I am quoting the Mayor of Würzburg, Christian Schuchard, in my post title from a speech he gave on the occasion of Michael D Higgins' visit to Würzburg last July as part of his state visit to Germany. No need to guess why the President of Ireland was in Germany in July, accompanied by Tánaiste/Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. But I will come to that later. Würzburg is a city of around 125,000 people midway between Frankfurt and Nuremberg, is capital of the wine-producing region of Unter-Franken (Lower Franconia) and is built on the River Main. It is a cathedral city; the town of Volkach which I use as my base in Bavaria is in the diocese of Würzburg, though it is in Land-Kreis of Kitzingen
On arriving in Germany for distinctly non-political and non-diplomatic reasons, I went with my family to Würzburg on 2 July to view the exhibition entitled "Elfenbein und Ewigkeit" (ivory and eternity) in Julius-Maximillians-University of Würzburg library. This was a collection of mediaeval manuscripts and their covers, most of which were priceless. The pride of the collection was the Kilians-Evangelier, a book of the Gospels said to have been brought to Würzburg from Ireland by St Kilian in the seventh century.
The key to the connexion between Ireland and Würzburg is the seventh century missionary bishop and martyr St Kilian. From what we know about Kilian, he was a monk from Mullagh in what is now Co Cavan who was consecrated as a bishop and went to Europe to preach with his companions the priest Kolonat (given as Colmáin in Irish) and the deacon Totnan (sometimes given as Tadc, in modern Irish Tadhg). The three successfully preached Christianity to the Franconians and baptised them, whose duke Gosbert had been taken by Kilian personally. The problem was that Gosbert was married to Gailana, who had been his brother's wife. I am not clear if his brother was still alive or not, but the Levitical law, prohibiting marriage to a sister-in-law even if she was a widow, was upheld by the Church at that time. As such, Kilian required Gosbert to separate from Gailana (he would not have regarded this as a valid marriage), Gosbert did this and Gailana was not happy. So she had Kilian and his companions murdered. According to tradition, this happened on 8 July 689. This did not deter the Franks from Christianity; quite the contrary - while the former duchess and her collaborators came to a bad end. Ss Kilian, Kolonat and Totnan are now venerated as Apostles of Franconia. Indeed, so enthusiastic have they become that 8 July in Würzburg today is the centre point of a civic and religious festival which lasts at least two weeks. The relics of the three saints are solemnly processed through the streets of Würzburg at which both Church and State are in attendance. Insofar as Ireland is represented, the diocese of Kilmore, from which Kilian came, is present for the Church and the County of Wicklow, particularly the town of Bray, which Würzburg is twinned, is there for the State. Both modest enough. Except on occasions such as Michael D. Higgins visit on 5 July in 2019.
The link between Ireland and Würzburg did not come to an abrupt end after the three Irish missionaries were killed. For centuries, it was a focal point for Irish pilgrims long before the advent of Ryanair. There was a Schottenkloster in Würzburg from 1138, and one should not be deceived by the name. The mediaeval Latin Scotus is most accurately translated as Gael and it was only in the Middle Ages that the Gaels from Ireland colonised Scotland via the Dál Riata kingdom and asserted their identity on the country. So much so, that many forget the designation Scot was more appropriate to Ireland 1500 years ago. The monastery was taken over by Scottish monks in 1497, barely a couple of generations before the reformation. Anyway, the Prior of the Schottenkloster in Regensburg, St Macarius, came to Würzburg to establish a centre of learning. He was also known for his piety and was said to have changed wine into water. Given how much the Franconians pride themselves on their wine, I wonder how this anecdote survived (my memory of it was due to a TV series in the 1970s produced by the Radharc team and presented by the then Monsignor Tomás Ó Fiaich, who was a mediaeval historian before becoming Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, later a cardinal). St Macarius is interred in the Marienkappelle in Würzburg's Marktplatz.
All this might have been a matter of ancient history were it not for a 19th century linguistic historian from Kronach in Upper Franconia named Johann Kaspar Zeuß (1806-1856). Zeuß was teaching in Bamberg (in the same region) and developed a fascination with Old Irish. When Latin was taught in Irish monasteries of the Golden Age, manuscripts were annotated in explanatory notes in what we now call Old Irish, but this was a closed book until Professor Zeuß used the Latin to decipher the Old Irish. The principal texts used were the Commentary on St Paul's Epistles in Würzburg; the Psalter in Milan; and the Commentary on Priscian's Latin Grammar in San Gallen (Switzerland). In 1853, he published Grammatica Celtica which made Old Irish accessible and proved the Celtic languages were Indo-European. Anyone who did honours Irish for the Leaving Certificate in the past will have come across him in Stair na Teanga Gaeilge. But my point is that Zeuß' work, largely in Würzburg, made the city the cradle of the Gaelic linguistic and literary revival of the following few decades and I don't have to elaborate on the political consequences.
