In Ireland he did a good deal of work, but Ita urged him to try and do good elsewhere, and he went over with some of his friends to Britain, possibly in connection with movements affected by the career of the historic Arthur, who was killed at Camlan or Camelon in 537.  The Christian Irish at that time certainly made endeavours to assist the Christian party among the Britons.  The nun Edana was making her attempts, either in person or by her disciples, to found her girls’ schools in the south of Scotland, and it is not impossible that Ita thought that she might also accomplish some good by sending forth a male emissary.  In connection with Brendan’s sojourn in Britain, there is a most curious mention of the use of a Greek Liturgy somewhere in the British Church.  There is a statement that Brendan was at the head of the celebrated Welsh monastery of Llancarfan.  He also went over to Brittany to see Gildas the Wise, who was bewailing the woes of his native land on the shores of the Morbihan.  He ultimately returned to the Western Islands, and there succeeded at last in founding two monastic settlements, one in Tiree, at a place which the writers call Bledua, and one in an island called Ailech, which it seems to me may possibly mean Islay.  Then he went back to Ireland, and started another monastery in a desert island in Loch Oisbsen, which was given to him by Aedh, the son of Ethdach.  Hence, however, he again moved in 559, and founded the great monastery of Clonfert, an act which is the principal achievement of his life.

He was friendly with the principal persons of his own race, time, and class.  He seems, as I have said, to have possessed the peculiar temperament, which some call sensitive and others mediumistic, and which leads to the phenomenon generally known as second-sight, for, putting aside all other records about him which point in the same direction, it is recorded of him, not only by Adamnan, but also by Cuimine the Fair, that on one occasion when he came over, along with Comgall of Benchor, Kenneth of Aghaboe, and Cormac o’ Leathain of Durrow, to visit Columba, who was then staying in Himba (Eilean na Naoimh, one of the Garveloch islands, lying between Scarba and Mull), and Columba at their request celebrated before them on the Sunday, he afterwards told Comgall and Kenneth that during part of the ceremony Columba had seemed to him to be standing at the bottom of a pillar of fire streaming heavenwards.

He lived to an extreme old age, and was in his 96th year when the end came.  When he felt that it was at hand, he went to see his sister Briga, and I quote the sentences which follow, on account of the quaint naturalism which inspires them.  ’Among other things, he taught her concerning the place of her resurrection.  “Not here,” saith he unto her, “shalt thou rise again, but in thine own land, that is in Tralee.  Therefore, go thou thither, for that people will obtain the mercy of God by thy means.  This is a place of men,