St. Finnan's Basilica

St. Finnan's Basilica is a Roman Catholic church in Alexandria, eastern Ontario, built in the 1880s in the neogothic style. It is dedicated to Finan of Lindisfarne, the 7th-century Irish-born bishop who spread Christianity across northern England — an unusual patron for a Canadian parish church that reflects the strong Irish immigrant heritage of the surrounding Glengarry County. For decades it served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall until that diocese was merged into the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall. It retains the honorary rank of minor basilica and remains the most prominent ecclesiastical landmark in rural eastern Ontario between Ottawa and Montreal.