Fr Niall Coll and six St Mary’s students attended an event on Cleenish Island, Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh to mark the 1400th anniversary of the death of St Columbanus in 615. The event was part of the three-day annual conference of the clergy of the Clogher Diocese.

Fr Coll gave a paper on “Aspects of the Life and Relevance Today of St Columbanus in the Context of the European Celebrations of the 1400th Anniversary of his Death”.

He also led the clergy in a special liturgy to celebrate St Columbanus and his important contribution to the life of faith on the European continent, in particular, in his own time and since. The students, mostly from the diocese of Clogher (Fermanagh and Tyrone), were invited to help in the design and celebration of the liturgical dimensions of the day with the clergy group.

Cleenish Island has a special link with St Columbanus, as he spent a year there under the guidance of the scholar and teacher Abbot Sinell before he entered the monastery at Bangor.



Pictured above are: James Duffy (Religious Studies Secondary IV), Dominic Douglas (Music IV), Fr Niall Coll, Arlene McCarroll (Religious Studies Secondary II), Most Rev. Liam McDaid (Bishop of Clogher), Aoife Scott (Religious Studies Secondary II), Bronagh Clerkin (Religious Studies Primary III) and Killian Barrett (Geography II).