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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
Terrible. Ceallach, or Callus, stricken with fever, aban-
doned the fateful journey at Bregenz to found, soon after,
the peerless monastery of St. Gall. Sigisbert turned aside
at Coire to lay in a place of horror and vast wilderness
the foundation of the Abbey of Dissentis. Fridoald, one
of the last surviving companions of Columbanus, led a
colony of monks into the wild Munsterthal and founded
the monastery of Granfelden, united later with the her-
mitage at St. Ursanne and the monastery of Pfermund.
The disciples of Fursa and their contemporaries re-
peated the marvels achieved by Columbanus and his associates.
Their toil and agony and martyr blood hallowed
the soil that has resounded in these days to the thunders
of the most brutal war in history. Wherever Fursa moved
the people kissed his footsteps; at his death kings and
princes vied for his remains. Treasure untold accumulated
around his shrine at Peronne, where after his death
a monastery for Irishmen was established, to be pillaged
after the lapse of centuries by the marauding Northmen,
as the centers founded by and named after St. Gobain,
St. Gibrian, and many another Irish saint were overrun
and plundered during the Calvinist wars of the sixteenth
century. The monks who preceded Fursa labored along
the Authie, Somme, Seine, Oise, Marne, Aisne, and
Meuse names all familiar to students of the great war;
those who accompanied him cooperated in carrying the
good work into Belgium and beyond it. Eata, Mael-
ceadar, Amand, Bertuin and others preached the gospel
in the Low Countries. Livinus labored at Ghent, through-
out Flanders and Brabant indeed. Rumold became first
bishop and apostle of historic Mechlin. Ultan governed
monasteries at Mont St. Quentin and between the Meuse
and Sambre in the region of Maestriche. Wiro founded
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