Picture me in 1983, 1984. Age 18 or 19. (Frightened yet?) My hair is darker. I am even skinnier than I am now. I am even geekier than I am now. Otherwise it is me. And I have come across a book called "The Brendan Voyage" by Tim Severin. In this book, a factual account, Tim builds a 7th century Irish leather (yes, leather) boat to original specifications and sails it to Newfoundland to prove that an Irish monk named St Brendan could have crossed the Atlantic before the vikings. This book has come along at exactly the right time. It, and others like it such as Michel Peissel's "Mustang, A Lost Tibetan Kingdom", Redmond O'Hanlon's "In Trouble Again" and many more are a lit match and a bucket of kerosene to the tinder of my imagination. Much of what I have dreamed, planned and done since can be explained when you see this 18 of 19 year old reading these books.
Thirty odd years later, in part by design and in part by coincidence, I am writing this in sight of the pub where Tim Severin tracked down the last of the old Dingle boat builders who still had the skills to help him. And, for first time since 1983 or 84, I am rereading "The Brendan Voyage". It feels different now, but not that much. People don't change that much.
Ireland photos will all come in one or more big dumps from London in the next few days. In Brendan's day this part of Ireland was very remote and difficult to communicate from. Some things have not changed much.
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