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Thomas D’Arcy McGee was born in Ireland in 1825, and soon developed a love of reading and writing. Three decades later he eventually ended up in Canada, and was elected to parliament in 1867, becoming one of the Fathers of Canadian Confederation. He was soon assassinated, by an Irishman, never seeing his adopted home’s first birthday.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: April 7, 1868--
Not slagging the Irish, but it’s relevant to the tale. At 17 McGee left Ireland for America because he really didn’t like his stepmother. Arriving in Boston, he quickly insinuated himself into the Irish community, giving powerful “fuck the British” speeches about the occupation of the country of his birth. He was given a job writing for a local paper, and two years later was the editor, often writing about the need for home rule in Ireland for the reading pleasure of Boston’s sizeable Irish population.
A few years after his arrival in America, however, McGee returned home in 1845 just as the Great Famine was beginning, writing for another fuck-the-British newspaper. His participation in the 1848 rebellion against the British resulted in a warrant for his arrest so he disguised himself as a priest and fled back to the U.S., this time landing in New York.
There was an influx of Irish to the U.S. because of the famine, and you know how a lot of Americans feel about immigrants. He started to look toward Canada, which was not yet a country, making trips there and getting a sense that it was a less hostile place for Irish to live. And so, he moved to Montreal in 1857, launched his own publication titled New Era, and being no fan of Britain McGee immediately began writing about how it was time for Britain to fuck off and let Canada be a sovereign nation.
He was soon elected to the Province of Canada’s legislative assembly, but over time his views became more moderate regarding telling Britain to fuck all the way off. He’d been a firebrand that incited the Fenian Brotherhood in America; one position they held was that the United States should invade Canada and take it over from the British because fuck the British. Having lived in Canada for a while McGee started to say yeah actually no let’s not do that.
He began to denounce the Fenian movement, instead advocating for a more limited Irish self-rule within the British Empire the way Canada was doing it. The Fenians were all “Ya fekkin’ traitor!” In the early morning hours of April 7, 1868, returning home late after a lengthy parliamentary debate, D’Arcy McGee entered the Ottawa boarding house where he was living and was shot in the head by someone waiting inside. Fenian sympathizer Patrick Whelan was tried and convicted of the murder and executed by hanging the following February.
At the time, the population of Montreal was 105,000. McGee’s funeral procession through that city drew a crowd of 80,000.
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We're an odd bunch us Irish 😁☘️
This was a piece of Irish history I didn't know! Thanks to you now I do!!
I am Irish on my father's side and yes, his relatives were treated like shit, but then it was for the same thing that Mexicans are treated! Accent and willing to do what others won't to feed the Family!
My mum's family is Scottish!