Thomas D'Arcy McGee
| Thomas D'Arcy McGee | |
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| Member of the Canadian Parliament for Montreal West |
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In office 1867–1868 |
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| Succeeded by | Michael Patrick Ryan |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
13 April 1825 Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland, UK |
| Died | 7 April 1868 (aged 42) Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Political party | Liberal-Conservative |
| Relations | Frank Charles McGee, Great-nephew |
| Signature |  |
Thomas D'Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee, (13 April 1825 – 7 April 1868) was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was a Catholic Irishman who hated the British rule of Ireland, and worked for a peasant revolution to overthrow British rule and secure Irish independence. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States in 1848, where he reversed his political beliefs. He became disgusted with American republicanism and democracy, and became intensely conservative in his politics and in his religious support for the Pope. He moved to Canada in 1857 and worked hard to convince the Irish Catholics to cooperate with the Protestant British in forming a Confederation that would make for a strong Canada in close alliance with Britain. His fervor for Confederation garnered him the title: 'Canada's first nationalist'. He fought the Fenians in Canada, who were Irish Catholics who hated the British and resembled his younger self politically. McGee succeeded in helping create the Canadian Confederation in 1867, but was assassinated by Fenian Elements in 1868.
Widely known as D'Arcy McGee, he was born on 13 April 1825 in Carlingford, Ireland, and raised as a Roman Catholic. From his mother, the daughter of a Dublin bookseller, he learned the history of Ireland, which later influenced his writing and political activity. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Wexford, where his father, James McGee, was employed by the coast guard. In Wexford he attended a local hedge school, where the teacher, Michael Donnelly, fed his hunger for knowledge and where he learned of the long history of British rule and Irish opposition, including the more recent uprising of 1798. In 1842 at age 17, McGee left Ireland with his sister due to a poor relationship with their stepmother, Margaret Dea, who had married his father in 1840 after the death of his mother 22 August 1833. In 1842 he sailed from Wexford harbour aboard the brig Leo, bound for the United States. On the Leo he wrote many of his early poems, mostly about Ireland. He soon found work as assistant editor of Patrick Donahoe's Boston Pilot, a Catholic newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts. He specialized in articles expounding the movement for Irish self-determination led by Daniel O’Connell. He became the lead editor in 1844, While writing widely as well on Irish literature and politics. He advocated the union of Canada into the United States, saying, "Either by purchase, conquest, or stipulation, Canada must be yielded by Great Britain to this Republic."
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