Brendan of Clonfert

Saint Brendan the Navigator
Saint Brendan and the whale from a 15th-century manuscript
Abbot
Born	c. 484 Ciarraighe Luachra near Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland
Died	c. 577 Annaghdown, County Galway, Ireland
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion Eastern Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Clonfert
Feast	16 May
Attributes	whale; priest celebrating Mass on board ship while fish gather to listen; one of a group of monks in a small boat
Patronage	boatmen; divers; mariners; sailors; travellers; whales; diocese of Clonfert; diocese of Kerry

Saint Brendan of Clonfert (c. 484 – c. 577) (Irish: Naomh Bréanainn; Latin: Brendanus; Icelandic: (heilagur) Brandanus), also referred to as Brendan moccu Altae, called "the Navigator", "the Voyager", "the Anchorite", or "the Bold", is one of the early Irish monastic saints. He is chiefly renowned for his legendary quest to the "Isle of the Blessed," also called Saint Brendan's Island. The Voyage of Saint Brendan could be called an immram (Irish navigational story). He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.

Saint Brendan's feast day is celebrated on 16 May by the Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians.

There is very little secure information concerning Brendan's life, although at least the approximate dates of his birth and death, and accounts of some events in his life, are found in the Irish annals and genealogies. The first mention of Brendan occurs in Adamnan's Vita Sancti Columbae, written between 679 and 704. The first notice of him as a seafarer appears in the ninth-century Martyrology of Tallaght.

The principal works devoted to the saint and his legend are a 'Life of Brendan' in several Latin and Irish versions (Vita Brendani / Betha Brenainn) and the better known 'Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot' (Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis). Unfortunately, the Lives and the Voyage provide little reliable information about his life and travels; they do, however, attest to the development of his following in the centuries after his death. An additional problem is that the precise relationship between the Vita and the Navigatio traditions is uncertain.

Just when the Vita tradition began is uncertain. The surviving copies date no earlier than the end of the twelfth century, but scholars suggest that a version of the Life was composed before the year 1000. The Navigatio was probably written earlier than the Vita, perhaps in the second half of the eighth century. St Aengus the Culdee, in his Litany composed at the close of the eighth century, invokes "the sixty who accompanied St. Brendan in his quest for the Land of Promise".