Editing Mount Brandon (section)

==Naming==

[[File:Saint brendan german manuscript.jpg|thumb|Voyage of St. Brendan.]]

The mountain is called Brandon Mountain, Mount Brandon and Brandon on various maps.<ref name="peak"/>

Brandon takes its name from [[Brendan the Navigator|Saint Brendan]] the Navigator, or ''Bréanainn'', who is said to have been born in what is now County Kerry in 484 AD, and is chiefly known for his legendary voyage in a boat of wood and leather to discover the "Isle of the Blessed", also called [[Saint Brendan's Island]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Scheper-Hughes|first=Nancy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6kHMqTWylTQC&q=Mount+Brandon&pg=PA25|title=Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland|date=1979|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-04786-0|language=en}}</ref> In the story of Brendan's life (titled, the ''Beatha Bhréanainn'', or the Latin version, the ''Vita Brendani''), he spent three days fasting on the mountain before his voyage, was visited by an angel, and experienced a vision of "a great land to the west";<ref name=PIL>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YVYkrNhPMQkC&pg=PA412 | title=Pilgrimage: From the Ganges to Graceland: An Encyclopedia | isbn=978-1576070048 | date=November 2002 | page=412 | author1=Linda Kay Davidson | author2=David M. Gitlitz| publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | page=25 | author=[[Nancy Scheper-Hughes]] | title=Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6kHMqTWylTQC&pg=PA25 | date=2001 | publisher=University of California Press | isbn=978-0520224803}}</ref> the mountain is described as being surrounded by the ocean, which fits with the topography of Mount Brandon.<ref name="peak"/>

Irish academic Paul Tempan wrote in his 2010 ''Irish Hill and Mountain Names'', that it is likely that the mountain was a source of pilgrimage even before both St. Brendan and the arrival of Christianity altogether.<ref name="peak"/> Its importance may be due to the fact that, being so far west and so high, it is the place where the sun can be seen the latest as it sinks below the horizon.<ref name="peak"/> Tempan notes that the medieval story about Brendan's life calls the mountain ''Sliabh nDaidche'' in the Irish version, or ''Mons Aitche'' in the Latin version; and that the Irish academic Dr Alan Mac an Bhaird, had translated this as "mountain of Faithche", as Brandon stands in the Faha townland.<ref name="peak"/> However, some believe that the ''Mons Aitche'' name refers to [[Slieve Aughty]], rather than to Mount Brandon.<ref>Plummer, Charles. (1905) [http://www.aughty.org/pdf/terra_secreta_aughty.pdf Slieve Aughty: Terra Secreta] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230512190406/http://www.aughty.org/pdf/terra_secreta_aughty.pdf |date=12 May 2023 }}.</ref>

Some sources link the name with the voyages of [[The Voyage of Bran|Bran mac Febail]], however, this is considered less likely.<ref name=GUAR/>