"He must be mad to have brought us out here,' one of Brendan's monks hisses in a terror of rage, convinced their boat is about to break apart in a mid Atlantic hurricane. "We will all die and our people will never know what happened to us."

It is 570 AD. For the previous 27 hours, under sheer cliffs off the south west corner of the Faroe Islands, the boat had hardly moved. Within a quarter of a mile on all sides the small craft is surrounded by forty foot high walls of water. Six years before Brendan and his fellow monks had sailed in a wooden framed craft that had an outer covering of ox skins. Since they left Brandon Creek at the end of the Dingle Peninsula the elements had thrown everything at them. Huge molten explosions of firey rock from Icelandic volcanoes. Skyscraper-sized moving masses of ice off Greenland. But most of all, what seemed like an endless succession of storms, as they criss-crossed the North Atlantic. "Maybe this is the end," Brendan's voice boomed in the terrifying roaring of wind, sleet and sea. A lifetime of sea voyages had given him a rugged, wild appearance. "But the Lord would want us to go down fighting." Sailing through that wall of water might have been the most heart-stopping moment over all the years. But, eventually, exhausted, sick, wet, cold and hungry they made it to a safe haven. "The Lord has shown yet again that He is with us," Brendan reminded his followers at prayer that evening. "Like few others we have seen the awesome power and splendour of God's creation in our journey to the Land of Blessed." But the monks were not sure whether their principal emotion was awe or anger or just exhaustion. A year later the weather-worn travellers reached America. 900 years before Columbus. For Brendan that was a final great physical prayer in over 90 years of life at the edge.

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'The Voyage of St Brendan the Abbot' was one of the great sea sagas of medieval Europe. It is said there were some 1,100 versions of the tale in circulation. In the seven years of his voyage Brendan celebrated Easter on the back of a whale, visited the land of birds (Bermuda?) and along the way came across other Irish monks, indicating that his boat was not the first or the only one. The most attractive characteristic of early Irish Christian texts is an intense curiosity about the natural world and a sense that everything in it is holy. Up to 1,200AD Brendan was the most famous Irish saint. Early maps showed a St Brendan's Isle west of the Canaries. Christopher Columbus came to Ireland to search for some evidence of Brendan's voyage before he embarked on his journey of discovery.

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The big man's hair and his heavy, rich clothing are torn by a gale force wind. The book of the gospels is pinned firmly under his left arm and his right hand points west towards America. The great bronze sculpture of St Brendan on top of Great Samphire Island on Fenit pier is a good place to start a search for the heritage of Brendan. Panels along the steps climbing up to the sculpture give the outline of Brendan's amazing story. Seven sites associated with him in the Fenit/Ardfert area are marked by slate panels. These form Sli Bhreanainn/The Brendan Way which is a general background for this article. The Rock Samphire plant is named for St Peter, ‘the rock’ and patron of fishermen. It was widely used as a vegetable, as an aid to digestion and to relieve kidney stones.

The island flora of the Faroes, the volcanoes of Iceland, the icebergs off Greenland, the fog off Newfoundland, the flowers and grapes of Florida ... all of these have been associated with descriptions in the accounts of Brendan's voyage to America between 564 to 571. We stood at the edge of the sand spit that joins the mainland to Fenit Island where it is said, on the night when Brendan was born here in 484, a bright light was seen for a great distance and thirty of the cattle of the local chieftain gave birth to thirty calves. In this place Brendan developed his passion for God and the sea. After his ordination in 512 Brendan established his first monastery at Kilfenora (a short way from Fenit).

This overlooked Tralee Bay with its rich beds of oysters that change their sex after every spawning and have been harvested as food from prehistoric times. Abundant primroses grow on the hedgerows here during these months. The primrose was used to make love potions and as a remedy for gout, rheumatism and nervous headaches.

Before beginning his great final voyage tradition records that Brendan prayed on Mount Brandon. It is said he founded a monastery at Fothair na Manach/the Monks' Ruins - on a collapsed ledge hundreds of feet down on the sheer northern side of Brandon and hanging precariously a hundred feet over the heaving ocean.

