James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Ag Lorg Hy-Brasil (In Search of Hy-Brasil), a new documentary airing this month on TG4, ruminates on an ancient, mythical island off the Connemara coast and why it inspired the Irish exhibit at the ...

Cartography is a delicate skill. Making maps requires careful charting of landmasses, rivers, mountains, and all kinds of terrain. Before satellite imagery, this was much more difficult. For instance, ...

Five hundred years ago, sailors spoke of a phantom island shrouded in mist called Hy Brasil. This mythical rock had nothing to do with South America; the name is believed to derive from an Irish clan ...

In the 14th century, maps of Ireland began showing an island lurking off the west coast. They called it Hy-Brasil. Connected with the Irish belief in Tír na nÓg — the “otherworld” or “land of eternal ...

Europeans first reached Brazil in 1500, but for centuries before that any decent mapmaker knew where Brazil was. It was an island a hundred or so miles west of Ireland… and this cartographic phantom ...

Hy-Brasil is a phantom island which features in many Irish myths. The island is said to be cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it becomes visible but still cannot be reached. It ...