Editor's Corner: Saint Brendan the Navigator

Saint Brendan (+577) the sixth century Irish monk, called the ‘Navigator’, is reputed to have discovered Canada a full millennium before the Italian John Cabot – Giovanni Caboto – arrival on the shore of the Gaspé in 1497. In his semi-mythical recounting, the immram (‘narration’) known as Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (the Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot), our saint and sixteen of his fellow monks embarked on a seven year trans-Atlantic voyage in a boat made of animal-hides.