MAGAN'S WORLD: Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict
ST BRENDAN the Navigator is Ireland’s pre-eminent expeditionist and, as such, is guaranteed a seat at my fantasy dinner party, along with Yeats, the Buddha and Claire Danes.
I've been a fan ever since the miserable morning in 1977 when, aged seven, I watched the British explorer Tim Severin sail out of Brandon Creek in a leather-and-wood currach to replicate Brendan's sixth-century journey across the Atlantic. That winter I followed his radio reports in the mornings before school, and a year later I stood again in the rain, outside Eason on O'Connell Street in Dublin, to get Severin to sign his book about the journey, The Brendan Voyage.
A decade later Shaun Davey’s orchestral suite for uilleann pipe based on the journeys of both St Brendan and Tim Severin was the only cassette I brought with me on a six-month trip across Africa. Its haunting and ebullient airs were played at full volume from the Sahara to the Congo and the great Masai plains. I wanted to have St Brendan close by on my own maiden voyage.
I was thrilled to learn that this weekend’s Féile na Bealtaine, in Dingle, is celebrating the saint, with a full performance of Davey’s composition by Liam O’Flynn and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra tomorrow, and a symposium on him on Monday, looking at how he inspired many of the explorers who went out to discover the New World.
I wonder if they will explore the evidence that emerged in the 1980s that Irish monks reached America in the sixth century. St Brendan's account of his journey, the Navigatio Brendani, was considered to be largely fantasy, a pious medieval saga, until Severin built a replica of Brendan's flimsy leather boat and proved, in 1977, that the journey could be done. He corroborated many of the geographical and metrological observations in the tract, albeit in exaggerated form. St Brendan's reference to monstrous volcanic eruptions in Iceland seems especially convincing now.
Yet there was no physical proof that the Irish had reached America before Columbus until an archaeologist noticed some ogham-like rock carvings in West Virginia in 1982. He consulted an expert on ancient languages, a former professor (of marine biology) at Harvard who believed the markings were Christian messages from early Irish missionaries. He claimed that a crudely etched sun symbol marked a point where the winter-solstice sunrise could be observed; using unorthodox methods to decipher the ogham, he extracted the following sentence from the petroglyph: “At the time of sunrise, a ray grazes the notch on the left side, on Christmas Day, a Feast-day of the Church.”
Sure enough, the following year the rising sun beamed through a three-sided notch formed by overhanging rock and struck the symbol of the sun on the petroglyphs. It was the beginning of a frenetic time for Irish-Americans seeking to substantiate their claim of being the first Europeans on what the Native Americans termed Turtle Island.
Unfortunately, their excitement waned as experts rejected the findings. The New York Timeswas especially scathing, describing similar findings by the marine biologist as "ignorant rubbish" reflecting a "set attitude of mind" that is "almost indistinguishable from a delusion".
Not to worry. In our hearts we know Brendan reached America. The proof will surely follow. In the meantime, if you haven't read Severin's account of his journey, do so – and if you can make it to the Brendan Voyageconcert in Dingle tomorrow, you will not be disappointed.
- manchan@ireland.com