Fr Alan Hilliard

I wonder is it a mortal or a venial sin of sorts for a Dublin man to adopt a Kerry man as his patron and to a certain degree his inspiration.

But this Dublin man didn't really stand a chance.

The housing estate I moved into in Dublin as a child all those years ago was called St Brendan's estate.

The parish church was called St Brendan's.

And from the front window of my new home, I could see what I was told was St Brendan's Well.

The well was marked by a hawthorn tree and seemed to have little purpose.

Well, there was more water in the lick of a stamp than there was in that well.

Legend told us that the saint passed through the area on his way somewhere, maybe to the 6th century equivalent of an All-Ireland.

I became familiar with the story of Brendan.

Why wouldn't I?

For many a teacher in those large primary school classrooms with 50 pupils, the story of Brendan was full of adventure and intrigue.

It was a story pulled out of a drawer on a Friday afternoon to capture the imagination of pupils who were tired and easily distracted.

Of course, it goes without saying that the story was told with more frequency if the teacher was from the kingdom.

According to the 1,200-year-old document telling of the voyage of St Brendan the Abbot, the saint journeyed across the Atlantic with his crew and was the first European to set foot on the land we now refer to as Canada.

Of course, we were led to believe that it couldn't be true.

How could anyone sit into a boat, powered by sail, made of wattle, animal skins and pitch, and make it across that large expanse of water?

It was too much, even for a carryman.

This all changed in 1976 when the explorer Tim Severin set out from Ventry Harbour.

Using the details in the writings, he fashioned a boat similar to the one made by the saint and headed off into the Atlantic in May 1976 and word came back in June 1977 that he had made it to Newfoundland.

This changed everything for me.