Large parts of the route will be mapped in 2019 and a smartphone app will be launched in mid 2019 that will allow pilgrims to negotiate the pilgrim trail.

Columbanus, born c.550 on the Carlow/Wexford border, is the best known of the many Irish missionaries who re-evangelised Europe during the Middle Ages.

Ceremony of investiture of the two Irish priests as canons highlights the religious heritage shared by the people of both Down and Connor and Piacenza-Bobbio.