This Brendan is known as ‘Brendan the Navigator’. He was born in Tralee, Co.Kerry and was educated by the bishop of Kerry who baptised and ordained him. He became a monk and later an abbot and founded several monasteries in the west of Ireland. His name is commemorated in Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula, the most westerly point of Europe.

He made many travels by boat, his most famous was when he collected fourteen monks and set sail in a wooden boat across the Atlantic Ocean. They eventually find the land of promise in the far west. There has been many theories as whether he reached America. There is a St. Brendan Society that celebrates the belief that Brendan was the first to discover America. Some have alleged that Christopher Columbus relied on the manuscript “Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis” that told of St. Brendan’s travels across the Atlantic.