Thomas D’Arcy McGee
Originally this episode aired March 19th 2017. Prior name of the Podcast was Tea with Puppets.
In episode #17 we learn about Thomas D’Arcy McGee, a founding father of Canada, the first Irishman in the English-speaking world to appear on a postage stamp, and the victim of the only politically motivated assassination in Canadian history.
The man widely known as D’Arcy McGee, was born April 13th 1825 in Carlingford, Ireland as Thomas D’Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee,
The young McGee was a Catholic Irishman who hated the British rule of Ireland.
In 1842, at age 17, he emigrated from Ireland to the United States and eventually settled in Boston.
He began to make a name for himself almost immediately. After delivering a speech attacking British rule at the society of the Boston Friends of Ireland, he was hired at the Boston Pilot. It was the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston and claimed the title of “America’s Oldest Catholic Newspaper”, having been in continuous publication since its first issue on September 5, 1829. In 1844, D’Arcy McGee would become the co-editor of the Boston Pilot.
McGee’s work eventually caught the attention of Daniel O’Connell who led the movement for Irish self-determination. In 1845 — just at the onset of the Potato Famine — he returned to Ireland to fill a position at the Freeman’s Journal. A journal that was closely linked to O’Connell’s party, the Repeal Association.
In 1848, as revolution swept across the European continent, McGee attempted to lead a peasant revolution to overthrow British rule and secure Irish independence.
When his efforts failed, he became wanted by the authorities. To avoid capture he disguised as a priest and escaped to the United States in October 1848. He landed in New York, where he eventually established the New York Nation and the American Celt (Boston). Newspapers focusing on the voices of the Young Ireland movement.
During his second stint in America, D’Arcy grew disillusioned with democracy, republicanism and the United States. These feeling can be partially blamed on the rising popularity of the Native American Party, with its record of bitter hostility to the Irish.
On a lecture tour through Canada, during this time, he was struck with the wide measure of liberty enjoyed by his church and his countrymen under British rule.
This undoubtedly influenced him to once more to take up residence under the Union Jack. In 1857, McGee emigrated to Montreal, believing Canada was far more hospitable to the Catholic Irish than was the United States.
He would remain a persistent critic of American institutions and the American way of life. He also accused Americans of hostile and expansionist motives toward Canada and of desiring to spread its republican ideas over all of North America.
He worked hard to convince the Irish Catholics to cooperate with the Protestant British in forming a country with a close alliance with Britain, to avoid American dominance.
The vehicle to share his views was a new paper called the New Era, he founded when he came to Montreal in 1857. In his editorials in his paper and pamphlets he distributed, he attacked the influence of the Orange Order and defended the Irish Catholic right to representation in the assembly.
In December 1857, Thomas D’Arcy McGee was elected to Canada’s legislative assembly as one of three representatives for Montréal. In public life, as in his writing, McGee became a staunch supporter of the cause of Canadian nationhood. After establishing a publication and a new political career in under a year, McGee had arguably become one of the staunchest apostle’s of British American union and nationality.
As he said in one speech at the time:
“The next motive for union to which I refer, is that it will strengthen rather than weaken the connection with the Empire, so essential to these rising provinces. It may be said that it is rather strange for an Irishman, who spent his youth in resisting that government in his native country, to be found amongst the admirers of British constitutional government in Canada. To that remark this is my reply: If in my day Ireland had been governed as Canada is now governed I would have been as sound a constitutionalist as is to be found in Ireland.”
To those of his own racial origin he addressed these words: “We Irishmen, Protestant and Catholic, born and bred in a land of religious controversy, should never forget that we now live in a land of the fullest religious and civil liberty.”
Initially, he worked with the short-lived Reform government of George Brown, eventually he
defected to the Conservatives in 1861 to endorse a bill for separate Catholic schools. In 1863, he joined John A. Macdonald’s government as minister of agriculture, immigration and statistics.
He was also a Canadian delegate to the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864. At the Quebec Conference, McGee introduced the resolution which called for a guarantee of the educational rights of religious minorities in the two Canadas.