On the eastern and western sides of Brandon there are hedgerows filled with fuchsia and montbretia ... huge evidence of early habitation in a rich reservoir of archaeological sites and mythology ... stories of Brendan conquering the last of the pagan Gods, Crom Dubh. On the way up the mountain choughs and ravens ... Binn na Port, at 2,700 feet, the highest fort in Ireland, and Airplane Valley with the remains of six planes that crashed here during World War 11. The scientific study of geology began here.

An early name for Mount Brandon was Sliabh Deidche /Mountain of the Good God. Over 20,000 people came on pilgrimage here in 1868. Over the centuries pilgrims travelled to the top of the mountain by land and sea finally journeying to the foot of Brandon along Cosan na Naomh/The Saint's Path by the richest concentration of early Christian remains in Ireland.

Stories of the pre-Christian Irish celts are full of wooings and elopements and otherworldly houses with thrice nine maidens and thrice nine beds. Soon after conversion to Christianity women seem almost to disappear from Irish storytelling.

Brendan also established foundations in Ardfert and many other locations in Ireland and all over Scotland. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona, in his biography of Colmcille in 697, described Brendan as 'the greatest founder of monasteries of them all'. It is said there were over 3,000 monks in houses he had established by the time of his death. From Cathair Airde – the home of Brendan's foster father – we looked down over Kerry Head, Banna, Barrow, Fenit, Tralee Bay and the Slieve Mish Mountains. The pelican on the back window of the church in nearby Churchill is piercing its chest with its beak to feed its young with its own blood - an analogy for Christ caring for all people. Brendan's greatest Kerry foundation was at Ardfert where the 12th century cathedral has now been magnificently restored. The account of Brendan's huge Atlantic voyage is, according to Brendan scholar Fr Gearoid O Donnchadha, "an exploration in poetic, imaginative and artistic form of the fundamental questions of life .. of a loving God who had forgiveness even for Judas". Brendan journeyed to Britain and Brittany and was a friend of the three great saints of Wales – David, Cados and Gildas. He taught St Malo, patron of Brittany.

When Brendan was baptised - at Tobar na Molt/Weathers' Well outside Ardfert - three weathers (castrated rams) appeared out of the waters of the well and from the heavens there came a bright drop - braon fhion / a bright drop - which gave the saint his name. Here at Wethers' Well pieces of personal clothing were tied to tree and shrub by pilgrims who believed as these melted away in wind and rain their afflictions would also be cured. Following his people's expulsion from Kerry, Brendan followed them to Connaught where he established many more monasteries. Clonfert became one of the great schools of Ireland. The last of the seven sites in the Fenit/Ardfert area along Sli Bhreanainn/The Brendan Way is Tearmon Erc where mounds of earth are all that now remain of Kerry's first cathedral presided over by Brendan's mentor St Erc, the first Bishop of Kerry. Before he was baptised by St Patrick Erc had been a druid who were skilled mathematicians and navigators. Brendan had a lifelong friendship with some of the greatest Irish saints – Colmcille, Brendan of Birr, Kieran of Clonmacnoise, Kieran of Saighir, Ruadhan of Lorrha, Canice of Aghadoe and Kilkenny, Comgall of Bangor, Cormac of Durrow All of the 20 great schools of Ireland – that gave this country its reputation as the Island of Saints and Scholars - were founded during the 200 years that straddled Brendan's 93 year life. ------------------- We are only beginning to understand the true significance of Brendan. Through research, technology, discussion and developing a deeper understanding we will get a much more accurate feel for the significance of the people of Brendan's time. This will show that Brendan was the greatest Kerryman, the greatest Irishman, of all times. Bibliography: St. Brendan of Kerry, the Navigator: His Life & Voyages by Gearoid O Donnchadha; The Voyage of St. Brendan by J.J. O'Meara; Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland's Holy Mountain by Chet Raymo; The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin. – Frank Lewis