Discover more about this early Christian saint and his connections to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island)
Saint Cadfan, or ‘Catamanus’ in Latin, has many associations with north Wales. He is generally credited with founding the monastic settlement on Ynys Enlli around the year 516, where he served as abbot until 542. One story is that Cadfan was a Breton nobleman who travelled to Wales and founded a church at Llangadfan in Montgomeryshire (northern Powys) before moving on to Ynys Enlli.
Today only the 13th-century tower of St Mary’s Abbey remains standing on Ynys Enlli.
Cadfan is also associated with the parish church in Tywyn, Meirionnydd. At St Cadfan’s in Tywyn, within the church, you can find one of the earliest examples of written Welsh, carved on an early Christian Stone dating to the 7th–9th centuries. The stone is sometimes referred to as the ‘Cadfan Stone’, although the inscriptions bear no relation to the early Christian saint.