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
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The story of St Brendan
Fourteenth century manuscript
Brendan Voyage: Track 3 Jig Water under the Keel
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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
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Brendan's sea
Dingle peninsula & Atlantic
This and the following eleven drawings by David Rooney
are taken from Brendan the Navigator by G.O. Simms
O'Brien Press, ISBN 0-86278-241-4
Brendan Voyage: Track 2 The Brendan Theme
Click here for map of Ireland
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Visiting Enda
Island monastery of Aran
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An alternative
An illustrated
narrative poem
ISBN: 1-85390-645-X
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Preparing the boat
Wooden frame and skins
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The bird messenger
The voyage ahead
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Jaconius
The friendly whale
Brendan Voyage: Track 1 Introduction
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Jaconius
The friendly whale
Medieval picture
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St Ailbe greets Brendan
In remembrance of Christ
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The sparkling pillar
The beauty of God's creation
Brendan Voyage: Track 5 The Cliffs of Mykines
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Rescued from a monster fish
By a fire-breathing creature
Brendan Voyage: Track 8 The Gale
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Rescued from a monster fish
By a fire-breathing creature
Medieval picture
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Attacked by a gryphon
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Attacked by a gryphon
Medieval picture
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The volcano
Brendan comforts the monks
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Comforting Judas
Driving away the demons
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Visiting Paul the Hermit
Brendan Voyage: Track 2 The Brendan Theme
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Brendan ponders on
the meaning
of his
wonderful voyage
Medieval drawing
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Fact or fiction?
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 finally
arrived at the beautiful land they called ‘Promised Land of the Saints’.
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.
Click here for fact
Click here for fiction
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Inspiring art today
sculpture
Sculpted and carved in clay
by the artist in Michigan.
The plaques are then cast in a
sand/stone compound.
Finally a patina is applied
by 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
painting
Colin Wilkin
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Inspiring art today
stamp
joint issue
by
Faroe
(‘Island of Sheep’)
Iceland
(‘Fiery Mountain’)
&
Ireland
1994
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1
2
4
Matching
music
and
pictures
3
3
Music A
Music B
Music C
Music D
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