A saint has just been exploded, like Bunbury in The Importance of Being Earnest. St Ninian, the most famous saint of Scotland, after St Columba, is associated with Whithorn in Galloway, which tourists and pilgrims visit in his memory. But Dr Andrew Breeze, a Celtic philologist, declares: “There is not a single historical or philological reason for belief in St Ninian’s existence.”
This will annoy people. “Ninian is the man who first brought the Christian faith to Scotland,” the Daily Record explained when Pope Benedict landed in Scotland on St Ninian’s Day 2010. “He is to the Scots what St Patrick is to the Irish.”
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