Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macdonald, Patrick
MACDONALD, PATRICK (1729–1824), amateur musician, eldest son of Murdoch Macdonald, minister of Durness, Sutherlandshire, was born on 22 April 1729. He studied for the ministry at Aberdeen University, and, after acting for some time as a private tutor, was in 1756 licensed by the presbytery of Edinburgh, and ordained as missionary at Strontian, Argyllshire. In 1757 he became minister of Kilmore, Argyllshire, where he died, ‘father of the church,' on 26 Sept. 1824. He married Barbara Macdonald, a Roman catholic, ‘who attended neither public nor family worship with her husband’ (Soon), and by her had nine sons and four daughters. He was a well-informed writer on Scottish music, a composer, and a player of various instruments. He wrote the account of his for Sinclair's ‘Statistical Account,’ but his claim to remembrance rests on ‘A Collection of Highland Vocal Airs never hitherto published, etc.’ (Edinburgh. 1784), which he edited with the assistance of his brother, Joseph Macdonald and the Rev. Walter Young, who composed the basses and wrote the preliminary dissertation.’ This work, which was published by subscription and is now scarce, is valuable, both for its musical contents and the materials it offers to the historian of national melody.
[Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. ‘Synod of Argyll’, p. 50; Presbytery Registers; Johnson’s Scots’ Musical Museum. ed. 1853, i. 51; Glen's Coll. of Scottish Dance Music, Introd., Edinb. 1891.]