Cathan
Irish monk and saint of the 6th century
Saint Cathan, also known as Catan, Cattan, etc., was a 6th-century Irish monk revered as a saint in parts of the Scottish Hebrides.
Source material
This saint appears in the Aberdeen Breviary, Walter Bower's Scotichronicon, and the Acta Sanctorum. A number of placenames in western Scotland are associated with him.
Gaelic Christianity
He is said to have been one of the first Irish missionaries to come to the Isle of Bute, then part of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dál Riata.
Very little is known of him; he is generally mentioned only in connection with his more famous nephew Saint Blane, who was born on Bute and later proselytized among the Picts. Both saints were strongly associated with Bute and with Kingarth monastery, which became the center of their cults.
A number of churches were dedicated to Cathan across Scotland's western islands.
Tobar Chattan, or Cathan's Well, at Little Kilchattan on Bute may represent the site of Cathan's original church.
Other churches, now in ruins, include St Cathan's Chapel on Colonsay,
Kilchattan Chapel on Gigha, and
Kilchattan Church on Luing. The Luing church served the historical Kilchattan parish; the modern Kilchattan Church was built at Achafolla in 1936.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cathan” as irish monk and saint of the 6th century. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as irish monk and saint of the 6th century. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4217144. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1936.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Cathan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Cathan primary sources, Cathan archive and Cathan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cathan”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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This entry incorporates text from “Cathan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.