Gwinear

Saint Gwinear (Guigner, in Irish Fingar) is an Irish saint honoured in Cornwall, one of the few early Cornish saints whose lives survived the Reformation. His life was written in the early fourteenth century by a priest named Anselm.

According to the legend, born in Ireland, he was brought to Christianity by Saint Patrick and, after a stay in Brittany, crossed to Cornwall with seven companions (or, in other accounts, seven hundred and seventy-⁠seven), landing at Hayle. There he was put to death by King Teudar; the narrative says he suffered together with his followers. One version sets the story in Brittany. The scholar Sabine Baring-⁠Gould thought the legend might be a distorted memory of an Irish group driven from Ossory in the fifth century. He is a saint of the undivided Church, commemorated on 23 March (new style; 5 April in the old style).