Greatest of Missionaries

We are inclined to think that the spin-doctor is a modern invention. That is well off the mark. Propaganda and distortion of fact have been features of civil and ecclesiastical life throughout history. Saint Brendan Mac Finlog of Fenit is a good example. How little is heard of him nowadays! Patrick and Colmcille occupy the first rank of Irish saints while Brendan is scarcely honoured in his own home place and Diocese.

The politics of the Irish church from the beginning were a contest for power and for revenue between two Ulster septs of the Ui Neill, the Cenél Conaill of Derry and Donegal and the Cenél nEogain of Tyrone/Armagh. The one promoted Colmcille, the other Patrick. The Familia of Colmcille controlled Iona, Derry, Raphoe, Durrow, Lambay and Kells whose abbots were, by and large, of the Cenél Conail. With the help of their allies, the familia Colmcille held power until a change of Ui Neill dynasty in 797 brought Armagh into power with the accession of Áed Oirdnide of the Cenél nEogain. This dynastic change is, of course, allied with the first Viking attacks on Iona in 795 and the killing of 68 Iona monks in 806. Patrick's claims were advanced through the authors of the Book of Armagh, which was compiled by Ferdomnach in 807, and the work of two biographers of the middle seventh century, Tirechán and Muirchú who wrote Palladius out of history and changed Patrick's times to give him a ministry of 432 to 461. In fact, Patrick probably arrived in 461 and died in 491. After 800 it was no contest, with Armagh winning the battle of propaganda and power. Indeed the struggle for hegemony between the northern churches is marked by the proclamation of the Cáin (tax or law) Adamnáin in 697, the Cáin Colmcille in 778 and the Cáin Pátraic in 783 when the "relics" of the apostles that Patrick had supposedly brought to Armagh were paraded throughout Ireland to enhance the claims of Armagh.

Meanwhile Brendan, whose familia had little political ability or interest, lost out in the propaganda war though Brendan's fame as a traveler survived well into the middle ages. It must be remembered that Brendan was the oldest and most active of the post-patrician saints. His travel and foundations beggar belief. In 520, in his middle thirties, Brendan had traveled widely throughout Ireland and had visited Enda in Aran, Jarlath in Tuam and Finnian in Clonard. He then founded Ardfert and Kilfenora, near Fenit and, with his followers, several places around Kerry, from Corca Dhuibhne to the Glen in Uibh Rathach. Next he founded Inisdadrom where the Fergus meets the Shannon. Then he became the "Apostle of the Orkneys and the Scottish Islands" twenty years before Colmcille arrived there. (He is so-called by David Camerarius in the Calendar he wrote for Charles 1 in 1631; Adamnan, the relative and biographer of Colmcille, says of him "Brendan was the greatest founder of monasteries of them all") He is remembered and commemorated in Kilbrennan, Bute, Tiree and St, Kilda in Scotland. He went to Wales and worked with the great Welsh saints David, Gildas and Cadoc. He took with him Macutus, a Welshman better known as St. Malo, and they made foundations in St. Malo in France and elsewhere.

Brendan followed his people the Altraighe and the Ciarraighe when they were forced to leave their homes under Coirbri MacConuire and settle in Galway and Roscommon. Here Brendan founded Clonfert, Inish Glora off Erris Co. Mayo, Inisnee off Roundstone, Inisquin in Lough Corrib and Eanachduin nearby to the south. Here he put his sister Brega in charge and here he died. He is buried in Clonfert, Co. Galway. He spent much of his life visiting his many foundations. It is hard to imagine how many miles of land , river and ocean he traveled in the process.