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Cairncross  Annals of the Four Masters (ed. O'Donovan), i. 598; Tighernac, the Ulster Annals and Annales Buelliani, ap. O'Conor's Scriptores Rerum Hibernicarum, vols. ii. and iv.; Ussher, De Antiquit. Eccles. Brit.; Colgan's Trias Theumtlurga, p. 146, &c.; J. H. Todd's Martyrology of Donegal, p. 271; Journal of Royal Hist. and Archæol. Society of Ireland, iv. 201-4; Hennessey's Chronicon Scotorum (Rolls Ser.), p. 67; Lanigan's Eccles. Hist of Ireland. ii. 200; Ulster Journal of Archæology, 1854 (ii.); Ware's Antiquities (ed. 1725), p. 137; Stowe Missal (ninth and  tenth cent.), ed. Warenne; Drummond Missal, ed. Forbes. The referenses to the various contemporary Irish saints are given according to their lives in the Bollandist or Colgan's Acta Sanctorum (A. SS.) Two manuscript lives of Cainnech may be found in the Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B 485, ff. 120 b-34; and Rawlinson B 505, ff. 145-9 b. Another life is preserved in the so-called Codex Kilkennienais of Primate Marsh's library at Dublin.]

 CAIRNCROSS, ALEXANDER (d. 1701), archbishop of Glasgow, was descended from the ancient family of Cairncross of Cowmull. For some time he followed the trade of a dyer in the Canongate of Edinburgh, subsequently he became parson of Dumfries, where he remained till 1684, when by the recommendation of the Duke of Queensberry he was promoted to the see of Brechin, from which he was in a few months promoted to that of Glasgow. Having incurred the displeasure of the lord chancellor, the Earl of Perth, he was in January 1687 removed from the see, but after the revolution he obtained the notice of the new powers, and in 1693 was made bishop of Raphoe in Ireland, where he continued till his death in 1701. By his will he left 20l. to the poor of the parish of Raphoe, and the tenth part of his personal estate to the episcopal clergy of the kingdom of Scotland. He was buried in the cathedral of Raphoe.

[Registrum Episcopatus Brochinensis (Bannatyne club. 1856), p. 141 (App.) 79; Keith's Scotish Bishops (Russell), 158, 268-9; Ware's Works (Harris), 1, 277.]

 CAIRNCROSS, ROBERT (d. 1544) abbot of Holyrood, afterwards bishop of Ross, was descended from the ancient family of Balmashannar, Forfarshire, which had been seated there as early as the time of Robert II. He was provost of the collegiate church of Corstorphine, and one of the king's chaplains. On 5 Sept. 1528 he was nominated treasurer on the downfall of the Earl of Angus. Knowing that the abbot of Holyrood was on the point of death, he, according to Buchanan, wagered a large sum with James V that he would not present him to the first vacant benefice, when the king, quite well aware of what he referred to, accepted and won the wager. On suspicion of favouring the cause of the Douglases he lost the treasurership almost as soon as he obtained it, although he again held it from 1537 to 1539. On 23 June of the latter year he was admitted to the see of Ross, and shortly afterwards received in commendam the abbacy of Fern, the dilapidated state of which his wealth was expected to repair. On the death of the king he was appointed one of the lords of the council to the governor, the Earl of Arran, when he joined in opposing the treaty of peace with England. He died in April 1544. He is the subject of two epigrams by George Buchanan.

[Keith's Scottish Bishops, pp. 190-1; Crawford's Officers of State, pp. 371-3; Haig and Brunton's Senators of the College of Justice, pp. 45-6.]

 CAIRNECH, (d. 539?), whose name does not appear in the 'Felire' of Angus the Culdee, was, according to the account preserved in the book of Ballimote (compiled cir. 1390), the son of Sarran, so-called king of Britain, by Babona, daughter of Loarn, king of Alban. This Loarn was the son of Erc, and one of the four leaders of the first Scots colony to Argyll (cir. 495) (Chronicles of Picts and Scots, p. 18). Babona's sister Erc seems to have married Muredach, grandson of Neil of the nine hostages (d. 405?), and so became the mother of the great Irish king, Mucertach MacErca (504-527), who was thus cousin to St. Cairnech. This genealogy exactly corresponds with the other Irish traditions as to Mucertach's ancestry (Annals of Four Masters, i. I75), and, if we accept it as genuine, it gives us the materials for fixing the era of St. Cairnech, whom we may infer to have been a little younger than his cousin, who was certainly a grown man at the battle of Ocha (478 A.D.) Mucertach's grandfather and great-uncle were both alive in 464, and we shall probably not be far wrong if we place the birth of this Irish king at somewhere about 455, and that of his cousin Cairnech about 460. As, however, Loarn seems to have reigned between 495 and 565, we must suppose that the book of Ballimote calls him king of Alban proleptically.

According to the legend alluded to above, Cairnech was harassed in his monastery by his brother, King Luirig, who, however, is at last slain through the instrumentality of Mucertach. Cairnech then attends a great synod at Tours, where he is given the 'chieftainship of the martyrs of the world.' From Gaul Cairnech passes over first to Cornwall