On, Voyager

According to "The Voyage of St. Brendan," Brendan burned a book containing stories about the wonders of God's creation out of disbelief. For this reason he is sent on a voyage so as to see with his own eyes certain divine manifestations which earlier he had refused to credit. In this way he is to recover the book by refilling it with the wonders which he witnesses on his voyage. The majority of the phenomena which he comes across are related to man's actions and behaviour in this life and the circumstances consequent upon them in the Afterlife. Brendan encounters souls in hell, heaven and paradise. The astonishing and sometimes frightening experiences restore his belief.

-- Clara Strijbosch, "The Heathen Giant in the Voyage of St. Brendan"
(School of Celtic Studies DIAS 1999, p. 369)

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If ... exile in foreign lands ("peregrinatio") was 'second nature' for the Irish, the voyage tales are the powerful literary evocation of exile. The "immrama" (literally, "rowings about") were envisaged as a distinct genre in literature in the early Irish language. What distinguishes the "immrama" in structural terms is their leitmotiv of the sea voyage, acting as a framing concept for a voyage which takes in encounters on a number of islands in the ocean. "Eremium (or "desertum") in oceano quaerere" is the phrase frequently appearing in saints' lives to indicate the pious adventure undertaken.

- Jonathan M. Wooding, "The Otherworld Voyage in Early Irish Literature"