Chapter 6 - On St Donan / Donnan and his non-links to (Clan) Gunn and KIldonan Sutherland

6.   Diversion 2: Saint Donan / St Donnan and his Gunn non-links

St Donan[1] was a priest who died 17 April 617 C.E. on Eigg in the Hebrides; he was most likely Irish.

The prominence given to St Donan in the first chapter of Mark Rugg Gunn’s text (‘St Donan occupies a special place in the roll of martyrs to be remembered throughout the centuries by the Gunns’[2]) and Clan Gunn Society UK social events[3] is excessive given that St Donan died over six hundred years before the Gunns started if one accepts the Orkney Islands origin myth; as well, obviously St Donan was not a Gunn in any shape or form.

The best view on St Donan for Gunn mythic history[4] believers is that he was a saint who died many hundreds of years before Gunns started and who might be associated with Kildonan in Sutherland and who might be associated with a small church which Gunns might have used. That is a very tenuous connection with Gunn history.

In reality the supposed St Donan link with Kildonan fails; historically it is so unlikely as to be impossible and there is no primary source or archaeological support for St Donan being in the area. The idea that Kildonan has to mean St Donan fails for several reasons, including what Kildonan was and is called in Gaelic.

6.1 St Donan’s life and why, logically, he would not have gone to the Kildonan area

Donnan was fairly anonymous until he was martyred (at Eigg)[5]

St Donan was an Irish priest who introduced Christianity to some early Picts on the west coast of Scotland, in what was the Kingdom of Dalriada. He is the obscure patron saint of Eigg, where he was ‘martyred’ on 17 April 617.[6]  Hamish Haswell-Smith summarises his life so; he ‘had been trained at Whithorn, and may have stayed for a time at Loch Alsh (Eilean Donan), (and) eventually set up a sizable monastery at Eigg.’[7] 

Haswell-Smith’s modest list of three places associated with St Donan is in major contrast to the Reverend Black’s 1906[8] list. He wrote about St Donan that

The following are the places in which he founded churches. They are given in the calculated or known order of foundation.

Kildonan in Colmonell.
Kildonan in Carrick.
Kildonan in Arran.
Kildonan in Kintyre.
Kildonan on Loch-Garry.
Parish of Kildonan, Sutherland.
Kildonan, Little Loch Broom.
Eilan-Donnain, Kintail.
S. Donnan's, Uig.
Kildonan in South Uist.
Kildonan in Eigg.

Given this is from the most supportive document for St. Donan readily available it is reasonable to assume that every place remotely linked to him (rightly or wrongly) is on this list. It is unlikely that St Donan founded churches at all the places listed; there are too many of them. Some of the places may only have been where St Donan lived, some may have been places associated with people who admired him, some may be later established places dedicated to him or, as in the case of Kildonan, Sutherland, some may just be wrongly linked to him. All the the places (excluding Kildonan and Loch Garry[9]) are on the Scottish west coast[10] or islands off the west coast, in basically ancient Dalriada.This makes sense given the placement of Iona which he visited and where may have spent spent time, his Irish origin, his murder on Eigg, and the way transport using a boat was sensible in the early 600s.  

What does not make sense is Kildonan in Sutherland being linked to him.[11]  Basically all bar Kildonan in Sutherland on the list are reasonably close to each other and match the known area of early Christianity; Kildonan in Sutherland and Caithness are on the east coast and not part of the early Christian endeavours.[12]  The links between Ireland and the west coast of Scotland are well-known;[13] the links to the east coast of Scotland were in essence non-existent. Sutherland was a different country - the Pictish land of Cait. And the language was different; Donan spoke Gaelic but probably not Pictish (St Columba did not speak Pictish[14]). So, either St Donan would have had to learn Pictish – a feat which should have been noted in the historic papers or St Donan would have had a translator which also would have appeared in the historic papers. And neither option is so noted.

