The Mexican Messiah

Prima facie, Ireland has not only a good claim, but really the best claim to se the Tlapallan of the Mexicana. It is ;he most western part of Europe; it is insular, and in the earlier centuries of ;he Christian era was known as the "Holy Island." Between A. D. 500 and A. D. 800 it was the most active center of missionary enterprise in Europe, and its missionaries were conspicuous above all others for their daring maritime adventures. It is natural, therefore, to suspect that Ireland may have been the home of Quetzatcoatl, and, if that were so, to expect that early Irish records would contain some references to him and his extraordinary voyage. Upon this the inquiry suggests itself , Do the early Irish chronicles, which are voluminous and minute, contain anything relating to a missionary voyage across the Atlantic at all corresponding to that which Quetzatcoatl must have taken f rom some part of western Europe? To one who, step by step, had arrived at this stage of the present inquiry, it was not a little startling to come across an obscure and almost forgotten record, which is, in all its main features, in most striking conformity with the Mexican legend of Quetzacoatl. This is the curious account of a transatlantic voyage of a certain Irish ecclesiastic named St Brendan in the iniddle of the Sixth century- about A. D. 550. The narrative appears to have attracted little or no attention in modern times, but it was widely diffused throngh the middle ages.