Brendan, Saint, Brénainn, Saint, Bréanainn, Saint. [L
Brendanus, from W
breinhin, prince]. The most celebrated of seventeen Irish saints bearing this name is St Brendan of Clonfert (d. 577), the son of
Finnlug, called ‘the Navigator’. Brendan founded the abbey of
Ardfert in his native
Kerry as well as
Clonfert, Co. Galway and others; his feast-day is 16 May. Details of Brendan's life are found primarily in two Latin texts, both composed several centuries after his death. The first is the
Vita Brendani [Life of Brendan], which survives in two versions and many variants; the second is the much better known
Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis [Voyage of the Abbot Saint Brendan]. The
Navigatio was composed in the late 9th or early 10th century and was widely read all over Europe in the Middle Ages. It is an epic of the Old Irish Church, an amalgam of secular and religious learning, the last notable Hiberno-Latin literary production. It may be compared to
Imram Curaig Maíle Dúin [The Voyage of Máel Dúin's Boat], in which there is a reference to St Brendan of Birr. This St Brendan, whose feast-day is 29 November, is described as a traveller on the western ocean; his story is evidently confused with that of St Brendan of Clonfert on several points.
Having been told of a Land of Promise to the west (See
TÍR TAIRNGIRE) by Barinthus, St Brendan set sail with fourteen companions in a curragh, a small leather boat. This journey may have reached as far as Iceland, which was discovered by Irish monks and where there is today a, small archipelago named Vestmannaejar [Irishmen's islands]. He returned after five years to much acclaim. A second voyage in a boat made of oak included a crew of sixty, and reached distant islands that partisan commentators have identified with New-foundland, Florida, and the Bahamas. Among the many adventures of St Brendan are: (1) the visit to an island where the travellers are sheltered in a large building; (2) the visit to an island of sheep larger than cattle; (3) the landing on the whale jasconius [cf. Ir.
iasc, fish], mistaken for an island-an episode paralleled in the voyages of Sinbad; (4) the visit to the island of spirits in bird form; (5) the visit to the island of St
Ailbe, which offers a detailed description of the lives of a community of silent monks; (6) the voyage across the curdled sea; (7) the visit to the Island of Strong Men, inhabited only by boys, young men, and elders, who ate a purple fruit called scaltae; (8) the visit to the island of grape trees; (9) the voyage across a stream of clear water where the sailors could see to the bottom; (10) the sighting of a crystal column, possibly an iceberg; (11) the visit to an island of giant smiths; (12) the visit to a smoking and flaming mountain, perhaps a volcano; (13) the sighting of a man-shaped cloud on a rock mass, which was Judas reprieved from damnation on Sundays; (14) the visit to the island of Paul the hermit; (15) the visit to the island promised to the saints.
The work of several researchers in the late 20th century has implied much evidence of Irish travel to the New World, if not actually of St Brendan's voyage. Transatlantic voyages in curraghs, following St Brendan's directions, have been made three times, by Bill Verity in 1966 and 1970 and by Tim Severin in 1976–7, who published an account in
The Brendan Voyage (New York, 1978). See also Frederick Buechner's popular novel
Brendan (New York, 1987).
Vita Brendani is in Charles Plummer's
Lives of Irish Saints (Oxford, 1922). See
Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, ed. Carl Selmer (Notre Dame, Ind., 1959);
The Voyage of Saint Brendan: Journey to the Promised Land.
Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, trans. John J. O'Meara (Portlaoise, 1985). See also Geoffrey Ashe,
Land to the West (London, 1962). See also
IMRAM CURAIG MAÍLE DÚIN.
