Diocese of Galloway

General information

The diocese of Galloway can claim to be the oldest in Scotland, founded as it was by St Ninian, the first known Catholic missionary in the country.

The tradition is that he arrived in 396 (though quite probably the correct date is some decades, even a century, later) and established the earliest Christian settlement, which was given the name Candida Casa (White House) and, in the vernacular, Whithorn. The diocese is still officially known in the Vatican as “Diocesis Gallovidiensis seu Candidae Casae”.

For over a thousand years, Galloway continued as a diocese or, at least, as an ecclesiastical entity. A quote from The Catholic Directory for Scotland (2012, page 73): “The See of Whithorn is associated from the late fourth century with St Ninian, but it is possible that a Christian community existed there before his arrival. There was a continuous succession of bishops in the eighth century. The See was revived c.1128 and recognised the metropolitan authority of York until 1355. It became a suffragan of St Andrews in 1472 and of Glasgow in 1492. The See was, in effect, vacant from the death of Andrew Durie (1541-1548) since his successor, Alexander Gordon, conformed at the reformation in 1560, and it remained vacant until the restoration of the hierarchy in 1878.”

The first four bishops after the restoration were John McLachlan (1878-1893), William Turner (1893-1914), James McCarthy (1914-1943) and William Mellon (1943-1952). These bishops had their residences in Dumfries and their cathedral church at St Andrew’s, Dumfries. The fifth bishop of the restored hierarchy was Joseph McGee (1952-1981); in 1959, to be more central in the diocese which, in 1947, had been given more territory in the north, he changed his residence from Dumfries to Ayr, giving his newly acquired house the name “Candida Casa”, an appropriate but slightly incongruous choice since the house is built of red sandstone.

In 1961 when St Andrew’s cathedral was destroyed by fire, Bishop McGee made Good Shepherd church, Ayr, the cathedral. Maurice Taylor was the sixth of the post-restoration bishops and, in 2004, he was succeeded by
John Cunningham.

In 2007 Bishop Cunningham changed the cathedral to St Margaret’s church in Ayr.

Bishop Nolan was nominated as Bishop of Galloway on 22nd November 2014 by Pope Francis, and Ordained in the Grand Hall, Kilmarnock on 14th February 2015 by Archbishop Leo Cushley of St. Andrew's and Edinburgh.