St Brendan: Did This Fascinating Irish Monk ‘Discover’ America?

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Is the tale of Irish monk St Brendan a legend or a historical event? Did he actually cross the Atlantic in the 6th century in a small craft with a band of men to arrive at Newfoundland, North America, ‘discovering’ the country nearly 1000 years before Columbus? Why is there so much speculation around the possibility? And why does it continue, even today?

Who Was St Brendan?

Brendan was born around 484 AD at Church Hill, on the north shore of Tralee Bay in County Kerry. As per the custom of this time, at the age of one, he was sent to a female mystic. She was later known as St. Ita of Killeedy and she became Brendan’s lifelong confidante.

At six, his education was transferred to St. Erc of Kerry, said to be the first ever bishop of Kerry. Brendan was ordained in 512 and belonged to the Second Order of Irish Saints, also referred to as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Irish Christianity’s monastic character was expressed via their amalgamation of religious, intellectual, and artistic pursuits.

Brendan was distinguished with the title of ‘Brendan the Navigator’ due to his fascination with sailing and travelling. It was well documented that Brendan travelled all over Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and France. He was driven by the desire to bring more souls to God. He took the Bible verse Mark 16:15 literally: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.”

A Man of Many Talents

Not just an adventurer, Brendan was also an entrepreneur. In addition to the main foundation he set up at Clonfert beside the River Shannon, he established four other abbeys and monasteries throughout Ireland. Plus, others in Brittany, Scotland, Wales and the Faroe Islands.

It was recorded that he had 3,000 monks under his rule. His regular, extensive travels meant that his sect was widespread and located in many European regions. Active and fit, he was renowned for his zest and his adventures. He was reported to have lived an exceptionally long life, dying at the age of 93 in 577.

Brendan is recognised by the Catholic Church as the patron saint of whales, travellers, sailors, portaging canoes, mariners, divers and boatmen. His feast day is celebrated on the 16th of May. As exceptional as Brendan’s life was, it is the belief by some scholars that he and a small group of monks ventured to what we now call North America. This was sometime between 512 and 530.

The Tale of Irish Monk St Brendan’s Voyage

Learned, curious and passionate to spread the word of God, Brendan’s missionary travels led him to construct boats called curraghs. They were built by stretching animal skins over wooden frames. He used them to venture throughout the British Isles and Northern France, accompanied by as many as sixty monks.

Like others on his travels, he heard rumours of a distant land in the West, which some believed was the original Garden of Eden. This rumour gave St Brendan the motivation and determination to find where Eden was located. And he could preach the Gospel to any unbelievers he met along the way.

Did Irish Monk St Brendan ‘Discover’ America?

Faroese stamp depicting Saint Brendan, taking up the version that the island he discovered was in the Faroe Islands.

St Brendan’s Journey

An 8th century account (200 or so years after his death) of the journey was recorded in Latin in The Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbott. It describes various stops on the expedition that appear to correspond to actual places. This list included the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland as the final destination. The trip was reported to have taken seven years and was conducted in a curragh that Brendan built for the purpose.

According to the tale, after fasting for 40 days, Brendan and 16 monks (numbers vary in different interpretations) set off. They were headed for what some believe was meant to be an Atlantic Ocean shoal some 120 miles off the Irish coast. Today it is named Porcupine Bank.

Once underway however, Brendan ventured much further, sharing his tale of incredible sights. These included pillars of crystal (commonly accepted to be icebergs), floating islands and sea monsters (generally interpreted to be whales). There was also the paradise of birds (the island of Mykines), an island whose rivers ran with gold fire (volcanic activity on Iceland – also referred to as ‘Hell’), and an island filled with grapes.

This was possibly Newfoundland, while others speculated that this was modern-day New Brunswick, just north of Maine and even Florida. Upon eventually reaching “the Land of Promise of the Saints” they reportedly explored it before returning home with fruit and precious stones found there.

St Brendan: The Return

When Brendan returned to Ireland by 530 (at the latest estimate) after a seven-year journey, he continued his monastic life. He established the aforementioned foundations throughout Europe until his death at 93. For centuries, Brendan’s voyages were one of the most inspiring, remarkable and enduring of Europe’s legends. Cartographers placed Saint Brendan’s Island on their maps from the 13th to 18th centuries.

Many of the ‘facts’ of Brendan’s journey came from a story written two centuries after his death. So it has been challenging for scholars to distinguish truth from folklore, evoking debate and research. While it is generally assumed that the story is a religious allegory, there has been considerable discussion over whether the legends are based on actual events. And, if the ‘Isle of the Blessed’ that Brendan reached was America.

Did Irish Monk St Brendan ‘Discover’ America?

Map of America by Sebastian Munster

St Brendan: The Argument For

Scholars in support of Brendan’s journey have used several areas of evidence to demonstrate why Brendan did land in North America. This is even though there is a dispute about where he landed. Several locations suggested include Newfoundland, Maine or Florida, and even Jamaica or the Bahamas.

We definitively know the journey was possible to Newfoundland. This is thanks to Irish historian Tim Severn, who replicated Brendan’s expedition in 1976. Severn built an ox leather curragh to the same specifications as Brendan’s. He then sailed the vessel from Ireland via the Hebrides, Faroe Islands and Iceland to Newfoundland over the span of 13 months.

