What a refreshing response in these days of watered down everything!

In this day of ´watered down´ everything, I hope like me you will be impressed with the clear acknowledgement of error below.  I was so impressed - with my own letter of course to start with. (Hey what can I tell you, I don´t wallow in humility, much as I´d love to say I do!)  But the unambiguous letter of response really had me raising my cup of tea.  
My letter was sent to the Library in Trinity College Dublin, slightly modified out of respect to the addressee.

Dear Sir ,

Allow me to introduce myself.  First let me clarify I am not an Irish scholar, indeed no scholar of any sort.  I am an Irish woman twice blessed however, first because I was born in Kilkenny, and second because I now live in Allensbach a beautiful village in southern Germany that is only a swim away from the island of Reichenau.

Last week I was delighted to visit  the Trinity College Library.  As always the experience was even better than the last time I visited; the display and exhibition`Turning Darkness into Light`around the ancient manuscripts housed in the library was such that one had to be astounded by their beauty and the complexity of their production.  I must thank you and your staff at the library for same.

There is one small issue I would like to draw your attention to.  On the leaflet discussing the Book of Kells, the delightful poem Pangur Bán was printed.  It stated that the poem was written by an Irish monk in St. Gallen,  Switzerland.
 
We can all agree the little poem was written by a monk, possibly Sedulius Scottus sometime in the 9^th century.  Likewise it is accepted by scholar and layman alike that the poem was included in cluster of 9 pages known as the Reichenauer Schulheft or Reichenau Primer.  It is also agreed the pages were found on the German island of Reichenau and for various reasons were moved to different locations over the centuries, and that the folia are now housed in St. Paul´s Abbey in the Lavanttal in the Austrian state of Carinthia.

Being  a Kilkenny woman, who now lives not a Katzensprung from Reichenau Island, I concede  I may not have total objectivity on the provenance of a poem about a cat.  That being said, I do most respectfully opine there is enough evidence to suggest that the poem Pangur Bán was written by a Irish monk in the Island of Reichenau.   Or at least an argument for Reichenau is as feasible as St. Gallen.

Most sincerely,

R.C.

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From: X

Dear Rosaleen

 

Thank you for taking the trouble to write about this. You are correct, of course, and I can offer no explanation for our error. It will be corrected in the next Book of Kells exhibition, though that will not be for a number of years.

........

With best wishes