Kevin, St. (kev’ in). An Irish saint of the 6th century, of whom legend relates that, like St. Senanus, he retired to an island where he vowed no woman should ever land. A girl named Kathleen followed him, but the saint hurled her from a rock, and her ghost never left the place while he lived. A rock at Glendalough (Wicklow) is shown as the bed of St. Kevin. Moore has a poem on this tradition (Irish Melodies, iv).
[From: Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Revised and Enlarged, Harper & Brothers, 1953]
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