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.