ABSTRACT

This essay intends to reflect upon the Irish higher form of peregrinatio, the peregrinatio pro amore Christo, among the monks of Celtic or Insular Christianity between the 5th and 10th centuries to understand its extreme significance in Irish culture. We will discuss: 1) its paramount role in the maintenance of Christian faith in Western civilization during the barbaric invasions of the 4th century and the Viking attacks to the English territory between the 8th and the 10th centuries; 2) how it found a compelling evocation in the medieval Irish voyage tales known as immrama and echtrai; 3) the relationship between the Irish immrama, particularly Immram Brain, and the Nauigatio Brendani, one of the most one of the most influential narratives in medieval Europe; 4) its contribution to the understanding of the sea among the Irish in the Middle Ages as a path to repentance, a space of penitence and redemption, in consonance with its conception in the medieval Irish tales of Celtic mythology where it is depicted as the abode of the gods and the location of the Blessed Islands of the Otherworld; 5) its connotation as a voluntary form of exile from which derived a whole tradition of exile both in Irish literature and in Ireland’s cultural history.