D'Arcy McGee

McGee in 1868

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Thomas D'Arcy McGee, PC, (April 13, 1825 – April 7, 1868) was an Irish Nationalist, Irish-Canadian journalist, Father of Confederation, and, to date, the only Canadian victim of political assassination at the federal level.

Profile

Widely known as D'Arcy McGee, he was born on April 13, 1825 in Carlingford, Ireland and raised as a Roman Catholic. In 1842 at age 17 he emigrated to the United States where he found work as assistant editor of Patrick Donahoe's Boston Pilot, a Catholic newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts. A few years later he returned to Ireland where he became politically active and edited the nationalist newspaper The Nation. His support for the Fenians and his involvement in the Irish Confederation and Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 resulted in a warrant for his arrest. McGee escaped the country by steamship and returned to the United States.

In the US, he founded Irish-American publications in New York City and Boston, and generally supported the cause of Irish immigrants. In 1857 he went to Canada where he set up the publication of the New Era in Montreal, Quebec. Politically active, he advocated a new nationality in Canada, to escape the sectarianism of Ireland. In 1858, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and worked for the creation of an independent Canada. A monument to him stands at Tremone Bay, in north Co. Donegal near the bay from which he escaped to America in 1848. (Beattie, Darcy McGee Commemoration, 1848, p.5)

Moderating his radical Irish nationalist views, McGee denounced the Fenian Brotherhood in America that advocated a forcible takeover of Canada from Britain by the United States. A faction of American Fenians sent an invasion force into Canada in 1866 that was repulsed by Canadian forces and arrested by the American authorities. Canadians, with Irish sympathizers in their midst, and spurred by numerous rumours of another, more massive invasion, lived in fear of the Fenians for several years.

McGee was elected to the 1st Canadian Parliament in 1867 as a Conservative representing the riding of Montreal West.

McGee funeral procession in 1868

Assassination

On April 7, 1868, McGee participated in a parliamentary debate that went on past midnight. He walked to the doorstep of his Sparks St. apartment afterward, and was assassinated by pistol shot. He was given a state funeral in Ottawa and interred in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal. The Government of Canada's Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building stands near the site of the assassination.

Patrick J. Whelan, a Fenian sympathizer, was accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime. Decades later, his guilt was questioned and many believe that he was a scapegoat. His case is dramatized in the Canadian play, Blood on the Moon. The Canadian folk music group Tamarack's song "The Hangman's Eyes" was inspired by Whelan.

Honours

There is a monument to him in his native Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland, unveiled during a visit by Brian Mulroney, former Canadian Prime Minister and his then Irish counterpart Charles Haughey.

On Sparks Street, in downtown Ottawa, the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building is a prominent government-owned office building.

A pub bearing his name, "D'Arcy McGee's", is situated at the corner of Sparks Street and Elgin Street. Located within walking distance of Parliament Hill, it is a popular watering hole for many politicians. Other locations of D'Arcy McGee's Irish Pub exist in Bells Corners, Ontario and at the Ottawa International Airport, having opened on April 1, 2008 in the newly expanded domestic portion of the passenger terminal, and the first US location in 2008 in Tempe, Arizona.

D'Arcy McGee has several schools named in his honour including: l'École Secondaire D'Arcy McGee High School, sec III-V, Western Quebec School Board, Gatineau, Quebec; D'Arcy McGee Catholic School, Elementary, Toronto Catholic District School Board, Toronto, Ontario; and Thomas D'Arcy McGee Catholic School, Elementary, Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board, Ottawa, Ontario.

In 1986, a Chair of Irish Studies was set up in his honour at St. Mary's University, Halifax.

The Quebec provincial electoral district (riding) of D'Arcy-McGee is named in his honour, as are two villages in central Saskatchewan. One of these villages is named D'Arcy, the other McGee, and they are located approximately 20 kilometres apart.

References

Sean Beattie, Darcy McGee a Commemoration 1848, Carndonagh, 1998.

External links

• Works by Thomas D'Arcy McGee at Project Gutenberg
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Parliament of Canada biography
• A History of the Irish Settlers in North America from the Earliest Period to the Census of 1850
• Michael Doheny. The Felon's Track. Dublin, M H Gill & Son, 1920.
•  "Thomas D'Arcy McGee". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Thomas_D%27Arcy_McGee. 
• Radio documentary about the McGee murder, Canada’s first political assassination