(alias Gilianus or Gallech). St. Gall was an Irishman from Leinster, born in the latter part of the 6th. century. He was a monk of the Abbey of Bangor, near Belfast, founded in his lifetime by St. Comgall. One of Comgall’s disciples was the famous abbot-missionary St. Columbanus; Gall accompanied Columbanus and a small band on the journey of evangelisation to mainland Europe; their first foundation was at Luxeuil, in the foothills of the Vosges mountains in Eastern France. Thence they proceeded into Switzerland and established a base at Bregenz. Gall seems to have been a missionary of distinction; he was offered a Swiss bishopric and the abbacy of Luxeuil when a vacancy arose, but refused both offices, remaining what he had been: part-hermit, part-travelling preacher. At some stage Gall and Columbanus seem to have had a disagreement (Columbanus was a notably determined individual), and Columbanus went on into Italy without him. Later the monks of Columbanus’ foundation at Bobbio were to send Gall their founder’s pastoral staff as a sign of reconciliation. Gall was a pioneer of Swiss Christianity; he did not, however, found the abbey which bears his name, which arose on the site of his hermitage about a century later – the abbey was dissolved in 1805, but the church remains as a cathedral. The abbey had a particularly important library, including many manuscripts essential for the study of the development of Gregorian Chant. Gall died in 630, and the cult of his sainthood began to spread in the 8th. century.