IF we can give credit to some lives of St. Fiaker, and the old breviary
of Limoges, that saint was son of Eusenius, king of Scotland, and by his
father committed in his childhood, with his two brothers, to the care of
St. Conon, from which saintly education he received that ardent love and
perfect spirit of piety, by which he was distinguished during the whole
course of his life. Conon, by the purity and fervor in which he served
God, was a saint from his infancy. The Isle of Man, which was a famous
ancient seat of the Druids, is said to have received the seeds of the
Christian faith by the zeal of St. Patrick. St. Conon, passing thither
from Scotland, completed that great work, and is said to have been made
bishop of Man, or of Sodor, supposed by these authors to have been
anciently, a town in this island. This bishopric was soon after united
with that of the Hebrides or the Western islands, which see was fixed in
the isle of Hi, Iona or Y-colmkille. St. Conon died in the isle of Man,
about the year 648. His name continued, to the change of religion, in
great veneration throughout the Hebrides, or islands on the West of
Scotland.[1] On St. Conon, see Leslie, Hist. of Scotland, &c.
Footnotes:
1. In some few of these islands, the laird and all the inhabitants
remain still Catholics; as Banbecuis, under Ranal Mac Donald;
South-Vist, under Alan Mac Donald of Moydart, whose ancestors were once
kings of these islands; Barry under Mac Neil; Canny, and Egg, and some
others. In many others there are long since no Catholics, as in Lewis,
North-Vist, Harries, St. Kilda, &c. See the latest edition of the
Present State of England and bishop Leslie's nephew, in his MS. account,
&c.
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