Saints Begora!

A couple of years ago John J. Miller made the case that Americans should honor a different Irish saint:

This time next week, many Americans will wake up wondering why they had partied so hard the night before. A better question might be why they honor St. Patrick at all, because he is not the most fitting patron saint for Irish America.

The problem isn't that Patrick is objectionable in any way. As the man who brought Christianity to Ireland, he is obviously a figure of enormous significance. Yet there is nothing distinctively American about him--and Irish-Americans have a better choice in St. Brendan.

In the year 486, about a generation after Patrick's death, Brendan was born near Tralee, on the southwest coast of Ireland. Few hard facts are known about his life except that he founded a monastery at Clonfert and established several other enclaves around the British Isles--making him one of the fellows who laid the groundwork for Irish monks to "save civilization," as Thomas Cahill's best-selling account has it, when the rest of Europe was losing its heritage.

But that's not what makes Brendan special for Irish-Americans. His connection to them comes from the legends surrounding his other feats, which became popular tales in the Middle Ages. "The Voyage of St. Brendan" describes our hero leading a group of monks on a seven-year quest in search of a promised land that supposedly lay across the vast western sea.

The story features plenty of fantastic elements, such as fire-breathing sea monsters, an encounter with Judas Iscariot and a friendly whale who lets the pilgrims hold a Mass on his back at Easter. Several literary types have labeled the "Voyage" a Christian version of the "Odyssey," and it certainly includes adventures rivaling those in Homer's classic.

If you have a chance, why not hoist one for Saint Brendan tonight?