Stories are heritage "software"!

Immrama - Heritage is not necessarily always "hardware"!

Stories are heritage "software"!

Take, for example the Immram, a class of Old Irish tales concerning a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld. 

The Immrama are identifiable by their focus on the exploits of the heroes during their search for the Otherworld, located in these cases in the islands far to the west of Ireland. The hero sets out on his voyage for the sake of adventure or to fulfill his destiny, and generally stops on other fantastic islands before reaching his destination. He may or may not be able to return home again.

Fact and fiction merge with the legend of St Brendan the navigator, who was probably born north west of the village on Fenit Island in close proximity to what is now Fenit harbour around 484, where there is a bronze monument and a view over Brandon Bay looking out to Mount Brandon on the Dingle peninsula.

Some places and things referenced in the immrama and the Brendan tale have been associated with real islands and real things. He built a currach-like boat of wattle, covered it with hides tanned in oak bark softened with butter, set up a mast and a sail. He and a small group of monks fasted for forty days, and after a prayer upon the shore, embarked in the name of the Trinity. The account is characterized by a great deal of literary license and contains references to hell where “great demons threw down lumps of fiery slag from an island with rivers of gold fire” and “great crystal pillars.” Many now believe these to be references to the volcanic activity around Iceland, and to icebergs.


The story may or may not be about real things, but the story itself is heritage, a product of culture, and a picturing of the world, real and/or imaginary.

Michael Pye, in his book The Edge of the World - How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are, says of these stories:

The Irish told extraordinary holy tales about sea voyages, called immrama, which means 'rowing about'; they told how hermits took to the sea because they wanted to settle somewhere far away and entirely peaceful. Saints sailed off to find the promised land to the west, the islands of the blessed.

These fables are full of wonders, but also very practical advice. In the eighth-century Voyage of St. Brendan, a holy saga about going to heaven and the gates of hell, there are also instructions on how to make a boat for such a voyage, a coracle built of oxhide and oak bark on a wooden frame and then greased with animal fat. We are told that the Saint and his fellow voyagers took along some spare skins and extra fat. 

The sea was there to be used, even if it took a saint to make the attempt, and although some of the marvels are doubtful - like being stranded for months each year on the back of a highly complaisant whale - some of the ones that seem most fanciful are teasingly likely.

Stories told are "software" plus information, free and available at the point of need and of use, through the telling, and the listening, and which does of course take time, but time is not always necessarily "money"!

Journeys are a part of our mental life as well as happening in the space/time of our experienced world. Stories can be about realities even when they are fantastic. This brings us back to Gaeltacht, the Irish language, and all languages, and how the information we create about, and from, our knowledge of ourselves and our world is communicated in space/time through culture(s). Texts and spoken word, intertextuality, and fake news, is all, in some sense, about the perceptions we have and are making about ourselves and our world.

The Immram is NOT fake news?

These Immrama were written in the Christian era and were first recorded as early as the 7th century by monks and scholars who had fled Continental Europe as a result of the barbarian invasions of the fifth century. These monks carried the learning of Western Europe and became the vanguard of the Christianizing of Europe. On this account it is expected that Immram have their origins in pre-existing Christian voyage literature, pre-existing Celtic legends, or classical stories the monks would have known. Essentially Christian in aspect, they preserve elements of Irish mythology.

What intrigues here is how there is a clear use value in the search for the Otherworld. The "other" world functions as a counter environment, or an anti-environment to the world we inhabit and sometimes choose to explore. The other world helps us "see" this world!

Fact and fiction merge with the legend of St Brendan the navigator, who was probably born north west of the village on Fenit Island in close proximity to what is now Fenit harbour around 484, where there is a bronze monument and a view over Brandon Bay looking out to Mount Brandon on the Dingle peninsula.

As mentioned above, the early Irish, particularly monks, were certainly far travelled, reaching the Orkney, Shetland, Faroe Islands at an early date and perhaps even reaching Iceland. Some places and things referenced in the immrama and the Brendan tale have been associated with real islands and real things.

The earliest extant version of The Voyage of Saint Brendan was recorded around AD 900. There are over 100 manuscripts of the story across Europe, as well as many additional translations. The Voyage of Saint Brendan is an overtly Christian narrative, but also contains narratives of natural phenomena and fantastical events and places, which appealed to a broad populace. The Voyage of Saint Brendan contains many parallels and inter-textual references to the Voyage of Bran and the Voyage of Máel Dúin.

