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The Voyage of St Brendan

Music from The Brendan Voyage, an orchestral suite for uilleann pipes

Played by Liam O'Flynn; Composed by Shaun Davey; Tara BCD 501

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Maps: 1. Voyage 2. Ireland

The voyage – medieval sources

Outline of Brendan’s life

Preparing for the voyage

Scenes from the voyage

Fact or fiction?

Inspiring modern art

Matching music & pictures

Notes on the voyages of Brendan & Tim Severin – pdf format Internet

connection required

END MENUSTOP MUSICBrendan Voyage: Track 3 Jig Water under the Keel

The story of St Brendan

Fourteenth century manuscript

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The story of St Brendan’s voyage

Modern tapestry

There are twenty-four different pictures Begin reading at bottom left-hand corner

People bringing stores onto the boat. People waving farewell to the monks.Casks, waterskins and other supplies for the journey.Scenes from early Irish life:

A harper.A piper.A warrior on horseback.A huntsman.A chariot.

The burial of one of the travellers at sea.Inhabitants of the land which Brendan visited.The young man who directed Brendan home.Brendan’s boat.

Click here for a note on what can be seen in the tapestry

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Brendan's life - an outline

Born around 500 AD.

A monk from County Kerry.

He wanted to take the Christian faith of other lands.

He and fourteen other monks built a boat and sailed the Atlantic.

The boat was made from skins stretched over a wooden frame with a kind of hood for shelter.

Behind the more imaginative stories of their many adventures, there is probably some historical event or a genuinely hard-won experience.

In 1977 Tim Severin sailed to America in a boat exactly like St Brendan’s.

Click here for a note on St Brendan’s voyage in pdf format - internet connection required

END MENUSTOP MUSICBrendan Voyage: Track 2 The Brendan Theme

Brendan's seaDingle peninsula & Atlantic

Click here for map of Ireland

This and the following eleven drawings by David Rooneyare taken from Brendan the Navigator by G.O. SimmsO'Brien Press, ISBN 0-86278-241-4

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Visiting EndaIsland monastery of Aran

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ISBN: 1-85390-645-X

An alternative

An illustrated narrative poem

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Preparing the boat

Wooden frame and skins

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The bird messenger

The voyage ahead

END MENUSTOP MUSICBrendan Voyage: Track 1 Introduction

JaconiusThe friendly whale

Click here for picture

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JaconiusThe friendly whale

Medieval picture

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St Ailbe greets Brendan

In remembrance of Christ

END MENUSTOP MUSICBrendan Voyage: Track 5 The Cliffs of Mykines Click here for picture

The sparkling pillar

The beauty of God's creation

END MENUSTOP MUSICBrendan Voyage: Track 8 The Gale

Rescued from a monster fish

By a fire-breathing creature

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Rescued from a monster fish

By a fire-breathing creatureMedieval picture

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Attacked by a gryphon

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Attacked by a gryphonMedieval picture

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The volcanoBrendan comforts the

monks

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Comforting JudasDriving away the demons

END MENUSTOP MUSICBrendan Voyage: Track 2 The Brendan Theme

Visiting Paul the Hermit

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Brendan ponders on

the meaningof his

wonderful voyage

Medieval drawing

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Others point to the success of Tim Severin’s voyage, 1977-79:

1.His boat, constructed on the same lines, successfully crossed the Atlantic.

2. He witnessed similar sights:• whales swam around and even under their boat – they could have been even friendlier in Brendan’s time, before motorized

ships would make them wary of man, so friendly that they may well have lifted the monks’ boat in a playful gesture;• island of Mykines, one of the Danish Faroe islands, with its thousands of seabirds – Brendan’s ‘The Paradise of Birds’;• ‘Island of Sheep’, the larger of the Danish Faroe islands - the word Faroe itself means Island of Sheep;• Labrador-Greenland iceberg belt (‘The Crystal Pillar’) - the monks had never seen icebergs before, so their description

of them as ‘towering crystals’ would make sense; • Iceland, with Icelandic volcanoes - the ‘Island of Smiths’ and the ‘Fiery Mountain’ - the volcanoes, active for many

centuries, might well have been erupting when the monks stayed there, pelting the monks 'with flaming, foul

smelling rocks’; and• landed on the island of Newfoundland - might well have been Brendan’s ‘Land promised to the Saints’.

Severin’s journey did not prove that Brendan and his monks landed on North America. However it did prove that a leather currach could have made a voyage such as that mapped out in medieval accounts.

Some people think that the story of Brendan’s voyage is more fiction than fact, saying:

1.Such a fragile vessel as a currach could not possibly sail in the open sea.

2.Many of the tales seem incredible, such as, the monks:

were ‘raised up on the back of sea monsters’;passed by ‘crystals that rose up to the sky’;were ‘pelted with flaming, foul smelling rocks by the inhabitants of a large island on their route’, and finallyarrived at the beautiful land they called ‘Promised Land of the Saints’.

Fact or fiction?

Click here for fiction

Click here for fact

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Inspiring art todaysculpture

Sculpted and carved in clayby the artist in Michigan.

The plaques are then cast in a sand/stone compound.

Finally a patina is appliedby hand to bring out the

details

Brendan peers toward the western sun from the helm of

his craft.His face is weathered,

clothes are tattered; his monk's tonsure long grown

out.A whale's tale breaks

through the waves.

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Inspiring art today

paintingColin Wilkin

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Inspiring art todaystamp

joint issueby

Faroe(‘Island of Sheep’)

Iceland(‘Fiery Mountain’)

&Ireland

1994

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