"Those who go down to the sea in ships
Who do business in great waters
They see the works of the Lord
And His wonders in the deep."
Brendan the "Navigator" or the
"Voyager" was born near Tralee in County Kerry about 486 A.D. He was taken
from his family at a very young age and raised by St. Aida of
Killeedy, and he later studied under St. Erc, who ordained him as a
priest in 512.
St. Brendan is famous for the many voyages he made to
Wales, Iona and to the coast of Brittany, but the voyage for which
he is best known is shrouded in the midst of legend. The
voyage in search of the Land of Promise, far away in the west
began when Brendan was visited by another Irish monk who told him
about this land far across the ocean.
'Navigatio Sancti Brendani' is an account written by an Irish
monk in the ninth or tenth century and describes the subsequent voyage
. More than a hundred medieval Latin manuscripts of the "Voyage of Brendan"
still exist today with many pointers to the very real possibility that it
Saint Brendan had in fact made landfall in North America, some 900 years earlier than Columbus.
In the l970s Tim Severin had a boat built out of a framework of
ash and covered with oxhides. With some like-minded friends, he sailed from Brandon Creek on the 17th May 1976, landing at Reykjavik on the 15th July. having wintered the boat in
Iceland, the crew subsequently set sail from there on May 7th 1977
and reached Newfoundland on 26th June 1977.
The 'Navigatio' had been the inspiration for his adventure and Tim Severin was fulsome in his
admiration for Saint Brendan and other Christian monks who took to the sea from Ireland;
"The journey itself was regarded as important in its proper execution as reaching a landfall. To venture out in a boat was by its very nature an act if faith in God whose divine providence would show them wondrous sights and, if he so wished, bring them safely to journey's end."
The story of this voyage is told in Tim Severin's book, THE
BRENDAN VOYAGE. Other interesting links:
Saint Brendan's Cathedral in Clonfert
Who Really Discovered America?
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