The key to the connexion between Ireland and Würzburg is the seventh century missionary bishop and martyr St Kilian. From what we know about Kilian, he was a monk from Mullagh in what is now Co Cavan who was consecrated as a bishop and went to Europe to preach with his companions the priest Kolonat (given as Colmáin in Irish) and the deacon Totnan (sometimes given as Tadc, in modern Irish Tadhg). The three successfully preached Christianity to the Franconians and baptised them, whose duke Gosbert had been taken by Kilian personally. The problem was that Gosbert was married to Gailana, who had been his brother's wife. I am not clear if his brother was still alive or not, but the Levitical law, prohibiting marriage to a sister-in-law even if she was a widow, was upheld by the Church at that time. As such, Kilian required Gosbert to separate from Gailana (he would not have regarded this as a valid marriage), Gosbert did this and Gailana was not happy. So she had Kilian and his companions murdered. According to tradition, this happened on 8 July 689. This did not deter the Franks from Christianity; quite the contrary - while the former duchess and her collaborators came to a bad end. Ss Kilian, Kolonat and Totnan are now venerated as Apostles of Franconia. Indeed, so enthusiastic have they become that 8 July in Würzburg today is the centre point of a civic and religious festival which lasts at least two weeks. The relics of the three saints are solemnly processed through the streets of Würzburg at which both Church and State are in attendance. Insofar as Ireland is represented, the diocese of Kilmore, from which Kilian came, is present for the Church and the County of Wicklow, particularly the town of Bray, which Würzburg is twinned, is there for the State. Both modest enough. Except on occasions such as Michael D. Higgins visit on 5 July in 2019.
The link between Ireland and Würzburg did not come to an abrupt end after the three Irish missionaries were killed. For centuries, it was a focal point for Irish pilgrims long before the advent of Ryanair. There was a Schottenkloster in Würzburg from 1138, and one should not be deceived by the name. The mediaeval Latin Scotus is most accurately translated as Gael and it was only in the Middle Ages that the Gaels from Ireland colonised Scotland via the Dál Riata kingdom and asserted their identity on the country. So much so, that many forget the designation Scot was more appropriate to Ireland 1500 years ago. The monastery was taken over by Scottish monks in 1497, barely a couple of generations before the reformation. Anyway, the Prior of the Schottenkloster in Regensburg, St Macarius, came to Würzburg to establish a centre of learning. He was also known for his piety and was said to have changed wine into water. Given how much the Franconians pride themselves on their wine, I wonder how this anecdote survived (my memory of it was due to a TV series in the 1970s produced by the Radharc team and presented by the then Monsignor Tomás Ó Fiaich, who was a mediaeval historian before becoming Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, later a cardinal). St Macarius is interred in the Marienkappelle in Würzburg's Marktplatz.
All this might have been a matter of ancient history were it not for a 19th century linguistic historian from Kronach in Upper Franconia named Johann Kaspar Zeuß (1806-1856). Zeuß was teaching in Bamberg (in the same region) and developed a fascination with Old Irish. When Latin was taught in Irish monasteries of the Golden Age, manuscripts were annotated in explanatory notes in what we now call Old Irish, but this was a closed book until Professor Zeuß used the Latin to decipher the Old Irish. The principal texts used were the Commentary on St Paul's Epistles in Würzburg; the Psalter in Milan; and the Commentary on Priscian's Latin Grammar in San Gallen (Switzerland). In 1853, he published Grammatica Celtica which made Old Irish accessible and proved the Celtic languages were Indo-European. Anyone who did honours Irish for the Leaving Certificate in the past will have come across him in Stair na Teanga Gaeilge. But my point is that Zeuß' work, largely in Würzburg, made the city the cradle of the Gaelic linguistic and literary revival of the following few decades and I don't have to elaborate on the political consequences.
Of course I was disappointed not to see the Pauline epistles in the exhibition, but these are for VIPs. I am aware Seán Lemass was shown them during his visit while he was Taoiseach. I would be surprised if his son-in-law and successor as Taoiseach, Charles Haughey and Cardinal Ó Fiaich were not shown them when they were in Würzburg for the 1300th anniversary of St Kilian's martyrdom in 1989. Mary McAleese and Michael D Higgins have both seen the manuscript while in Würzburg as part of their state visits. But we did see a fabulous collection of manuscripts and I could identify a distinct Irish hand in them.
The display was interactive and school children were invited to copy the script. It was also possible to play a virtual reality game which took the participants right back to mediaeval Würzburg, which I thought a fascinating adaption of modern technology to bring mediaeval history to life, something any history teacher will tell you is no easy task. We were told that on the following Friday, 5 July, the exhibition would be closed to the public with the librarian noting with pride that this was part of Michael D Higgins' state visit. I didn't give my nationality, still less my opinion of Mr Higgins, but that's beside the point
I would return to Würzburg several times in the subsequent weeks; indeed I have been at events of this festival several times over a quarter of a century. But this is virtually unknown in Ireland. It's significant enough to register at the highest levels of both Church and State here, as evidenced by the names I have quoted above. But if you took a survey, few people in Ireland have even heard of Würzburg. As can be seen above, the Würzburg enthusiasm for Ireland is great. This is a place where any Irish person or body who would wish to pursue business, tourism, cultural, educational or religious links would find themselves pushing on an open door. Whether it is as the Mayor says the most Irish city in Europe is not something I can answer, but it certainly is a contender. It is up to the Irish people to make the most of this.
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