Patron Saint of Dunkeld

Early Christian missionaries to the Valley of the Tay were St. Ninian and St. Colm, the latter often confused with St. Columba. St. Ninian was the son of a Pictish Galloway chief, and was sent to Rome as a boy. His missionary travels took place early in the 5th century. A chapel was dedicated to him centuries after in Dunkeld, and a small by-way running off Atholl Street still bears the name St. Ninian’s Lane, but there is no record that he visited Dunkeld. The greatest early Christian missionary was St. Columba, to whom the Dunkeld Cathedral is dedicated, and who became the Patron Saint of Dunkeld.

Life of St.Columba. Founding father of the famous monastery on the island of Iona, a site of pilgrimage ever since his death in 597, St Columba was born into one of the ruling families in Ireland at a time of immense expansion for the Irish Church. This account of his life, written by Adomnan the ninth abbot of Iona, and a distant relative of St Columba describes his travels from Ireland to Scotland and his mission in the cause of Celtic Christianity there. Written 100 years after St Columba's death, it draws on written and oral traditions to depict a wise abbot among his monks, who like Christ was capable of turning water into wine, controlling sea-storms and raising the dead. An engaging account of one of the central figures in the Age of Saints', this is a major work of early Irish and Scottish history. Life of St.Columba (Penguin Classics).