23 February ~ St. Quivox

Formerly this saint (also called Kevoca and Mochaemhog) was taken to be a woman and commemorated under the name of St. Kevoca the Virgin. The scholars Colgan and Lanigan treated him as feminine and a fictitious biography was ascribed to him. Reeves and Forbes finally showed the name to be simply a variant of Caemhog prefixed by the honorific ‘mo’.

Of this seventh-century Connaught Christian almost nothing is known except that his father, Beoanus, was famed for craftsmanship and assisted St. Ita in the building of her monastery. His mediaeval ‘vita’ is no more than a collection of pointless miracles. There is a tradition that Quivox worked in south-west Scotland, especially around Ayr, where he is remembered in the parish of St. Quivox. At Eaglesham there is a Kevoch burn. Trained under St. Ita and then at Bangor under Comgall, he is credited with founding the monastery of Liathmor, and is to have died in 669.

His festival is 24 February

A.P. Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, 1872

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