Islands of Ireland: Navigating to St Brendan’s Isle

Among Ireland’s renowned explorers, of whom there are many, one name stands out. Shackleton and Crean (Antarctic voyages), Robert O’Hara Burke (first to cross the Australian Outback) and many others achieved monumental feats of discovery but it is the figure of the fifth century St Brendan who is the true torchbearer for Irish adventure.

That his motivation was religious was incidental. That he advanced the knowledge of the known world is incontrovertible. Did he discover America centuries before the Viking Leif Erikson or Italian seafarer, Amerigo Vespucci? Very possibly. He was born in about 484 in Fenit, Tralee, Co Kerry, a location singularly suited for ocean-going voyages.