The Wild Geese 2026 Programme

Wild Geese enjoying a well-deserved break.

From the earliest times (well at least for over five thousand years!) the Irish have marked the passing of the seasons with eight major fire festivals, Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh  and Samhain, together with the solstices and equinoxes. The Wild Geese Historical Society of Czechia looks forward to celebrating those festivals again this year with our friends in the Czech Irish Business and Cultural Association (CIBCA), together with our ever popular film evenings on the second Thursday of the month.

In recognition of Ireland holding the Presidency of the European Union in the second half of this year, other activities of the Society will be aimed particularly at celebrating the many historical links between Ireland and Czechia. In February we publish the researches of our friend and member Czech artist Josef Ryzec, who has established conclusively his descent from Norman-Irish knight Walter Devereux who played a pivotal role in Bohemia during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). In May we commemorate Irish general Ulysses Browne who defended Prague and Bohemia against the ravages of Frederik the Great of Prussia in 1757. In August we launch a campaign to restore the foundation plaque of the Irish Franciscan Church (1652) on Hybernské náměstí - Irish Square, (renamed Náměstí Republiky since independence). We will also be pursuing our researches to discover the current location of the many bodies of the Irish monks, soldiers and professional exiles who had been buried in the church (now Divadlo Hybernia) and its grounds.  The monks had embedded a relic of St Patrick in their church, and they were the first to celebrate his feast day in all of central Europe. On a similar note in October we will be assembling in the nearby church of St Gall, (Havel in Czech) an Irish missionary monk, one of twelve sent by Columbanus to rescue Europe from the Dark Ages, to celebrate his feast day. On the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV as King of Bohemia in that church in 1347 he donated a relic of the skull of the Irish saint encased in a gold and silver reliquary, where it is still treasured.

Finally, we will be progressing, in co-operation with interested universities in Austria, Czechia, Germany, Ireland and Sweden, our film documentary (working title - Has the Jury Reached a Verdict?) on the highly contentious accounts of that pivotal event in Eger/Cheb in 1634.