Finnian (sometimes called Finbarr "the white head", a reference to his fair hair),[3] was a Christian missionary in medieval Ireland.

Traditional scholarship has it that he was a descendant of Fiatach the Fair and born in Ulster, but his lineage has been questioned lately by the American Celticist Thomas Owen Clancy.

Legend has it that whilst at Candida Casa, he played a prank (nature unknown) on Princess Drustice, the daughter of a Pictish king, who was in the ladies' section of the monastery, and perhaps had he not been so well connected, his clerical career could have been in ruins.

[5] He returned to found a monastery of his own and, at a time when books were rare, this text brought honour and prestige to the establishment.

Legend has it that he tried to convert Tuan mac Cairill, a mythical figure who was the last survivor of the Partholonian race, and that while doing so had the famous Scéal Tuáin maic Cairell recounted to him.

It became a monastic community of great significance in Ulster and Ireland as a centre of Celtic Christian worship, learning, mission, and also commerce.