Ilha Brasil: Ireland's incredible ghost island that appears on over 100 maps and could be the true origin of Brazil's name!

Long before Cabral arrived in America, medieval navigators were already searching for the mysterious Island of Brazil, mentioned on European maps between the 13th and 19th centuries. Could the Celtic legend have influenced the name of the South American country?

Long before the arrival of the Portuguese on the South American coast, the name "Brazil" already populated the imagination of European navigators and cartographers. It referred, in fact, to a legendary island located west of Ireland, known by names such as Hy-Brazil ou Brazil Island, which appeared frequently on medieval maps for more than five centuries. This mythical land, associated with Celtic folklore, is still raises debates among scholars about possible connections with the name of the South American country.

The Celtic myth and the island that appeared every seven years

In Irish oral tradition, passed down for centuries before the arrival of Christianity, Hy-Brazil was described as a utopian paradise covered in eternal fogs, visible only once every seven years. The island symbolized health, eternal youth, joy and music — a kind of lost Eden for a people accustomed to constant rain and cold.

The legend was immortalized in poems, songs and epic tales, such as the writings of Irish author Gerald Griffin, who described Hy-Brasil as the “island of the blessed”, “land of rest” and “perennial light”. The legendary monk Saint Brendan, from the 6th century, would have gone in search of this island, feeding the medieval Christian imagination with stories of a promised land in the middle of the Atlantic.

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A constant in ancient maps

The first cartographic mention of Brazil Island dates back to around 1280. According to research by journalist and writer Geraldo Cantarino, author of the book An Island Called Brazil, she has appeared in more than 120 medieval maps up to the XNUMXth century. In documents such as Zuane Pizzigano's 1424 nautical chart, it is positioned north of other legendary islands such as Satanazes e antilia — also myths born from the mixture of Nordic legends and ignorance about the Atlantic.

Part of the 1424 map drawn up by Zuane Pizzigano, highlighting the island of Brazil on the left.

This ocean was, in the Middle Ages, known as “dark sea”, such was the uncertainty that hung over what lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Returning navigators told stories of sea creatures and enchanted places, which took shape on maps filled with mermaids, monsters and fantasy lands.

The island of Brazil and its cultural influence

In addition to cartographic representations, the mythical island left more concrete marks on Irish culture and even on modern daily life. Surnames like Brassil, Brazil and Brazzill are still found in Ireland and the United States, a cultural heritage that was traced by Cantarino in telephone directories during his studies in the 1990s.

The island has also entered modern literature, as in the novel Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, where it appears in a modified form as “Kerribrasilian” — a conflation of the county of Kerry and the name Brazil.

Was Brazil named after the island?

Although the traditional narrative claims that the country's name comes from the tree of pau-brazil, there are those who defend an alternative version. British diplomat Roger Casement, who served as consul in Brazilian cities such as Santos e Bethlehem, published the article Irish Origins of Brazil, in which he proposed that the country's name could have been inspired by the Celtic island.

According to Casement, the name Brazil already existed in the European imagination long before the colonization of the Americas, as the maps prove. He believed that the myth of Hy-Brasil, spread among Iberian sailors and traders, could have influenced the choice of the name when the Portuguese settled in the South American territory.

Researcher Mariana Bolfarine, from the Federal University of Rondonópolis, points out that this theory is widely discussed in Irish studies. In an interview with BBC Brasil, she states that “the association between the name of Brazil and the Celtic island is a consistent hypothesis, although marginalized by official historiography”.

What do Brazilian historians say?

Although little known to the general public, the hypothesis of the island of Brazil was mentioned by important names in national historiography, such as Capistrano of Abreu e Laura. According to Professor Renato de Mattos, from Federal Fluminense University (UFF), this theory never gained traction because modern historians prefer to study social and economic processes instead of “toponymic curiosities”.

In his analysis, the very origin of the name Brazil remains shrouded in uncertainty. Cabral would have named the land as Vera Cruz Island, later renamed as Land of Santa Cruz, and only later would the name Brazil be consolidated. But no one knows exactly when and who made this final choice.

“The curious thing is that, 500 years later, we don’t know who gave our country its name. Something very… Brazilian, right?”, Cantarino summarizes with irony.

The official version still prevails

The version accepted by textbooks continues to be that the name of Brazil derives from “ember”, due to the reddish color of the brazilwood. Historian Gustavo Barroso, the first director of the National Historical Museum, even considered the version of the island in his work Brazil in Legend and Ancient Cartography, but concluded that the brazilwood tradition was established through habit and convenience.

Despite the gaps and controversies, the fascination with the island of Brazil persists as a reminder of how legends, maps and national identity can intersect in unexpected ways — and how there is still much to discover about the history of the name we carry.

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Ilha Brasil: Ireland's incredible ghost island that appears on over 100 maps and could be the true origin of Brazil's name!

Long before Cabral arrived in America, medieval navigators were already searching for the mysterious Island of Brazil, mentioned on European maps between the 13th and 19th centuries. Could the Celtic legend have influenced the name of the South American country?