And travel was dangerous and difficult in the early 600s. After all in the 600s there were no comfortable roads or tracks.  St Donan was Christian Irish; ‘Gunn’ Kildonan was pagan Pictland[15] and a long way from where he was based.  A boat trip around the top of Scotland – past territory full of unknown people - is not likely due to the quality of the boats of the time. Alternatively, why would St Donan walk or ride from the west coast (or inland from the coast if he had used a boat) to what would have been the random place later called Kildonan, a place of no known settlement at that time?  And through all sorts of unknown dangers? There were many more suitable places for converting ‘heathens’ on the west coast especially as St Donan most likely had no Pictish language skills. And Picts had a reputation for violence – shown by the wars of 634, 638 and 642 where Dalriada (which included Iona) was attacked by the Picts. The 642 war, in particular, basically meant the start of the end of the Dalriadic Kingdom. Such violence further supports the extreme unlikelihood of Christian St Donan ever being in Pictish Kildonan.

Alister Farquhar Matheson’s summary of St Donnan’s life[16] is – ‘It was another Irish monk, Donnan, who first dared to establish a monastery in Pictish territory on the Isle of Eigg in the waters around Arisaig … Clearly a single-minded zealot … Donnan’s mission was soon in trouble since the pagan Pictish lords who held sway there objected to his presence, with its implicit threat to their authority. On 17^th April 617, according to Irish chronicles a war band landed on the island (and Donnan) and some fifty of his followers were put to the sword.’

The point is simple - there was no way St Donan had gone by himself to quietly live for some years in the far Pictish land of Kildonan. It’s totally against his behaviour of establishing visible, large missions[17] and it’s out of character for the Picts to let such a Christian survive.

There are also no records of his journey to Sutherland. Early Christian records of the Saints are quite detailed; see, for example, A. O. Anderson’s Early Sources of Scottish History for primary sources for the Saints at this time including St. Donan, where no such mention of St Donan and Sutherland is made. And such record would have been made because he would have achieved something which even St Columba did not achieve; St Columba travelled to near Inverness in 574.  St Donan’s trip in the late 500s or early 600s would have been noticed and recorded.

There is also no archaeological evidence to support the idea. A building, a tomb - something would have been found if the literate and skilled St Donan had ever made it to Kildonan. There is, for example, major archaeological remains at Eigg[18] supporting St Donan’s time there. After all ‘St Donnan … worked on the pattern laid down by St Ninian, establishing monasteries and conducting … mission-work from them’[19] – St Donan did not go and hide away in obscure Kildonan and leave no physical record of his life there as that would be against how he lived the rest of his known life.

So,

·                         St. Donan certainly lived and worked on the west coast of Scotland.

·                         There is no Christian record supporting St. Donan living in Caithness / Sutherland.[20]

·                         There is no archaeological support for St Donan living at Kildonan.

·                         It would have been illogical - and impossible - to travel inland to Kildonan in the land of the Picts in the 600s from Dalriada.

St Donan had nothing to do with Kildonan in Sutherland, in consequence he has no part in Gunn history. 

6.2 On the word ‘Kildonan’ in Sutherland not being related to St Donan

The idea that the word Kildonan in Sutherland axiomatically means the church or chapel of the physical St Donan is one which is wrong.

Firstly, on historic grounds; St Donan was a builder of churches as discussed in 6.1, but where is the church or the remains of the church he ought to have built to match his work on Eigg? There are no Church ruins from the 600s associated with him in Sutherland of which I am aware. This is obviously different from a much later church which has been attached to his name. Some[21] argue that he lived in a cell on the Helmsdale river but a cell also does not match his known life history nor again is there archaeological support for the idea.

Secondly, one must question how the name ‘Donan’ would have been preserved; it is a Gaelic(ish) name but ‘Kildonan’ in the 600s was Pictish. The Picts were a different nation with a different non-Christian religion and a different language. As discussed in chapter 1.2 the Picts became Celtic and so used Gaelic by the early 800s, around two hundred years after St Donan’s death. The idea Picts would have preserved for two hundred years a Gaelic(ish) name for a person from an alien religion when they did not speak Gaelic, and someone who left no permanent mark on the land seems unlikely.  In other words, if St Donan had lived in the Kildonan area in ancient times then one would have thought the Gaelic name for the area would reflect that fact but it doesn’t. 

