St. Brendan (or Brandan), one of the most famous of Irish saints, was also an abbot. He was born probably about A.D. 489 near the lakes of Killarney in County Kerry, in the area around Tralee. He founded many important Irish monasteries throughout the country. For five years he was in the charge of the famous virginal St. Ita (also spelt Ite or Oda), of whom many stories are told. In perhaps A.D. 559, Brendan founded the monastery of Clonfert. But that was only a part of his works. He was quite a traveler, always moving about by sea; and even the court historians will go so far as to admit that he went to Scotland and perhaps Wales.

According to various medieval legends, Brendan, by then in his 70s, and a band of monks embarked on a seven-year voyage through the Atlantic in search of the "Promised Land" where, it seems, another Irish monk, known as St. Finbarr, had been before. (Unfortunately, not much is known about this particular St. Finbarr; there are five Irish saints of this name.) The legends, which were known in most of the European languages in the middle ages, recount Brendan's amazing adventures. The saint is said to have eventually discovered a mysterious land (possibly the American mainland), through which flowed a great river. Many people, especially the court historians, have tended to dismiss the Brendan legends as merely fantastic myths, the product of overheated medieval imaginations.

The saint is said to have visited a country far across the Atlantic Ocean, which Irish popular tradition identifies as America, and certain passages in the story suggest that St. Brendan may even have reached Bermuda and the Bahamas.

Here is a summary of the Brendan legend, with modern interpretation identifying the places visited and some of the phenomena the monks observed:

• St. Brendan and his companions, head ing northward from Ireland, come to a rocky isle with no obvious landing place. After sailing around, it they discover a single cove, where they go ashore (St. Kildas).
• They sail onward to an island in northern seas where there are many sheep and a monastic community (the Faeroes).
• They wander back and forth in an archipelago, staying ashore for long periods (the Shetlands).
• They sail north to another island, a place of fire and smoke, where it looks as if a great number of smiths are at work on glowing metal. As they watch, the mass blazes and becomes molten (to Iceland, witnessing an eruption of the volcano Hecla).
• After returning to a point previously visited and obtaining advice, they sail west for 40 days.
• They are surrounded by darkness, which is said to be the prelude to arrival in the land they are seeking (fog on the Newfoundland banks).
• They come to a huge crystal pillar in the sea. (They sight an iceberg drifting south with the Green land current.)
• They reach an inhospitable coast where there are creatures with tusks and speckled bellies.
• They sail into a semitropical lagoon. (They make for a warmer zone and eventually enter the Bahamas.)
• They put in at an island and are attacked by small, dark savages (possibly Carib Indians).
• They sail over transparent waters where they can see a long way down. (Exploring the Caribbean fringes, they notice the famous transparent sea, beloved by modern scuba divers.)
• They disembark in the Promised Land, which is sunshiny and warm and abounds in fruit. After 40 days of exploration they reach a river. The land seems to stretch indefinitely beyond, and they give up the attempt to find its limit (Florida or the Gulf Coast).

St. Brendan died in 577 or 583 at Enach Duin, Ireland.

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