Sutherland and the Reay country

324 SUTHERLAND AND THE REAY COUNTRY.
is enshrined on the north coast in Coomb Isle, and in Kil-
colmkil in central Sutherland. St. Donan, a contemporary
of Columba, may have laboured in Kildonan, where some
Irish authorities say he lost his life. Culmaillie, in Golspie,
and Kilmacholmaig, and other Kills in the county, such as
Bailenakill, Durness, all point to Culdee worship. Saint Bar,
the patron saint of Cork, may have preached for a time in
Dornoch ; for the festival of St. Bar was held as a fair or
term day down to the sixteenth century. His church existed
probably in ruins in Robert Gordon's day (circa 1630). Kin-
tradwell, from St. Triduana, who also figures in Orkney
dedications, is another saint name of later times ; and the
inference may safely be made that a Culdee establishment
existed once upon a time in every parish in the county.
Towards the close of the ninth century, the people were
completely civilised. Hamlets sprung up in the vicinity of
the monasteries, and civilization made rapid progress. It was
now that that scourge of early Celtic Christianity — the Norse
invaders — broke loose upon Scottish shores, and for more
than two centuries enveloped the land in heathen darkness.
The counties of Caithness and Sutherland came early under
their sway, owing to the proximity of Orkney. The Culdee
establishments were plundered, and the ecclesiastics slain j
and when, in 1150 a.d., the church was again established in
the county, it was no longer a Culdee church, but a well-
organised Romish hierarchy supplanted the primitive Colum-
ban order and continued until the Reformation.
III.— Roman Catholicism.
The story of the gradual decay of the Columban church
is outside the limits of this paper. As a matter of fact, its