Aidan of Lindisfarne

Known as Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Aidan the Apostle of Northumbria (died 651), was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old Irish Aodhán. In 2008, he was proposed as a possible patron saint of the United Kingdom. An Irishman, possibly born in Connacht, Aidan was a monk at the monastery on the Island of Iona in Scotland. The Roman Empire had spread Christianity into Britain, but due to the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, Anglo-Saxon paganism was now the dominant religion. Oswald of Northumbria and his brothers lived among the Gaels of Dál Riata as princes in...