Dagán

Dagán was an Irish bishop in Anglo-Saxon England during the early part of the 7th century.

Dagán is known from a letter written by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish bishops and abbots, in which Laurence attempted to persuade the Irish clergy to accept the Roman method of calculating the date of Easter. Dagán is mentioned in the letter as having recently arrived in Kent. Laurence mentions that Dagán had refused to either share a roof with the Roman missionaries or to eat with them. The full mention of Dagán is "But we have learned from bishop Dagán who came to the above-mentioned island [Britannia] and from abbot Columbanus in Gaul, that they [the Irish clergy] do not differ from the Britons in their way of life. For when Bishop Dagan came to us he refused to take food, not only with us but even in the very house where we took meals." The letter is preserved in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, but as it is recorded there it lacks any closing formulas, so dating it is difficult. Although a date of shortly after 610 has been put forward by Paul Grossjean, the letter could have been written at any time between around 605, when Laurence became archbishop and around 616, when King Æthelberht of Kent died and a pagan reaction against the missionaries set in.