Rhuddlad of Anglesey

Rhuddlad is a holy woman venerated in the Orthodox pre-schism Western tradition as the patron saint of Llanrhyddlad, a hamlet on the Isle of Anglesey in north-west Wales. She is assigned to the seventh century, though this dating rests on tradition rather than documentary evidence, and no contemporary record of her life survives. Her feast day is observed on September 4.

The sole concrete witness to her veneration is the place name itself. In Welsh, 'Llan' denotes a church or its surrounding settlement, and the full form 'Llanrhyddlad' means 'the church of Rhuddlad,' a naming pattern characteristic of the early Celtic Christian foundations across Wales and the western British Isles. The settlement lies at the foot of the hill Moel Rhyddlad near Holyhead Bay, within the historic diocese of Bangor. That both the village and the hill carry her name suggests a local cult of some antiquity, even if all narrative tradition about her has been lost.

Beyond the toponym, virtually nothing is known about Rhuddlad's life. Sources list her consistently as female and designate her a virgin, but the record is largely one of silence. She is classified among the Righteous — a rank reflecting a holy layperson or ascetic rather than a martyr or ordained minister. The surviving church on the site, rebuilt in 1858, replaced an earlier structure whose age and original form are unrecorded.