Crossword-Solution: CATHAIR 7 letters, 12 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 12

Cuanna'cas an ighean eididh ňg Air cathair ňir na suidhe a steach Sgŕthan gloine air a glůn, S bheannaich-eam do a gnuis gheal.

There is a small city (cathair, _i.e._, civitas, but also meaning a bishop's _see_) there this day--_i.e._, Brettain, ubi est Episcopus Loarn qui ausus est increpare Patricium tenentem manum pueri ludentis justa Ecclesiam suam.

Patrick blessed him, and he believed in God, and confessed the Catholic faith, and was baptized; and Patrick said to him: "Your seat (_cathair_, chair or city) on earth shall be noble"; and Patrick's (_comarb_) successor is bound to bend the knee before his _comarb_ in consideration of his submission.

Always following in the track of Burns, the Gray Dragon dashed up and down short, steep, switchbacked hills (which must have tried any steed of ancient days except a witch's broomstick) and whisked us into Sanquhar, the "sean cathair" or "old fortress" of earliest Gaelic times, now snappily called "Sanker." There Queen Mary rested, going to Dundrennan after the terrible battle of Langside; there Prince Charlie marched; and there was a monument of granite to the Covenanters Cameron and Renwick.

Its name (_cathair_, stone fortress) implies a high antiquity and the site of the castle, picturesquely placed on an island in the river, was occupied from very early times.