# Alexander Macdonell (bishop of Kingston)

Alexander Macdonell (17 July 1762 – 14 January 1840) was an outlawed "heather priest" of the illegal Catholic Church in Scotland, the first Roman Catholic military chaplain in Post-Reformation British military history, and the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Kingston, Upper Canada.
He was born at Glen Urquhart in Scotland and served as a chaplain with the Glengarry Fencibles during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. His presence insured that the regiment "distinguished itself by its humanity". When the regiment was demobilized, most of the soldiers found themselves unemployed and destitute.
He led them to Upper Canada, where they received a grant of land in return for their military service in what became the very prosperous Canadian Gaelic-speaking pioneer settlement of Glengarry County, Ontario. When Macdonell arrived in 1804, he found only three priests and three churches in Upper Canada. By his energy and perseverance he induced a considerable immigration of Gaels to the province, and left at his death forty-eight churches attended by thirty priests, plus a major seminary and a college.

## Early years

Alexander Macdonell was born 17 July 1760/62 at his father's house in Glen Urquhart. His family were known for stubborn adherence to the illegal and underground Catholic Church in Scotland. For example, at the burn known as Allt a bhodaich in Glen Cannich, Màiri ni'n Ailein, the future Bishop's aunt, was struck by the sabre of a redcoat while trying to remove the chasuble of Fr John Farquharson following the latter's arrest in a local Mass house. Màiri survived, but her scalp and skull were left scarred for life.
MacDonnell's early education was at the strictly illegal Buorblach Seminary, near Morar. Around 1775 he went to the Scots College in Paris, and continued his studies in the Royal Scots College in Valladolid in 1778. He was ordained a priest there on 16 February 1787. Returning to his native land he exercised a secret apostolate for five years in Lochaber, where he was termed in Scottish Gaelic as Sandaidh Mòr ("Big Sandy") and Maighstir Alisdair ("Father Alistair").

### Glengarry Fencibles

In 1792 his people were evicted from their homes during the Highland Clearances. Despite the fact that, the penal laws still being enforced, being a Catholic priest he was an outlaw, Macdonell involved himself in their affairs and persuaded Glasgow business owners to employ them while he acted as the Highlanders' priest and interpreter (for they were Catholics in a predominantly Protestant town and spoke Scottish Gaelic rather than Scottish English). He also used his influence on behalf of fellow Catholic Gaels from Barra who had attempted to emigrate but wound up shipwrecked and destitute near Glasgow. In May 1792, with permission of the apostolic vicar, Macdonell took up residence in Glasgow and found work for about 800 Catholic Highlanders.
Within two years after the Highlanders' arrival in Glasgow, the French Revolution ruined the export trade of Glasgow and deprived Macdonnell's parishioners of their livelihood. The only avenue open to the unemployed was service in the militia, but even this was closed to Catholics, who could not take the required oath for military service. Macdonell then drafted a proposal that the Highlanders be commissioned as a Catholic regiment in service to the government. Clan chief Alexander Ranaldson Macdonell and John Fletcher of Dunans went to London and presented the documents to King George III, along with letters of commendation from Glasgow merchants. Letters of service were accordingly issued in August, 1794. Though contrary to the existing law, Alexander Macdonell was gazetted as chaplain to the regiment, thus becoming the first Catholic military chaplain in the British Army since the Reformation. A Presbyterian minister was appointed as well for those of that persuasion. More than half the regiment that numbered 800, were from the area of Glengarry. In June, 1795, the regiment was deployed to Guernsey, where it remained until the summer of 1798.
The Glengarry Fencibles were then sent to Ireland during the Rebellion of 1798. The regiment saw action at Laggan Hill and was involved in some skirmishing at Kilkenny, Hackett's Town and New Ross.
   "They everywhere won golden opinions by their humane behavior towards the vanquished, which was in striking contrast with the floggings, burnings, and hangings which formed the daily occupation of the rest of the military. Father Macdonell, who accompanied the regiment in all their enterprises, was instrumental in fostering this... The Catholic chapels in many places had been turned into stables by the yeomanry, and these he caused to be restored to their proper use. He often said Mass himself in these humble places of devotion, and invited the inhabitants to leave their hiding places and resume once more their wonted occupations, assuring them of the king's protection, if they behaved quietly and peaceably. Such timely exhortations had almost magical effect, though the terror-stricken population could scarcely believe their eyes when they beheld a regiment of Roman Catholics, speaking their language, and among them a soggarth, a priest, assuring them of immunity from a government immemorially associated with every species of wrong and oppression."
An American bishop gave testimony to the chaplain's services: "The memory of Father Macdonell is as green in those regions as the fields they cultivate. That holy, chivalrous priest saved the lives of many innocent Irishmen and restored the chapels to their original purpose."

