| Description | This postcard shows a smiling Archbishop McDonald standing in a group of four clergy in the sunshine at Lourdes; on the back of the postcard, or Carte Postale, someone has written that, from left to right, Archbishop is third on the right and fourth on the right next to him is a monk of Ampleforth; Archbishop McDonald was born at Invernevis, Fort William, on 12th February 1871; he was ordained as a priest on 9th August 1896; on 27th August 1919, he was elected third Abbot of Fort Augustus; on 19th July 1929, he was nominated to the See of St Andrews and Edinburgh in succession to Archbishop James A Smith, who had died the previous year, and the new Archbishop was consecrated in St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh on 24th September 1929; he died in Edinburgh on 22nd May 1950, aged 80, and was buried in the vault under the sanctuary in St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh; full details of Archbishop McDonald's life can be found in his obituary on pp 336 to 341 of The Catholic Directory for 1951. |