A Calendar of Scottish Saints by Michael Barrett

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Produced by Elaine Laizure from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.

A CALENDAR OF SCOTTISH SAINTS

BY DOM MICHAEL BARRETT, O.S.B.

SECOND EDITION REVISED & AUGMENTED

FORT-AUGUSTUS:

PRINTED AT THE ABBEY PRESS

1919

_Nihil obstat_:

D. CUTHBERTUS ALMOND, O.S.B. Censor Dep.

_Imprimatur_:

+ GEORGIUS, Ep. Aberd.

INTRODUCTION

The title of Scottish, applied to the holy ones whose names occur in these short notices, must be understood to refer not so much to their nationality as to the field in which, they laboured or the localities where traces of their _cultus_ are to be found. The Calendar here submitted does not pretend to be exhaustive; the saints therein noted are those who appear prominently in such records as remain to us and in the place-names which still recall their personalities.

In this new edition much additional information has been inserted, and many emendations made to render the Calendar as complete as possible.

The chief sources relied upon in the compilation of the work are:

_The Breviary of Aberdeen_, drawn up by Bishop Wm. Elphinstone, and printed in 1509.

Dr. Forbes' _Kalendars of Scottish Saints_.

_Origines Parochiales Scotiae_.

Dr. Skene's _Celtic Scotland_.

Canon O'Hanlon's _Lives of Irish Saints_.

Cardinal Moran's _Irish Saints in Great Britain_.

_New Statistical Account of Scotland_.

The date at the head of each notice is generally that of the death of the saint concerned.

JANUARY

1--St. Ernan, Abbot, A.D. 640.

The Saint whose feast is celebrated on this day was a disciple of the great St. Columba, and is said by Colgan, the renowned Irish scholar, to have been his nephew. What connection the saint had with Scotland is not clear. He may have laboured for a time there under St. Columba, but he became Abbot of Drumhome in Donegal. On the night St. Columba went to his reward, as we are told by that saint's biographer, St. Adamnan, Ernan was favoured with a vision in which the saint's death was revealed to him. St. Ernan died in his Irish monastery at an advanced age in the year 640. The church of Killernan, in Ross-shire, is named after him. Another dedication to this saint is thought by some to be Kilviceuen in Mull.

4--St. Chroman or Ghronan, A.D. 641.

On account of the destruction of so many ecclesiastical records at the Reformation, many {2} particulars regarding some of our Scottish saints have been irrevocably lost. This is the case with the holy man before us. All that we know of him may be told in a few words. He lived in the Cunningham district of Ayrshire, where he was revered during life and venerated after death for his great sanctity. On his deathbed we are told he kept continually repeating those words of the 83rd Psalm, "My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the Living God."

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