Conan

Conan (Conon) (d. 648), bishop. Traditionally an abbot who helped educate Fiacre, Conan seems to have become a bishop and to have lived and worked in the Hebrides and the Isle of Man where various places bear his name. Anachronistically he is sometimes called first bishop of Sodor, but this term is a Viking one denoting ‘southern islands’ as distinct from the Shetlands and Orkneys which were ‘northern islands’. Feast: 26 January.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• R.S.S., pp. 307–8
• O. Kolsrud, ‘The Celtic Bishops in the Isle of Man’, Z.C.P., ix (1913), 357–79. B.L.S., i. 180–1

A name found with differing associations in three Celtic lands. In Ireland it is: Conán [hound, wolf] and is borne by two characters in the Fenian Cycle, Conán mac Morna and Conán mac Lia, as well as by six saints and scores of minor characters in narratives. In Wales it is: Conan [to grumble, to mutter (?)] and is the name of Tegid Faol [the bald]. In Brittany Conan is the name for Cynan, the British invader of the country; it was also borne by four counts of Rennes who reigned from the 10th to the 12th centuries. Despite much conjecture, there does not seem to be a link between any of the Celtic figures named Conan and the Conan of the pulp adventure fiction series of Robert E. Howard (d. 1936). Distinguish from Conand.