The pre-St Donan and post-St Donan Gaelic name for the Kildonan area was discussed in 1793 by the Rev. Sage;

The river of Helmsdale, which passes through the Strath, is called Abhin[22] (Abhainn river) Iligh, the Strath, more frequently, if not altogether, is called Strath Iligh, and the Gaelic name of Helmsdale, in the country language, is called Bun Iligh, that is the mouth or lower part of the water, where it issues into the Moray Firth. If then the name of the parish has been changed from Iligh to Kildonan, as few have called it Scir Iligh, the parish of Iligh or Ilie must be the original name and designation; and it is rendered still more probable, by the Roman geographers, who place the river Ilie in this neighbourhood, which must evidently have been Helmsdale.[23]

In other words ‘Iligh’ was Kildonan. This is supported by the 1834 The New Statistical Account of Scotland view that The Strath of Kildonan … in Gaelic it is alone known by the name of Stra’ Iligh[24]

So with Iligh / Ilie / Abhin Iligh / Avoniligh[25] we have the name for what is now Kildonan from Roman times; ‘Ila’ was certainly known by Ptolemy and it may be Pictish or Pretonic in origin.  The name continues right through to now - we have Strathullie / Strathully being part of the parish of Kildonan.[26] Thomas Sinclair also has Helmsdale being called Strathully.[27] Whatever Iligh / Ilie means is not important; it is enough that it has nothing to do with St Donan[28] which is shown by it being in use from before St Donan was meant to be in Kildonan and yet is still in use today.  If the local Gaelic name has nothing to do with St Donan then the most logical answer is that the Kildonan / St Donan link has been parachuted in after his death.

So what could Kildonan mean if not St Donan? When considering ‘Kildonan’ one should note Professor W. F. H. Nicolaisen’s view (he was one time Director of the Scottish Place-Names Survey in the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh) that ‘it is not always easy to sift the cill-names (as in church) proper from those which in their anglicized form look identical but, when properly examined, are found to contain elements such as Coille ‘wood’, cuil ‘nook’ and the like...’[29]   So, just because a place name starts with Cill or Kil does not automatically mean it is a church related place name. It could, for example, mean a wood or forest if you like. He also suggests ‘*Dubona from *Dubo- ‘black.’[30] The Gaelic Dubh as black is readily accepted.[31] Now if the start of Kildonan was really Coille meaning ‘wood / forest’ this would make, for example, ‘Coille – Dubh’ mean ‘black woods / forest’.  In other words, Kildonan could mean black forest.

That is a sensible meaning for that which is anglicised now as ‘Kildonan’; ancient Scottish forests are known from there.  The Origines Parochiales Scotiae[32] in 1855 notes Kildonan ‘is an old hunting forest’.  But it’s more than a shady forest - ‘The trunk of a fir tree, dug up in the higher part of Kildonan, measured seventy-two feet in length, and was of proportional thickness. The appearance of this root, encrusted with charcoal, proved by what means it had been levelled to the earth.’[33] So we have in the 1830s a discussion showing that the great forests around Kildonan were certainly burnt by firing[34] so the idea that Kildonan means ‘black wood / forest’ (or charcoaled wood if you prefer) is certainly much more likely than any link to St Donan.

The real meaning of ‘Kildonan’ is not critical[35] – and probably impossible to ascertain - it is only important to recognise that place names starting with Kil are not always meant to be read as a ‘Church’ or ‘Chapel’. Kildonan in Sutherland certainly has nothing to do with St Donan.

6.3 ‘St Donan’s Church’? at Kildonan

It is highly questionable whether the Kildonan Church now assumed to be named after St Donan had that name at an early stage.

Firstly, would there be a St Donan named church?  By the early 1600s northern Scotland was Presbyterian.[36]  But St Donan was a minor Catholic Saint so it is unlikely that a Church dedicated to him would have retained such a name.

Secondly an early reference using the name St Donan’s Church[37] is a 1906 text by the Rev. Scott and in his text - when describing the church - he used language from the Rev. Donald Sage’s 1840 volume.[38] But Sage did not use the term Saint Donan’s Church[39] when describing Kildonan’s church and it was the Rev. Sage’s father’s church so he knew it well and described the church in detail. It is reasonable to assume Sage would have used the full title of the church in his book if it had that title; but Sage just called it ‘Kildonan, the Church’. The title of St Donan’s Church[40] seems to have come into use after the Rev. Sage which is obviously much later than St Donan’s time.