## Glengarry County, Upper Canada

When the regiment was disbanded in Glasgow in 1802, Macdonell appealed to the government to grant its members land in Canada. The government countered with a proposal for the recently acquired island of Trinidad, but Macdonell held fast. Influential lairds and landholders raised objections to "depopulating" the land, and the Emigration Act rigidly enforced. With all the obstacles placed in his way, Bernard Kelly says, "he may be literally said 'to have smuggled his friends away'"
Macdonell arrived at York, Upper Canada (now Toronto), 1 November 1804, and proceeded to settle the people on the lands granted by the British government. The area was part of the Diocese of Quebec. Macdonell, was assigned to the mission of St. Raphael's in South Glengarry, which he made his headquarters for twenty-five years. On his arrival he found three priests in the province: Roderick Macdonell at St. Andrews (St. Andrew's West, Ontario) and St. Regis (St. Regis, Quebec), Francis Fitzimmons in Glengarry, and Richard at Sandwich.
Roderick Macdonell died in 1806 and Fitzimmons removed shortly afterwards to New Brunswick; this left Macdonell in charge of the whole province for the next ten years with limited assistance. He was obliged to travel over through the province, carrying the requisites for Mass, and the administration of the sacraments, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in birch canoes, and sometimes on foot.
The unusually harmonious and amicable relations between local Gaels of different denominations is now legendary. Fr. MacDonnell prided himself on his knowledge of Protestant prayers and joked that he could easily fill in for Presbyterian minister Rev. John Bethune if necessary.
In 1812, he raised another regiment, the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles, and followed them into repeated battles against the United States Army during the War of 1812. William Foster Coffin would later liken Macdonell to "a medieval churchman, half bishop, half baron, [who] fought and prayed, with equal zeal, by the side of men he had come to regard as his hereditary followers".
Following an 1814 visit to the settlement, Dr. D. MacPherson wrote, "You might travel over the whole of the County and by far the greater part of Stormont, without hearing anything spoken except the good Gaelic. Every family, even of the lowest order, has a landed property of 200 acres... However poor the family (but indeed there are none that can be called so) they kill a bullock for the winter consumption; the farm or estate supplies them with abundance of butter, cheese, etc., etc. Their houses are small but comfortable, having a ground floor and garret, with regular chimney and glass windows. The appearance of the people is at all times respectable, but I was delighted at seeing them at church on a Sunday; the men clothed in good English cloth, and many of the women wore the Highland plaid."
Dr. MacPherson continued, "The chief object of my visit to Glengarry was to see an old acquaintance, Mr. Alexander MacDonald (sic), a priest, who has been resident in this country ten years. I believe you know him, or at least you know who he is. A more worthy man is not in Canada; he is the mainstay of the Highlanders here; they apply to him for redress in all their grievances, and an able and willing advocate they find in him. He is well known from the poorest man to the Governor, and highly respected by all. Were he ambitious of enriching himself, he might ere now be possessed of immense property; but this appears not to be his object; his whole attention is devoted to the good of the settlement; and the great and numerous services which he has done, cannot well be calculated."
St. Raphael's Catholic Church was built around 1821. It was one of the oldest churches in what was then Upper Canada. In late 1970, the church interiors, roof and tower were destroyed by fire. In 1973, a smaller church with the same name was built, attached to the ruins.

## Bishop

In 1817, Upper Canada was set apart from the See of Quebec as a vicariate Apostolic, and two years later Macdonell was appointed vicar apostolic. His consecration as bishop of Rhosina taking place in the Ursuline chapel, Quebec, on 31 December 1820. King George IV gave Macdonell a gift of an episcopal ring. Six years later, 14 February 1826, the vicariate was raised to a bishopric by Pope Leo XII, and Macdonell then became the first bishop of Upper Canada with his see at Kingston.
Macdonell's thorough knowledge of the country and its people and his great administrative ability made his counsel desirable to the government, and on 12 October 1831, he was called to the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, and thereafter was accorded the title "Honourable".
He founded churches and schools and in 1839 established Regiopolis College, which offered academic and theological training to Roman Catholic youth. The original building has been part of the Hotel Dieu Hospital (Kingston, Ontario) on Sydenham Street, Kingston, Ontario since 1892.

## Death

Macdonell died from pneumonia on 14 January 1840, aged 77 in Dumfries, Scotland, where he had gone with the hope of interesting Irish and Scotch bishops in a plan of emigration and to raise funds for the college. He was buried in the crypt of St. Margaret's Convent chapel, Edinburgh, but his remains were subsequently removed to Canada and interred in Kingston Cathedral 26 September 1861.
A bronze bust of Macdonell is installed in Toronto, corner of Bathurst and Adelaide.

## Legacies

The town of Alexandria in North Glengarry, Ontario is named after him. There is a tablet to his memory in St. Raphael's, Alexandria, erected 18 June 1843, by the Highland Society of Canada, which Macdonell had founded.
In Guelph, Ontario, Canada, a Catholic secondary school was renamed to Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School in 1962 and Macdonell Street at the foot of Church of Our Lady Immaculate is named in his honour.
Macdonell Street in Kingston, Ontario is named after him.
When Macdonell resided in Toronto after returning from Europe he resided in a house on the south-east corner of Nelson (today's Jarvis) and Duchess (today's Richmond) Streets. The house, built in 1832, still stands, although it has been remade into a restaurant. It is a designated heritage building.