Islands of Ireland: Superb symbol of courage and exploration on Kerry's Great Samphire Island

St Brendan the Navigator was born near this island and may well have set foot here — his voyages are believed to have taken him across the Atlantic some 900 years before Columbus

St Brendan the Navigator sculpture and Great Samphire Island, Fenit, County Kerry

The ruin on Great Samphire Island, County Kerry, has long since been engulfed and surrounded by the structures you would associate with a modern commercial port: gantries, sheds, cranes, piers. However, a symbol of antiquity outshines any kind of modernity evident here in the shape of a sculpture of Brendan the Navigator. The bronze work evokes a magnificent era of scholarship and learning at the dawn of Christianity on this island. St Brendan, with the gospels under his arm, strains against a gale force wind and points out to sea. He appears to urge his believers to strive for knowledge in the service of god.

The ‘great’ of the island’s name refers to its size versus its neighbour, Little Samphire Island, and has nothing to do with greatness. Also witness Greater and Lesser Antilles, or Great Britain versus the lesser parts of its kingdom, depending on which history you read.