Saint Brendan the Navigator

Brendan was born around 484 in County Kerry, in the southwest of Ireland. He was educated by Saint Ita and Saint Erc, ordained a priest, and became one of the great monastic founders of early Christian Ireland. His most famous foundation was the monastery of Clonfert, in County Galway, established around 557, which grew into an important center of learning. He traveled widely, visiting Scotland, Wales and Brittany.

Brendan is best known through the Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot (Navigatio Sancti Brendani), a medieval tale that tells how he and a band of monks sailed for seven years in a leather-covered boat, celebrating Easter on the back of a whale, in search of the Promised Land of the Saints. Some have wondered whether Irish monks reached Iceland or even North America. Brendan died around 577, and was buried at Clonfert.

In Ireland his feast is kept especially in Kerry and in the Diocese of Clonfert, and pilgrims climb Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula, named after him. Sailors and many Irish-American parishes honor him as patron of seafarers, and in the Canary Islands the legend of the phantom island of San Borondón keeps his name alive.