On the Kerry coast, he built a currach-like boat of wattle, covered it with hides tanned in oak bark softened with butter, set up a mast and a sail. He and a small group of monks fasted for forty days, and after a prayer upon the shore, embarked in the name of the Trinity. The account is characterized by a great deal of literary license and contains references to hell where “great demons threw down lumps of fiery slag from an island with rivers of gold fire” and “great crystal pillars.” Many now believe these to be references to the volcanic activity around Iceland, and to icebergs.

A synopsis of the Voyage

Saint Barrid tells of his visit to the Island of Paradise, which prompts Brendan to go in search of the isle.
Brendan assembles 14 monks to accompany him.
They fast at three-day intervals for 40 days, and visit Saint Enda for three days and three nights.
Three latecomers join the group. They interfere with Brendan's sacred numbers.
They find an island with a dog, mysterious hospitality (no people, but food left out), and an Ethiopian devil.
One latecomer admits to having stolen from the mysterious island, Brendan exorcises the Ethiopian devil from the latecomer, latecomer dies and is buried.
They find an island with a boy who brings them bread and water.
They find an island of sheep, eat some, and stay for Holy Week (before Easter).
They find the island of Jasconius, have Easter Mass, and hunt whales and fish.
They find an island that is the Paradise of Birds, and the birds sing psalms and praise the Lord.
They find the island of the monks of Ailbe, with magic loaves, no ageing, and complete silence. They celebrate Christmas.
A long voyage after Lent. They find an island with a well, and drinking the water puts them to sleep for 1, 2, or 3 days based on the number of cups each man drank.
They find a "coagulated" sea.
They return to the islands of Sheep, Jasconius, and the Paradise of Birds. A bird prophesies that the men must continue this year-long cycle for seven years before they will be holy enough to reach the Island of Paradise.
A sea creature approaches the boat, but God shifts the sea to protect the men. Another sea creature comes, chops the first into three pieces, and leaves. The men eat the dead sea creature.
They find an island of 3 choirs of anchorites (monks), who give them fruit, and the second latecomer stays behind when the others leave.
They find an island of grapes, and stayed for 40 days.
They find a gryphon and a bird battle. The gryphon dies.
To the monastery at Ailbe again for Christmas.
The sea is clear, and many threatening fish circle their boat, but God protects them.
They find an island, but when they light a fire, the island sinks; it is actually a whale.
They pass a "silver pillar wrapped in a net" in the sea.
They pass an island of blacksmiths, who throw slag at them.
They find a volcano, and the third latecomer is taken by demons down to Hell.
They find Judas sitting unhappily on a cold, wet rock in the middle of the sea, and discover that this is his respite from Hell for Sundays and feast days. Brendan protects Judas from the demons of Hell for one night.
They find an island where Paul the Hermit has lived a perfect monastic life for 60 years. He wears nothing but hair and is fed by an otter.
They return to the island of Sheep, Jasconius, and the Paradise of Birds.
They find the Promised Land of the Saints.
They return home, and Brendan dies.

The story may or may not be about real things, but the story itself is heritage, a product of culture, and a picturing of the world, real and/or imaginary.

Testing out the potential knowledge within stories, myths and legends has been a developing methodology in archaeology since Heinrich Schliemann went searching for Troy. He was an advocate of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeological excavator of Hissarlik, now presumed to be the site of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. His work lent weight to the idea that Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid reflect historical events. His methods were by the standards of modern archaeology very destructive as well as groundbreaking.

More recent developments in archaeology include a more experimental approach on what is now termed experimental archaeology.


Tim Severin, the British explorer, historian and writer, is noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. In 1976, convinced that the legend of St Brendan was based in historical truth, Severin built a replica of Brendan's currach. Handcrafted using traditional tools, the 36-foot (11 m), two masted boat was built of Irish ash and oak, hand-lashed together with nearly two miles (3 km) of leather thong, wrapped with 49 traditionally tanned ox hides, and sealed with wool grease.

Between May 1976 and June 1977, Severin and his crew sailed the Brendan 4,500 miles (7,200 km) from Ireland to Peckford Island, Newfoundland, stopping at the Hebrides and Iceland en route.

He considered that his recreation of the voyage helped to identify the bases for many of the legendary elements of the story: the "Island of Sheep", the "Paradise of Birds", "pillars of crystal", "mountains that hurled rocks at voyagers", and the "Promised Land".