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Who discovered America? The Irish!

“Skellig Monks,” sculpture also known as the St. Brendan’s Voyage, located east of the town of Caherciveen, County Kerry, Ireland.

By Patte O’Smith

Sure tis true that a monk, St. Brendan, and a seafaring Irishman from County Kerry set out in the sixth century with some fellow monks on a seven-year voyage to find the Isle of the Blessed, in other words the Promised Land.

Brendan built a coracle of wattle, covered it with hides tanned in oak bark softened with butter, set up a mast and a sail, and after a prayer upon the shore, embarked on his journey. Yes, he built a boat.

Lest ye think this a far-fetched fable, which the Irish have a few, the Vikings even agree. Why in the Icelandic sagas of Eric the Red and Leif Ericsson, who some believe discovered America, the Irish did appear in the sagas and each time they were mentioned to be in the New World.

The captured natives told of people, clothed in white, parading around with poles adorned in cloth … an Irish procession to be sure. Another Norse saga even mentions the natives speaking the Gaelic.

Now stop the lights ye sais, “really?” Why a learned scholar and marine biologist from Harvard, Dr. Barry Fell, discovered some petroglyphs in West Virginia in 1983. Fell concluded that the writing was Ogam script, an early Irish alphabet used between the sixth to eight centuries. And, don’t cha know that the message in the rock described the Christian nativity.

So there ye have it. Ask any Irishman the next time ye wander into an Irish pub in the glorious country of Eire, about this bit of lore. Make sure ye pockets are full of coin, for it’s certain after a few pints ye’ll get the true tale. And, don’t cha know, that the Irish have no idea how to make a long story short. 

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