Fifteen years after the Rev. Sage the Origines Parochiale Scotiae Vol.2. no.2 in 1855 wrote of the Kildonan St Donan Church that ‘The church, said to be dedicated to St Donan…’[41]; the word ‘said’ is crucial as is the word ‘dedicated’. Neither word gives support for it being where St Donan lived or prayed. So, the core book on the origin of Scottish Parishes was certainly not convinced of the link to St Donan. In other words, in 1855 we have a hint that the Kildonan Church was becoming attached to St Donan but it was not accepted by the key history about Scottish Parishes.

So, the person of St Donan was first linked to the Kildonan church in mid to late Victorian times twelve hundred and fifty years or so after his death. The Kildonan church has been in existence since at least the 1200s but its supposed links to the actual person of St Donan fail; it may now be dedicated to him, but St Donan has no links to the Kildonan area.

Overall there is no proof that St Donan lived in the Kildonan area and logic says he would not have been there. Kildonan can not mean ‘Church of St Donan’ as otherwise the original Gaelic name for the area would reflect something about St Donan and it doesn’t.  St Donan does not deserve a place in Gunn history.

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[1] I prefer St Donan but I have used St Donnan when so used by other authors.

[2] See page 10 and page 12, Mark Rugg Gunn, Clan Gunn for over the top language in St Donan’s support. I also note the pro-Christian bias – ‘martyrs’ and such like - of the language used.

[3] The Clan Gunn Society UK had a weekend to celebrate St Donan on 13 April to 15 April 2012 in London. The weekend consisted of Friday dinner at the National Liberal Club (£25 each), Saturday lunch at the Pavilion Tea House, a tour of the Royal Observatory (£7) at Greenwich Park, a formal dinner at Greenwich (£56 each and one glass of wine free) and a National Maritime Museum Tour (£7) Sunday morning. So, for one person the weekend was £95 minimum, excluding getting into London and / or accommodation in London.  The 1996 St Donan's day dinner in Edinburgh charged £44 a single. The 2019 Dinner was £85 a head at the Houses of Parliament in London.

[4] The main source arguing for St Donan and Kildonan is a chapter called ‘St Donnan the Great, and his muinntir’ by the Rev. Alexander Black Scott DD, published in the Transactions of the Scottish Ecclesiological Society vol i part iii in 1906. It relies on statements of hope (such ‘as the (churches) could not have been founded later … they must have been founded by S. Donnan’). Scott is also factually questionable; the church which he says is called S. Donnan’s uses language from pages 57-59 of Donald Sage’s Memorabilia Domestica which was published in 1840 and which described the church Donald Sage knew well but Sage did not call the church St Donnan’s church. So, the only church linked to Saint Donan is not so described by the person who knew it first hand.  The myth-making is obvious.

[5] Emeritus Professor John Hunter University of Birmingham https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/monastery-where-christian-saint-was-martyred-is-uncovered-on-eigg-1-2465868 accessed 21 March 2019.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donn%C3%A1n_of_Eigg.

[7] Page 135, Hamish Haswell-Smith, The Scottish Islands.

[8] http://www.cushnieent.force9.co.uk/CelticEra/Saints/saints_donan.htm accessed 5 March 2019. Colmonell is in South Ayrshire; Carrick is in Arygyll and Bute; the Kildonans are in Arran and Kintyre; little Loch Broom is near Ullapool; the well known Eilean Donan is near Dornie and further St. Donan places are on Uig, South Uist and Eigg.

[9] I have my doubts about St Donan and Loch Garry – Loch Garry is sort of central Scotland and roughly in the line between Skye and the Cairngorms. Similar to Kildonan, there is no logic that St Donan would have gone inland to areas where he did not speak the language.

[10] See page 64 of James Hunter’s Last of the Free A History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland which omits Sutherland from places associated with Donan.

[11] Page 64, James Hunter Last of the Free. When discussing Saint Donnan Hunter does not mention any travel to Kildonan.

[12] See Page 93 John Haywood The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World as an example.

[13] In Highland clan history this link is probably most noticeable by Sorley Boy Macdonnell who was descended from the Lords of the Isles; see J. Michael Hill’s Fire & Sword:  Sorley Boy MacDonell and the Rise of Clan Ian Mor 1538-90. The Scottish name of the clan being the MacDonnells of Dunnyveg. The history is after St Donan but shows the depth of the western Highlands and Ireland link.

