50 CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 



Candida Casa or Witherne in Galway, over which S. Ninian 

 presided. The house in Wales was Ty Gwyn, the White House, 

 or " The Old Bush." 



Ty Gwyn is situated above Forth Mawr, and about two 

 miles from S. David's. It stands on the south slope of Carn 

 Llidi, with the purple rocks above it, springing out of the 

 heath, with here and there a gorse bush, like a puff of flame 

 breaking out of the crannies of the rock. Below it, near the 

 sea, are the foundations of S. Patrick's chapel, near the site of 

 his embarkation. 



The foundations of the church at Ty Gwyn, the cradle of 

 Christianity among the southern Irish, are trodden under 

 foot by sheep and oxen, that wander over the wide cemetery 

 where lie thick in narrow coffins of unshaped stones, the bodies 

 of the first inmates of that earliest Mission College in Britain. 

 When I visited the spot in 1898, the farmer had torn up the 

 grave-slabs of the tombs in the cattle-yard, and the drainage of 

 his cow-stalls and pig-styes soaked into the places where the 

 ancient fathers of the British and Irish churches had crumbled 

 to dust. 



Much confusion has arisen between the White House in 

 Menevia and the Candida Casa in Galloway, as the names are the 

 same, and those also of their first presidents are also similar. 

 For Mancen is also called Ninnio, and Ninian was the head of 

 Candida Casa. Incidents connected with one establishment have 

 been transferred to the other. Another cause of confusion has 

 been that Ty Gwyn has been supposed to be the monastery of 

 that name on the Teify, which, however, was not founded till 

 Norman times.* 



Let us now take in order the incidents in the life of S. 

 Mancen. 



His conversion and baptism took place in 447. 



He was placed in charge of the new converts in Tirawley in 

 455. About 465 he was recalled and sent with his kinsman S. 



* Mrs. Dawson, in Archceologia Cambrensis, 1898, conclusively proves this to be 

 the site of the Ty Gwyn, the nursery of saints and missionaries. She wrote this 

 without being aware of the extensive remains of an early christian cemetery that is 

 there, or that the foundations of the old church remain. 



