of Iona. Abernethy thus comes again into view for the first time since it was refounded by St. Columba at the end of the sixth century. The Columban monks were, no doubt, expelled from it in the beginning of the eighth century, but now, in the reign of Kenneth mac Alpin, it was once again occupied by Irish clergy. It is at this time probably that we may place the erection of the round tower there, which could only have been the work of Irish clergy; and this is the more probable as it is undoubtedly of an older type than the round tower at Brechin, the date of the building of which can be placed with some degree of certainty late in the succeeding century, and as a round tower had been erected at Kildare, which Dr. Petrie places at the close of the preceding century.[582] [Sidenote: A.D. 865-908. Primacy transferred to Abernethy, where three elections of bishops take place.] The year 865, which saw the deaths both of the first bishop of Fortrenn and of the abbot of Kildare, corresponds with the second year of the reign of Constantine, the son of Kenneth; and he seems to have transferred the bishopric from Dunkeld to Abernethy, for we find the next abbot of Dunkeld, who died during this reign, called simply superior of Dunkeld, while the title of bishop of Fortrenn is dropped;[583] and Bower, the abbot of Inchcolm, tells us of Abernethy that ‘in that church there had been three elections of bishops when there was but one sole bishop in Scotland; and at that time it was the principal royal and episcopal seat, for some time, of the whole kingdom of the Picts.’[584] He is surely here reporting a genuine tradition, and the statement as to the three elections during the time when there was one sole bishop is so specifically made that it must have been derived from some authentic record. But the time when there was one sole bishop cannot have been before the nomination of the abbot of Dunkeld as first bishop of Fortrenn. It must, however, have been before the bishops of St. Andrews appear as sole bishops in the succeeding century. We are driven, therefore, to place it in this interval between the death of Tuathal, first bishop of the Picts, in the year 865, and the first appearance of that position being occupied by a bishop of St. Andrews, which, as we shall see, was in the year 908. We have no record of the three bishops elected at Abernethy during this interval; but we may possibly find the name of one of them in the dedication of a neighbouring parish. The church of Lathrisk, now Kettle, was dedicated to St. Ethernascus, whose day in the Scotch Calendar is the 22d December; and we find on the same day in the Irish Calendar Saints Ultan, Tua and Iotharnaisc, at _Claonadh_, now Clane, in the county of Kildare, which too connects him with the mother church of St. Bridget of Kildare.[585] [Sidenote: Legend of St. Adrian.]