“WHAT STARTED OFF as five people with an idea in a small rural community has now become a project that involves thousands, that has spread as far as Italy and France.”
You may not have heard of Myshall, a small village on the Carlow-Wexford border about 14 kilometres outside of Carlow town. It’s famous for producing the current World Ploughing Champion and for being the birthplace of both St Columbanus and St Finnian.
And when Myshall was badly hit by the recession in the late 2000s, it was these two saints that ended up being a source of rejuvenation for the village. With no industry in the town, Brigid Fox explains how the town invested all its efforts in developing tourism strategies instead:
We started looking at the idea of spiritual tourism, and we’re fortunate that St Columbanus who has always gotten huge recognition across Europe was born in the shadow of Mount Leinster here in Myshall.
After he was born in 543AD, St Columbanus became arguably the best-known Irish person to visit the European continent. Studying at a monastery on an island in the River Erne in what would now be county Fermanagh, he joined the monastery at Bangor and at 51, set sail for Europe to become a Christian pilgrim.
In France, he is thought to have founded around 60 monasteries and additional monasteries in Bobbio, Italy, according to The Irish Times. UCC historian Damian Backen said that Columbanus is the first Irishman to be the subject of a biography.
One of the founders of the EU Robert Schuman called him: “the patron saint of all those who now seek to build a united Europe.” St Columbanus was mentioned by both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis on their Irish visits.
Fox, who is a member of the Myshall Columbanus Commemoration Committee says that they soon realised there was an opportunity to “look at the past with an eye to the future”. They set out to develop a number of walks and cycles along St Columbanus’ route tracing his journey from Myshall to Bangor, before he left for Europe.
These impressive plans formed part of the nomination of Myshall for a Bank of Ireland National Enterprise Town Award, which aims to reward the Irish communities that have come together to encourage enterprise in their area, with a total prize fund of €157,000 to help grow these businesses.
Their idea seeks to build an ‘Irish Camino’ which will allow ‘spiritual tourists’ to retrace the steps St Columbanus took from his birthplace of Myshall across Carlow, Meath and Kildare up to Bangor Abbey in Co Down before he left to spread Christianity across France and Italy.
An idea that began in the small Carlow village with about 60 people soon recruited the help of Carlow, Kildare and Meath county councils and Friends of Columbanus, amounting to thousands of volunteers across Europe. But the walk is not just aimed solely at Catholics, as Fox explains:
The walk will be for all faiths and none. Mindfulness and mental health is so important and being able to walk in the footsteps of someone who went before and having time to reflect can be huge.
It’s about combining the town’s two strengths – its beautiful environment and strong community participation, says Fox: “People can take such pleasure from nature and the natural environment.”
At the minute the committee are working on building an online land survey which maps the walk. They’re also aiming to put accommodation and restaurants along the route. Although the town has no restaurant, if a group organises to visit, they’ll create a pop-up restaurant run by volunteers for their visit.
The village is also the birthplace of St Finnian, know as the ‘master of the saints of Ireland’, who founded Clonard Abbey in County Meath. Finnian is considered to be one of the fathers of Irish monasticism as a number of pupils of his school in Clonard went onto found other monasteries.
In December, they’ll unveil statues to both St Finnian and St Columbanus, and hope to get official European recognition for the route, as the famous Camino de Santiago has. They’re also about to unveil a granite marker of his birth at ‘The Nine Stones’ at the foot of Mount Leinster.
But all these plans cost money, hence the importance of schemes like the Bank of Ireland National Enterprise Town Awards for villages like Myshall: “We’re involved in applying for town and village funding everywhere we can as we’re totally volunteer run.”
What kind of things would a winning prize fund of €33,000 mean for Myshall? It would be huge, says Fox. There has already been permission granted for the village’s first hostel (visitors can also stay in bluegrass musician Niall Toner’s nearby Airbnb) and the main aim is to build an interpretative centre, along with a restaurant in the community centre.
“It’s a tourism development where otherwise tourists wouldn’t come otherwise, deep in the heart of Ireland’s Ancient East”, says Fox. And the whole project reflects the wonderful sense of community in the Carlow village:
If something happens in the community, whether it’s a small thing or a tragedy, the whole community always comes together. It’s not just the money aspect, we do it for the love of the area and to support it.
Does your town have a brilliant sense of community that helps to support the business there? The third annual Bank of Ireland National Enterprise Town Awards will be held later this month in Kilkenny. Keep an eye out to make sure that your town is in with a chance to win next year.
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