Saint Medan

There is a Kirkmaiden both in the Rinns of Galloway and also on the other side of Luce Bay in the parish of Glasserton near Monreith in the Machars – both in Wigtownshire in Scotland.

A legend relates how the saint with her nuns is said to have travelled from the one location to the other across Luce Bay, using a rock as a boat.

The element "edan" is similar to "Etáin", a name occurring once in the 15th century in Scotland, and argued as the virgin saint of Tumna near Boyle in County Roscommon in the diocese of Elphin – though another authority derives Cill Medoin in the diocese of Tuam not from an apocryphal saint Etáin but prosaically from the Irish for "middle church".

Again, the name may be a version of Modwena (Moninne or Darerca), who was abbess of Cill Sléibe Cuilinn in Killevy near Slieve Gullion and died on 5 July 517 or 519; it is said that she founded a number of churches in Scotland.

[4] A male Modan is the saint of Rosneath, Falkirk, Kirkton of Airlie in Forfar, Fraserburgh and Fintray in Aberdeenshire, and Freswick in Caithness.