Nor ever sighed for land beyond the Sun.”
It has been recently pointed out by a writer on the subject that the ancient Irish would have turned the discoveries of St. Brendan to good account, and would have kept up communication with America, if their attention had not been drawn to the severe combat carried on in England between the Britons and the Saxons. Then, at a later period, the Danes invaded Ireland, and for almost 300 years the Irish at home were engaged in continuous warfare against those Pagan marauders, and consequently were in no position to carry out any great peaceful enterprise in distant lands.
In the year 553, St. Brendan founded the famous monastery of Clonfert, in the County Galway, Ireland. In after years that seat of learning had over 3,000 students within its walls, most of whom came from foreign countries. They were educated and entertained without fee or reward, and the same was true of all the other great schools and colleges during the Golden Age of Ireland, which embraced the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries. History tells us that Ireland was then “the school of the West, and the quiet habitation of sanctity and learning.”
During that age, “the monasteries at Bangor, Clonfert and elsewhere,” says Montalembert in his “Monks of the West,” “became entire towns, each of which enclosed more than 3,000 students. The Thebiad reappeared in Ireland, and the West had no longer anything to envy in the history of the East. There was besides an intellectual development, which the Eremites of Egypt had not known. The Irish communities joined by the monks from Gaul and Rome, whom the example of St. Patrick had drawn upon his steps, entered into rivalry with the great monastic schools of Gaul. They explained Ovid there; they copied Virgil, they devoted themselves especially to Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, no discussion; they gloried in placing boldness on a level with faith.”
Religion and education went hand in hand in ancient Ireland from the birth of St. Brendan in 484 to the Danish invasion, which took place in the closing years of the eighth century. In that period Ireland was the most learned country in all Europe. The fame of her schools had travelled far and wide. The languages of Greece and Rome, as well as her old Gaelic tongue, were studied and mastered, and thousands of pilgrim students came to her shores, among them were Alfrid, King of Northumbria, and Dagobert II., King of France.
Love of learning has been an Irish attribute from time immemorial; no mind, not even the Athenian, had ever a greater thirst for knowledge than the Irish mind. Ossian, who lived in the third century of the Christian Era, is to Gaelic literature what Homer is to Greek literature. Intellectual vigor, spiritual fervor and love for travel have been and still are the predominant characteristics of the Irish. Wherever the Irish monks went they founded monasteries, churches and colleges, and laid the foundation for modern civilization and culture. The truest history of Ireland is to be found in the poetry of her bards and in the writings of her exiled monks. For proof see Zimmer’s “Irish Element in Medieval Culture” and Hyde’s “Literary History of Ireland.”
St. Columkill, a contemporary of St. Brendan, has been called the father of monasticism in the British Isles. He and Columbanus are acknowledged to be the two most learned men of their age. It is a well established fact that St. Brendan visited his countryman, Columkill, at his monastery at Iona on the west coast of Scotland in 564. On that occasion he founded two monasteries in Scotland. He also travelled in Wales and England, where he founded some churches and schools and converted thousands to the Christian faith. He built the Monastery of Ailech in Britain, which is now called St. Malo. That was several years before St. Augustine landed on British soil. So we see that Lecky was justified in stating that “England owes a great deal of her Christianity to Irish monks, who labored among her people before the arrival of Augustine.”
Most of the history which has been written during the past four centuries has been a conspiracy against truth, but in these opening years of the twentieth century history is being rewritten in the light of historical research, and in keeping with the spirit of truth and justice. The late Lord Acton was the pioneer, and his example is being followed by some of the great scholars of Germany and other European countries, which may throw a flood of light on the chronicles and traditions of St. Brendan, as well as on the golden Age of Hibernia.
St. Brendan attended the inauguration of Aedh Caemh (anglicized Hugh Keeffe), the first Christian King of Cashel in Tipperary in 570, when he took the place of the official bard, who was a Pagan. On that occasion he converted the bard to Christianity and gave him the name of Colman, now known as St. Colman of Cloyne, in whose honor St. Colman’s College at Fermoy was named.
According to Ussher, St. Brendan died at Annadown in 577, in the 94th year of his age, and was buried in his own monastery at Clonfert. His day on the calendar is May 16—a day forever sacred to the memory of Hibernia’s greatest navigator. No complete compilation of biographical work fails to mention the name of St. Brendan, who is preëminently the mariner saint of the calendar.