St.
Brendan (Brendan the Voyager, Brendan the Navigator) belongs
to that glorious period in the history of Ireland when the island,
in the first glow of conversion to Christianity, sent forth
its earliest messengers of the Faith to the American continent
and to the regions of the sea. The stories of Saint Brendan
voyaging over perilous waters were popular in the Middle Ages,
and his travels were as well known as the wanderings of Ulysses.
He was born on the Fenit Peninsula, near the present town of
Tralee, County Kerry, in 484. He was the son of Findlugh, from
an ancient and noble family, the infant Saint Brendan was given
into the care of Saint Ita, (The Brigid of Munster,) who taught
him three things that God really loves: "the true faith of a
pure heart; the simple religious life; and bountifulness inspired
by Christian charity." In 512 Bishop Erc ordained Brendan to
the priesthood; between the years 512 and 530 he built monastic
cells at Ardfert, at Shanakeel or Baalynevinoorach, and at the
foot of Brandon Hill. It was from here that he set out on his
most famous voyage.
On
the Kerry coast, he built a coracle of wattle, covered it with
hides tanned in oak bark softened with butter, set up a mast
and a sail, and after a prayer upon the shore, embarked in the
name of the Trinity. For seven years he voyaged to find the
Promised Land of the saints, and fabulous stories are told of
his wanderings. The great seafaring legends attached to St.
Brendan, first committed to writing in the eleventh century,
have for foundation an actual sea-voyage the destination of
which cannot ever be determined. These adventures were called
the "Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis" the Voyage or Wandering
of St. Brendan, commonly known as the Navigatio. Brendan set
forth with a company of monks, the number of which is variously
stated as from 18 to 150, and after a long voyage of seven years
they reached the "Terra Repromissionis", the Paradise or Promised
Land, a most beautiful island with luxuriant vegetation.
Over
the years there have been many interpretations of the possible
geographical position of this island. Various pre-Columbian
sea-charts indicated it everywhere from the southern part of
Ireland, to the Canary Islands, Faroes or Azores, to the island
of Madeira, to a point 60 degrees west of the first meridian
and very near the equator. Belief in the existence of the island
was almost completely abandoned when a new theory arose, maintained
by those who claim for the Irish the glory of discovering America.
This claim rests in part on the account of the Vikings who found
a region south of the Chesapeake Bay called "Irland ed mikla"
(Greater Ireland), and on stone carvings discovered in West
Virginia dated between 500 and 1000 A.D. Analysis indicate that
these carvings are written in Old Irish using the Ogham alphabet.
They exhibit the grammar and vocabulary of Old Irish in a manner
previously unknown in such early rock-cut inscriptions in any
Celtic language." Brendan himself stands out in a dark age as
the captain of a Christian crew. Like the Greeks and the Vikings,
he had a craving for the sea, but when he built his boat, he
launched it in the name of the Lord, and sailed it under the
ensign of the Cross.
It
is true that the Irish monks were renowned as travellers and
explorers centuries before Columbus. Tradition says that they
reached Iceland and explored even farther afield in the Atlantic.
Some scholars who long doubted that the voyage described by
Brendan could have made it to North America have reconsidered
their position based on the research and pilgrimage of British
navigation scholar Tim Severin. Severin, over several years
in the late 1970s, did an extraordinary thing: he built a hide-covered
boat following the instructions in the Navigatio, and sailed
it from Ireland to Newfoundland via Iceland and Greenland, demonstrating
the accuracy of its directions and descriptions of the places
Brendan mentioned in his epic, and proving that a small boat
could have sailed from Ireland to North America. Brendan died
at Enach Duin, now called Annaghdown, in 577. Despite a life
of exceeding piety and many dangerous travels, he had great
anxiety about the holy Journey of death. His dying words to
Briga are reported to have been:
"I fear that I shall journey alone, that the way will be dark;
I fear the unknown land, the presence of my King and the sentence
of my judge."