The replicated journey did not prove that St Brendan landed on North America. But, it did give conceivable identification to many of the legendary elements of the story, such as the “Island of Sheep” (Faroe Islands) and “mountains that hurled rocks at voyagers” (volcanoes on Iceland). Severn’s adventure also confirmed that the Irish were seafarers of the North Atlantic almost 1000 years before Columbus.

Also, that the southwest-going, northeast-returning round-trip route taken by Brendan and his monks was the Gulf Stream. Columbus used the Gulf Stream centuries later on his world-changing journey.

Did Irish Monk St Brendan ‘Discover’ America?

A model of St Brendan’s curragh. Pic credit Eddi Laumanns

Other Evidence for the St Brendan Journey

Evidence cited to support Brendan’s journey as fact is from the Norsemen. In the year 1000, a Viking named Leif Erikson travelled a similar path to Brendan. Erikson sailed from Greenland and landed in the northern tip of Newfoundland, referring to it as “Vinland” (wine land).

An archaeological dig found the remains of their houses and settlement. It showed that the Vikings stayed there for about 10 years and wrote of the grapes and timber that grew abundantly in this location, similar to Brendan’s description of seeing ‘grapes as big as apples.’

Strangely, records show that Norsemen found a region south of “Vinland” and Chesapeake Bay that they named “Hvitramamaland” (Land of the White Men) or “Irland it mikla” (Greater Ireland). Oral history from Indigenous Americans shares that Florida was once inhabited by a white tribe that used iron implements. They wore long, white garments; carried poles attached to white cloths; and called out with a loud voice, interpreted by the Norsemen to indicate religious processions.

The late professor Dr Frank Faulkner was a former director of Irish Studies at Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts. He believed “archaeological evidence found in America supported the concept of St Brendan’s travels, in addition to Nordic sagas centuries later telling of Viking explorations to the New World and routinely mentioning arriving at new sites and finding Irish monks already clustered there.”

Faulkner cited other Irish influences in Indigenous American culture. Thousands of words forged from Gaelic are in early American languages; dwellings were built using ancient Irish systems; the smoking of clay pipes and distillation of whiskey were in ancient Irish tradition. Clochauns – stone ‘beehive’ huts unique to West Kerry in Ireland – were found in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, West Virginia, the Ohio River Valley and Texas.

St Brendan: Writing his Story

Even more strange is the use of slanted ogham writing methods, or carved script on stones, identified in old Irish script. Old Irish Ogham stone carvings in West Virginia have been dated between 500 and 1000 AD, with the early date aligning with Brendan’s journey.

Portrait of Saint Brendan seated in a small boat, holding the rudder

According to archaeologist Dr. Robert Pyle and language expert Dr. Barry Fell, the “West Virginia Ogham texts are the oldest Ogham inscriptions from anywhere in the world. They exhibit the grammar and vocabulary of Old Irish in a manner previously unknown in such early rock-cut inscriptions in any Celtic language.

It seems possible that the scribes that cut the West Virginia inscriptions may have been Irish missionaries in the wake of Brendan’s voyage, for these inscriptions are Christian.” While all of this evidence supports the possibility of Brendan’s influence, it doesn’t prove the journey beyond doubt.

The Argument Against

The strongest argument against the tale being true is the lack of locational artefacts or a written record from the time of Brendan’s expedition. Although it is unclear when literacy first came to Ireland, the earliest Irish writings date back to the 4th century and are inscriptions on stone in the Ogham alphabet, while the Latin alphabet was in use in Ireland by 431.

Two works purportedly written by St Patrick in the 5th century survive today, demonstrating it could have been possible to record the journey amongst the learned monks. But it wasn’t until the 8th century that Brendan’s tale was written, in a highly mythical style.

The outwardly fantastical nature of the tale, with its detailed portrayals of gryphons, sea monsters, and the entrance to Hell itself, also casts doubt on its veracity and detracts from its utility and practicality as a historical document so long after the events occurred. No Irish artifacts in Newfoundland have been found that link Brendan to the location.

There is no reliable evidence (other than it was possible), to prove that Irish Monk St Brendan ever reached Greenland, Iceland or America. This leads most historians to believe that Brendan’s voyage is a legend or simply an allegory to describe the journey of a person’s life. The lack of evidence has also left heavy speculation as to Brendan’s final destination.

There are vast distances between a landing at Newfoundland and the Bahamas. This leads to many hypotheses about how far Brendan and his crew travelled and which islands they actually visited. There are so many modern technologies and techniques exist to help us document and prove ancient journeys and events, including the influence of the Irish in the Americas. So, the lack of direct evidence for Brendan’s journey is stark.

Why The Story Continues to Resonate

Whether it is fact or fiction, the story of The Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbott supports the excitement, challenge and romanticism of worlds yet undiscovered. This is something that has always driven us as humans. It is similar now to our exploration of space or discovery of new frontiers deep under the ocean.

The universal theme of hope is intrinsic to both Brendan the Voyager and St Brendan the patron saint of travel. This value remains a common motivator amongst fictional and factual explorers seeking the promise of a better tomorrow across all cultures and beliefs. This was a tale that inspired generations of explorers, dreamers and writers, and is still doing so today as one of Ireland’s continuing mysteries that is yearning to be solved.

 

If you want more exciting stories, be sure to purchase the 2025 Old Moore’s Almanac for predictions, articles, and everything Ireland!

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