An Mullach · Co. Cavan
A Cavan village that means more in Bavaria than it does on most Irish maps.
Mullagh is a small village in the southeast of Cavan, close to the Meath border, sitting in the gentle drumlin country that rolls from here all the way to the lake district in the west of the county. It has a lake beside it, a heritage centre in the middle of it, and a connection to southern Germany that has been running, in one form or another, for fourteen hundred years.
The connection is St Killian. He was born here around 640, took holy orders, left Ireland as a young man with eleven companions, and walked east across what is now Germany until he reached Würzburg in Franconia. He converted the local duke - Gozbert - baptised him and his people, and then made the mistake of telling the duke that his marriage to his brother's widow was irregular under church law. Gozbert's wife Geilana had him beheaded on 8 July 689, along with his companions Colman and Totnan, while the duke was away. Killian is now the patron saint of Würzburg and of all Franconia. His feast day is one of the major civic occasions of the Bavarian calendar. His birthplace is a village of 1,400 people in County Cavan.
Würzburg and Mullagh have been formally twinned for decades. Bavarian pilgrims travel here each year for the feast day. The Killian Heritage Centre in the village documents his life, his mission, and the ongoing relationship between two places that have almost nothing in common except this one man. It is one of the more unlikely things in Ireland, and it is entirely true.
Outside the heritage story, Mullagh is quiet, working country. The lake is there for fishing. The roads loop through drum country past small farms. The village has what it needs and not much more. That is not a criticism. It means the one extraordinary thing about the place has room to breathe.
