Saint Brecan

There are legends concerning Brecan from Clare and Aran, and wells and churches are dedicated to him in various places in Ireland.

It was recorded that Eochu was hopelessly disfigured and diseased when he was born, but was cured through a miracle by Saint Patrick.

[4] According to the antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp, The Clare stories, though vague, represent him consistently as a bright, joyful, affectionate man, hardly troubled by the more mundane temptations.

He won over the impatient, jealous St. Enda by becoming one of his disciples and causing his own more numerous converts to pay reverence to that saint.

In Aran the most definite tale is that Brecan and Enda agreed to set out from their churches at opposite ends of the island and to fix the boundary of their districts at the point at which they met.

Brecan celebrated a mass early and set out, with the untiring energy ascribed to him in the Clare tales; but Enda prayed, and the feet of Brecan’s horse stuck fast in the rock near Kilmurvey, in the valley across the island below the great fort Dun Aengusa, until Enda came.

When the day dawned, the disciples of St. Brecan saw to their astonishment that the followers of St. Enda, who had commenced to travel before daylight, were already far advanced on their journey.

[3] Saint Brecan's most important foundations were the Seven Churches of Aran on Inishmore, of which only the ruins of two have survived.

[7] The Damhliag or great Church of Saint Brecan consists of a nave and a choir connected by a beautiful semi-circular arch of cut stone.

[8] The original layout was a rectangle with projections of the north and south walls beyond the east and west gables.

[2] A smaller circular stone found in the tomb, about three inches in diameter, was inscribed with the short prayer in Irish: "OR AR BRAN NAILITHER", which may be short for "OROIT AR BRECAN NAILITHER", meaning "A prayer for Brecan the Pilgrim".