That's absolutely wonderful
Thinking of your trip, I was just going to post that MonicaL would be along soon to give plenty of background on St Finan's. What a truly beautiful cross. A bit more ....
Charles MacDonald, Priest of Moidart 1859-1892
One of the first people to live in the “new” Mingarry was Charles Macdonald, Roman Catholic Priest of Moidart. His life has been well documented by Iain Thornber in the foreword of the 1989 Edition of Father Charles Book “Moidart or Among the Clanranalds”, and again by John Watts in introduction to the edition published in1997. Father Jerome Ireland also wrote a short account of the life of Father Charles, in one of his series of articles entitled “Some Priests of Moidart” published in the weekly parish news-sheets in the late 1960s.
Charles MacDonald was born of Clanranald stock, near Inverness in 1835. He was educated at Blair’s college, Aberdeen, and later at colleges and seminaries in France, and received Minor orders in Paris in 1857. He returned to Scotland in 1859 and was ordained Priest in 1859 in Glasgow. He arrived in Moidart in October 1859 and immediately set about learning Gaelic. From the various accounts, a picture emerges of a red-haired energetic, shorttemperedintelligent man. He enjoyed the company of wealthy, well educated friends and was an excellent conversationalist. He carried out his duties ministering to the local population with what appears to have been genuine affection, and was generally well-liked. He did not hesitate to travel around his wild parish on horseback in all weathers in spite of frequently indifferent health. Some of the local anecdotes related by John Watts are particularly revealing, such as the account of Father Charles intervention in fights that sometimes broke out between protestant and Catholics at the Old Bridge over the Shiel. The priest would “whip his parishioners home with a hazel stick”
He is best known for his book “Moidart or Among the Clanranalds” published in 1889, near the end of his life. Ill health had already caused him to spend a year in Egypt (1886-87) He was finally forced to give up his mission in Moidart in 1992 and died in Helenburgh in1894. His body was returned to Moidart and interred on the Green Isle.
[PDF]High Mingarry - Highland Historic Environment Record
her.highland.gov.uk/hbsmrgatewayhighland/DataFiles/LibraryLinkFiles/184984.pdf
I knew I had a reference to hazel sticks somewhere! I looked at Fr Chas MacDonald some time ago because of the subscriptions to his memorial cross. A family ancestor, Donald Boyd, fervently Free Church, donated 2 guineas towards it; he was the sixth highest on the list. A brother in law of Fr Chas donated £5. So I searched for a connection to D Boyd, but found none