“Brendan the Navigator

A few non-miraculous events happened to bring this piece into being. One was that I had four boxwood acrobats made for a previous job but which turned out to be much too small for that purpose. Secondly, I noticed that a wholesaler of watch and clock materials sold glass domes for a reasonable price. I bought four of them. Thirdly I kept coming across pictures of the ‘Broighter Boat’, one of the best-loved exhibits in the National Museum of Ireland. It’s a little boat, about seven inches long, made of gold about two thousand years ago.

There is a miraculous aspect to this: St Brendan of Clonfert, of one of the better known of the hundreds of Irish saints, was said to have piloted a boat containing between fourteen and sixty monks plus three unbelievers to a number of wonderful islands, one of which turned out to be an enormous sea monster. The boat might have been a currach, a boat made from animal skins stretched over a wicker frame. I assumed it was of a similar shape to the Broighter Boat. The voyage took seven years. The unbelievers didn’t make it back to Ireland so the accounts may be tainted by magical thinking. I’ve avoided controversy regarding the number of passengers in the boat by showing St. Brendan as a solo voyager. An unlikelihood I will risk advancing is that during the voyage he saw acrobats tumbling in the sky above him.

I made two of these St. Brendans. I’m thinking of what to put under the two remaining domes. Maybe a vision of Hell.

Technical Note: The sea that the boat rides on is driven from below by a swash plate; a useful mechanism that produces the rocking, undulating motion. It consists of a rotating disc set at a shallow angle to its vertical axis. The post that supports the acrobats fits into a notch in the sea’s disc, preventing it from turning with the swash plate but following its up and down motion. A magnet on the swash plate repels a smaller magnet attached Brendan’s feet as it passes under the boat causing him to lean back and perform an approximation of the action of rowing.” P. Spooner 2026

Date: 17th June 2026

Edition of 2

Height: 12 cm
Width: 16 cm
Depth: 24 cm

Construction Note: St. Brendan and his boat will travel in his own box. You will need to place the boat on the central disc below the acrobats and make sure his arms are forward. Then open the glass dome box and place it over the saint and the acrobats.