Church of Connel, Kirkconnel

Before Kirkland Hill on the drovers' road from Ayrshire to Lanarkshire sits the church of St Connel. Google Maps associates it with the Covenanters though I saw little to explain this when I called. There were plenty of gravestones and even a collection of medieval fragments, for these are thirteenth-century remains on an even older site (some of those broken stones date to the ninth century).

Connel or Conal was an Irish church leader who died around the year 500 and may have involved himself with missionary work to southern Scotland. This place is likely a link to his ministry though the evidence is slight. That real Christians walked this land 1500 years ago is hard to imagine; that real Christians will still be here in 50 years’ time is also an exercise of faith. Even as we inspect the ruins beneath the great Scottish hills and consider the spiritual vacuums in our cities, we are minded of the Lord’s fair promise:

…and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18

Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. 1 Kings 19:18