Via Columbani News
March/April 2026
Welcome to the Via Columbani Partnership newsletter.
Contacts are multiplying between the many communities across Europe that celebrate the heritage of Saints Columbanus and Gallus. The Partnership facilitates collaboration between these communities through cultural, educational and scientific projects, also helping them to develop exchanges and tourism.
This special edition of the newsletter highlights some of the key points from the first quarter of 2026.
A first expo for Via Columbani
20 to 22 March 2026
Welcoming more than 400 exhibitors and 12,600 visitors in 2025, the hiking fair in Lyon is a great place for discussion and information sharing with a growing number of enthusiasts with a wide range of motivations and interests.
For the first time, Via Columbani will be present at this fair from 20 to 22 March 2026, alongside many other routes, including the Way of St James, Via Sancti Martini and Via Francigena. This fair therefore offers many opportunities to share experiences while raising awareness of our route.
The Via Columbani will highlight the 5,130 km of paths in France dedicated to the memory of Saint Columbanus, as well as the European network, crossing nine countries between Ireland and Italy.
We will be welcoming Wolfgang Sieber, president of Kolumbansweg, the association that manages the Via Columbani crossing Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein, to our stand. A project currently underway, in partnership with the Kolumbansweg, is the creation of short routes and circuits (lasting one or several days) on the Via Columbani, the first of which have recently been published on the Partnership's website.
Bringing people together through music
14 March 2026
The European cultural programme of the Via Columbani Partnership continues to expand, thanks to collaboration with the European Peregrinus project.
The experience gained by this project during numerous previous musical exchanges between Italy and Ireland is now benefiting France, and specifically Luxeuil-les-Bains: the town is welcoming Irish artist, musician and singer Catriona Mac Elhinney Grimes for a concert on 14 March 2026 to mark St Patrick's Week.
European ties forged through educational projects
27 February to 4 March 2026
From 27 February to 4 March 2026, Sharon Kayes, Head of Education at Friends of Columbanus, Bangor (Northern Ireland), visited the Piacenza region in northern Italy to establish contact with schools interested in European cultural exchanges.
She was accompanied by Pat Colgan, vice-president of the Via Columbani Partnership. The visit was organised by the Peregrinus project, through which the Partnership carries out educational projects throughout Europe, and its dynamic coordinator, Manuela Bertoncini. Peregrinus' mission is to forge and strengthen links between individuals and institutions, whether sporting, cultural or educational, in regions where the message and legacy of St Columbanus and his monks are still present.
In the schools (primary and secondary) of Santa Franca in Vernasca, visitors discuss Celtic/monastic themes, peace, biodiversity and the links between the peoples of Europe with five classes. For the younger children, props such as the Saint Columbanus puppet and music accompanied by Pat on the flute create a warm atmosphere; the older classes were eager to talk in their ‘brave English!’ about the highlights of their village and region.
The next day, we travelled down to Lugagnano (in the Val d'Arda plain) for discussions with the staff and pupils of the ‘Instituto Comprehensivo’ about the Peregrinus project and the legacy of Columbanus, where it became apparent that the pupils were already well acquainted with the history of the Irish monks and the nine countries crossed by the Via Columbani.
The visit was enriched by a meeting with Father Paolo Capra, parish priest of Piacenza, who hopes to organise visits by young pilgrims to Ireland. He also plans to reopen the historic Piacenza hostel for Irish pilgrims on their way to Bobbio and Rome, which dates back to the ninth century.
Overall, this trip was an excellent opportunity to sow the seeds of friendship at a time when world news is filled with conflict and hostility. As Columbanus himself would have said in Irish: ‘Ní neart go cur le chéile’ (‘There is no strength without unity’).
French-Irish relations throughout history
First March 2026
Thirteen centuries separate the visits of two very different Irish personalities to a small village, Ussy-sur-Marne, in the valleys of Brie near Meaux. The life of Saint Columbanus, written in 640, tells of the Irish monk's visit around 610 to a local aristocrat, Authaire, whose three sons he baptised. The most famous of these sons became Bishop of Rouen under the name of Saint Ouen, a name now given to many places in France. The second figure is the 20th-century Irish poet Samuel Beckett, who came to recharge his batteries and meditate from 1953 to 1989 in a small country house near the village. On 1 March 2026, accompanied by an Irish delegation and municipal authorities, the Irish Ambassador to Paris will honour their memory by unveiling new plaques for Samuel Beckett Street in the presence of his nephew and inaugurating a sign for Via Columbani in the presence of friends of Saint Columbanus of Brie, Luxeuil and Lyon.
