Merovingians, high politics, murder, marriage alliances, the appeal of Irish radical asceticism, the tension between temporal and spiritual power, the physical layout of Irish monastic sites, the legacy of St Gall (Sankt Gallen).

Suggested reading:

Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. G. S. M. Walker, (Scriptores Latini Hiberniae Vol. II) The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, (Dublin, 1957 [repr. 1970])

Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms (450-751) (London, 1994)

Alexander O'Hara (ed.), Saint Columbanus: Selected Writings (Veritas, Dublin, 2015)

J.-Michel Reaux Colvin & Alexander O'Hara, "Réécriture and the cultus of Saint Gallus, ca. 680-850: A fidelissimis testibus indicata", Traditio 79 (2024)

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).

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Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music