TRANSACTIONS. 163 
been superseded for municipal purposes by a less obtrusive 
structure, but one more convenient and better suited to modern 
ideas. The present population of the burgh is about 1700. 
St. Ninian, with whose fame the Priory is so closely linked, 
was the Columba of southern Scotland, and pursued his Christianis- 
ing mission a century earlier than the apostle of Iona. The year 
360 is assigned as the date of his birth, and his death is reported 
to have occurred in 432. The place of his nativity is a subject of 
dispute. One account represents him as belonging to a noble 
Scotch family, whose residence was in the vicinity of Whithorn. 
On the other hand, some of his biographers favour the idea that he 
was of Welsh nationality. Ireland, also, has put in a claim to be 
the country of his birth ; but with less apparent probability. It is 
certain, however, that during the period of the Roman occupation 
he established a religious house at Whithorn, and with the aid of 
a body of disciples set himself to proclaim from this centre the 
message of the Cross among the pagan inhabitants of the country. 
Much success crowned his missionary labours, and posthumous 
fame enhanced the virtues of the saint and invested even his bones 
with miraculous power. Before devoting himself to the apostolic 
career, Ninian had visited Rome, where he received consecration 
at the hands of the Pope, and spent some time at the French 
monastery of St Martin of Tours. This noted soldier saint—from 
whom we derive our term Martinmas, and whose monastic habits 
have not been considered inconsistent with his selection as patron 
saint of the tavern-keepers—is in some accounts styled the uncle of 
St. Ninian ; and to him the Priory in Whithorn is said to have 
been dedicated. . A circumstance confirmatory of this is mentioned 
by Symson in his “ Description of Galloway,” who states that in 
1684, when his work was written, there was “a little hand-bell in 
this church, which, in Saxon letters, tells it belongs to St. Martin’s 
church.” There is some doubt whether it was at Whithorn or at 
Isle of Whithorn that St. Ninian built the modest chapel—the 
“ Candida Casa” or Whitehouse of early chronicles—that was the 
arst stone and lime edifice built for Christian worship in Scotland. 
The balance of evidence seems to favour the Isle. But the modern 
burgh had apparently been the seat of his later ministry ; and the 
undisputed historical record represents the Priory as the place of 
his sepulture. 
The Priory of which the ruins now remain is of much more 
recent date, and would be of more extensive proportions than the 
