St. Andrew was not always the patron saint of Scotland. Somehow his followers ousted St. Kessog. Quite how such a thing is achieved is rather hard to imagine and, given that soldiers invoked the incumbent's name as they charged into battle, I suspect the champions of the new saint needed all their wits to pull it off.
Kessog was an Irishman who came to Scotland. His name is attached to Loch Lomond where he is associated with a monastic house on an island whose name says exactly that, Innis Taigh a'Mhanaich. He was killed in an armed skirmish not far away at Bandraidh. Here at St Kessogs I am just finishing the dykes. So far as I or anyone I speak to knows, the site of any chapel around here is long forgotten. But the name lingers. The cottage is a couple of hundred years old and older still is a medieval font built into one of the walls that was found a few years ago when a new door was put in.