[14] Page 49, James Hunter, Last of the Free A History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

[15] Page 21, George Rosie, Curious Scotland Tales from a Hidden History.

[16] Page 308, Alister Farquhar Matheson, Scotland’s Northwest Frontier.

[17] See https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/monastery-where-christian-saint-was-martyred-is-uncovered-on-eigg-1-2465868 for accessed 21 March 2019 for archaeological  work on St Donan’s buildings on Eigg.

[18] See https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/monastery-where-christian-saint-was-martyred-is-uncovered-on-eigg-1-2465868 accessed 21 March 2019 for more detail.

[19] Page 39, Agnes Mure Mackenzie The Foundations of Scotland.

[20] See pages 142-144, A. O. Anderson’s monumental work Early Sources of Scottish History Volume 1 for discussion of Donan. There was a suggestion that Eigg meant a spring in Caithness but that is firmly rejected by Andersson ‘there is no doubt that the island of Eigg is meant’ Page 143. If Andersson does not provide support evidence for Donan being in Caithness or Sutherland then it is extremely unlikely to be anywhere.

[21] http://www.cushnieent.force9.co.uk/CelticEra/Saints/saints_donan.htm accessed 5 March 2019.

[22] Avon / Abhin is listed as a pre-Celtic name for river in Professor W. F. H. Nicolaisen’s Scottish Place Names page 178.

[23] Page 106 ed. Sir John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland Volume 3; the chapter on Kildonan is by the Rev. Sage.

[24] Page 134, ed. Sir John Sinclair, ibid.

[25] This river is supposed to be the Helmsdale river of the Scandinavian intruders, called by the Celtic inhabitants Avou-Uile, or Avon-Iligh, the floody water. http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofhighla01brow/historyofhighla01brow_djvu.txt accessed 18 May 2013 and also called Avoniligh in the 1868 National Gazeteer http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/SUT/Kildonan/Gaz1868.html accessed 10 May 2013.

[26] Pages 734-735, Origines Parochiales Scotiae Volume 2 ed. C. Innes.

[27] Page 38, Thomas Sinclair, The Gunns.

[28] See Brien Friel’s play Translations for how renaming the landscape can influence traditional Gaelic (Irish) society.

[29] Page 129 W.F. H. Nicolaisen, Scottish Place Names.

[30] Page 177 W.F. H. Nicolaisen, ibid.

[31] See https://www.omniglot.com/language/colours/gaelic.htm accessed 21 March 2019.

[32] https://deriv.nls.uk/dcn6/8103/81030079.6.pdf page 734, accessed 16 March 2019.

[33] Page 87, James Logan, The Scottish Gael or Celtic Manners, Volume 1.

[34] Page 88, James Logan, ibid. ‘In Sutherland (the woods) have also been destroyed by conflagration.’

[35] How could Kildonan get its name? Perhaps some English-speaking person, with poor Gaelic, in the early 1800s wandered up to the Kildonan area and asked a local where he was. The local replied ‘Wood, dark’ due to the poor Gaelic phrasing. The English-speaking person went back - perhaps to his manse – and wrote up the name of the area… See Brien Friel’s play Translations for such encounters in Ireland…

[36] By this I mean the hierarchy – the King, landowners and such like. Scattered Catholics were around.

[37] Canmore also gives this church the title of St Donnan’s Church, with the main references being the Origines Parochiale Scotiae, Sage and Scott. https://canmore.org.uk/site/7175/kildonan-church-of-scotland-parish-church accessed 16 March 2019.

[38] Page 57, Donald Sage, Memorabilia Domestica; Or, Parish Life in the North of Scotland.

[39] Page 57, Donald Sage, ibid.

[40] Ancient Gunn links to this church are questionable. Sage talked about Gunn Chiefs page 57, Donald Sage, Memorabilia Domestica; Or, Parish Life in the North of Scotland but see chapter 4 for the non-existence of Gunn Chiefs. The church may however have been a place where some important – chief - Gunns were buried.

[41] Page 737 https://deriv.nls.uk/dcn6/8103/81030079.6.pdf acessed 16 March 2019.