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Brendan
The Navigator.
Saint Brendan was born in what is now
Tralee, in county Kerry about 489 and died 578. In his early
days he studied under St. Enda and Bishop Erc. Brendan showed
much talent,  and
was appointed Abbot of Llancarfan in Wales. Later he went to
Brittany and became tutor to Saint Malo. He is credited with
founding Ardfert
Cathedral in County Kerry.
Brendan appears to have had a love of
travel, some Scottish legends report that he founded a Christian
colony on the Orkney Islands, and there are references to him
preaching on the Faeroe Islands.
Saint Brendan's most famous exploit begins
in the Abbey of Clonfert
County Galway, there he talked to the Monk Barrind, tells
Brendan of another monk called Mernock, who has made long journeys
to the west, and has made many converts.
On hearing this Brendan
formulated his plans to equal if not outdo Mernock, he chose
fourteen monks to accompany him, and set about building a boat.
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It is thought that the voyage began from Brandon
Bay, whether or not the party reached America many centuries before Columbus
is not known, the account of the voyage describes visiting a sea of frozen
glass, the birth of a volcanic island, and great whales in the Arctic
ocean
A description of the building of the boat has survived,
although from a much later period, using this and other records of Brendan's
voyage, Tim Severin in 1976 built a replica boat, he and his crew successfully
made a voyage from the west of Ireland up through the Hebrides and Faeroe's
past Iceland and on to Greenland. From there they crossed the Davis Strait
to Newfoundland, where they landed on the 26th June 1978. Proving that
Irish monks could have voyaged as far as America.
Saint Brendan's traditional feast day is May 16.
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