It is a common feature in the Celtic designations of saints to find the prefix mo (my) and the affix og (little) added to the simple name by way of reverent endearment. This is the case in the names just referred to; Kilmaronog and Kilmaronock both mean literally "Church of my little (or dear) Ronan."
Many legends surround this saint, but very little authentic information can be gleaned concerning the circumstances of his life. Many dedications to him are to be found on lonely isles and retired spots on the west coast, which seem to point to a custom of seeking solitude from time to time. Thus a little island near {23} Raasay is called Ronay; another sixty miles north-east of the Lewes, possessing an ancient oratory and Celtic crosses, is called Rona. An islet on the west coast of the mainland of Shetland is called St. Ronan's Isle; it becomes an island at high tide only. The parish church of Iona was called Teampull Ronain and its burial ground Cladh Ronain. St. Ronan is said to have been Abbot of Kingarth, Bute, where he died in 737. Holy wells bear his name at Strowan (Perthshire), Chapelton in Strathdon (Aberdeenshire), and the Butt of Lewis; the latter is famed for the cure of lunacy.
14—St. Conran.
He was a Bishop of Orkney in the seventh century whose name was illustrious for sanctity, zeal, and austerity of life.
17—St. Finan, Bishop, A.D. 661.
This saint was an Irishman who became a monk in the monastery founded by St. Columba at Iona. During his monastic life he was distinguished for the virtues befitting his state, especially prudence and gravity of demeanour. {24} He was devoted to prayer and strove zealously to live according to the Divine Will in all things. When St. Aidan, who had been a monk of Iona, passed to his heavenly reward, a successor in his see of Lindisfarne was again sought in that celebrated monastery, and the choice fell upon Finan. His first care was to erect on the island of Lindisfarne a suitable cathedral, and in this he placed the remains of his saintly predecessor Aidan.
During the few years that St. Finan ruled his diocese he exhibited all the virtues of a model bishop. His love of poverty, contempt of the world, and zeal for preaching the Gospel, won the hearts of his people. Under his guidance, Oswy the King was brought to realise his crime in the barbarous murder of the saintly Oswin, King of Deira, and the result was the foundation of monasteries and churches as tokens of his sincere repentance and his desire to obtain pardon from Heaven through the prayers and merits of those who should dwell in them.
The influence of St. Finan extended beyond his own people; for the kings of more southern {25} nations, with their subjects, owed the Faith to his zeal and piety. Peada, King of the Mercians, and Sigebert, King of the East Saxons, both received Baptism at his hands, and obtained from him missionaries to preach to their respective peoples.
The most famous work in which St. Finan was directly concerned was the foundation by Oswy of the Monastery of Streaneshalch on the precipitous headland afterwards known as Whitby. This was to become in later years, under the rule of the first abbess, Hilda, a school of saints and a centre of learning for the whole territory in which it stood, and the admiration of after ages for its fervour and strictness of discipline.
St. Finan died after an episcopate of ten years, and was laid to rest beside the remains of St. Aidan in the cathedral he had built at Lindisfarne. His feast was restored to Scot land by Leo XIII. in 1898.