GALLOWAY, Diocese of. – Located in the southwest of Scotland. It comprises the counties of Ayr, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown, as well as the islands of Great and Little Cumbrae, thus covering a territory of approximately 4,000 square miles. The episcopal see is at Dumfries. The diocese has 647,000 inhabitants, of whom 27,000 are Catholics, distributed across 33 parishes served by 57 diocesan priests and 9 regular clergy, along with 4 male and 8 female religious communities.
It is the oldest ecclesiastical foundation in Scotland, having been established in 397 by St. Ninian, a Briton born on the shores of the Solway, but educated in Rome and consecrated bishop by Pope Siricius. The original title of the see was "Whithorn," often Latinized as "Candida Casa," a name derived from the white house that St. Ninian built and dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. The last Catholic bishop, Andrew Durie, died in 1558, and the see remained vacant until 1878, when Bishop John MacLachlan was appointed. The thus restored diocese is twice as large as it was before, though the Catholic population remains small. Galloway was suffragan to York until 1472, when it was transferred to St. Andrews; in 1492 it became subject to Glasgow and remained so until the suppression of the hierarchy under the Reformation. It is now suffragan to the new archdiocese of St. Andrews in Edinburgh. The cathedral church is dedicated to St. Andrew.