McGee also continued to speak out against the Fenians Brotherhood of America, who advocated a forcible takeover of Canada from Britain by the United States. Their objectives could easily have been based directly on McGee’s own revolutionary screeds. He encouraged the Irish national struggle to follow more or less the Canadian model of (limited) self-government within the British Empire. He was eventually seen as a traitor by the very Irish community he sought to defend. By 1866, was in political trouble with his Irish constituents in Montreal. He had antagonized the Irish vote and had become a liability. As the federal general election of 1867 approached, McGee was expelled from the St Patrick’s Society, and the society’s president, Bernard Devlin, was nominated to oppose him for the seat of Montreal West.
McGee, was still popular enough, though, to win the seat by a slim majority. He would take a seat in the 1st Canadian Parliament in 1867, but due to his declining popularity he was not included in Macdonald’s first post-Confederation Cabinet. By early 1868, McGee had begun planning to leave politics for a job in the civil service, an appointment which John A. Macdonald had promised him by the summer. He also hoped to spend more time on his writing and poetry. However, he was never given the chance to take that post.
On 7 April 1868, McGee participated in a parliamentary debate on Nova Scotian concerns about confederation, that went on past midnight. After finishing, shortly after 1 a.m., he walked back to the boarding house where he was staying. McGee was opening the door to Trotter’s Boarding House in Ottawa when he was shot in the head and died immediately.
Someone had been waiting for him on the inside, but the assassin escaped without a trace, even as several people came running to the scene to assist D’Arcy McGee.
The authorities suspected a Fenian conspiracy and swiftly arrested a man named Patrick James Whelan within 24 hours of Darcy’s assassination. Whelan maintained his innocence throughout his trial and was never proven to be a Fenian.
Whelan was hung for the crime on 11 February 1869, in Ottawa. The jury was decisively swayed by the forensic evidence that Whelan’s gun had been fired shortly before the killing, together with the circumstantial evidence that he had threatened and stalked McGee.
Although Whelan denied that he was the hit man, he said just before his death that he knew the identity of the killer, and that he was present when McGee was assassinated — which would of course have made him guilty as an accessory.
Historian David Wilson points out that forensic tests conducted in 1972 show that the fatal bullet was compatible with both the gun and the bullets that Whelan owned. Wilson concludes:
The balance of probabilities suggests that Whelan either shot McGee, or was part of a hit-squad, but there is still room for reasonable doubt as to whether he was the man who actually pulled the trigger.
What about the legacy of D’Arcy McGee?
Sir John Macdonald, prime minister of Canada paid tribute to McGee, the day after his murder and rose in the parliament just before moving for the adjournment of the House.
“He who last night, nay this morning, was with us, whose voice is still ringing in our ears, who charmed us with his marvelous eloquence, elevated us by his large statesmanship, and instructed us by his wisdom, his patriotism, is no more- — is foully murdered. If ever a soldier who fell on the field of battle deserved well of his country, Thomas D’Arcy McGee deserved well of Canada and her people. He might have lived a long and respected life had he chosen the easy path of popularity, rather than the stern one of duty.”
D’Arcy McGee was given a state funeral in Ottawa and interred in a crypt at the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal. His funeral procession in Montreal drew an estimated crowd of 80,000. This at a time when Montreal had a total population of 105,000 people.
McGee is remembered as a great orator, writer, poet and politician. He was unique by being early advocate for minority rights at a time when this was an unpopular view. He also played an instrumental role in persuading the Irish population of Canada to support Confederation.
So now let’s learn how D’Arcy McGee came to be on a stamp in 1927. It can be attributed mostly to the work of Charles Murphy, the Liberal MP for Russell, Ontario, who later became postmaster general under MacKenzie King in 1921.
Born in Ottawa in 1862, of Irish parents, Murphy had long regarded McGee as an iconic figure whose career exemplified the Irish contribution to Canada.
That contribution, he believed had been written out of Canadian history, and McGee had not even been mentioned in George Wrong’s schools textbook, Canada : A Short History, published in 1924.
“Whether it is due to the usual conspiracy of silence, or the fashionable habit of drawing the pall of oblivion over the achievement of Irishman”, wrote Murphy, “we are going to have a change made”.
Charles Murphy had been instrumental in getting a D’Arcy McGee statue erected after years of opposition from anti-irish, anti-catholic elements. It was placed after much compromise at a spot behind the parliament facing the library in 1923. It’s still there to this day.
Charles’ next effort would be much grander. Murphy was a key figure to drive for a highly visible public celebration of the centenary of McGee’s birth. Five hundred people, comprising successful and respectable Irish Canadians along with members of the county’s political and social elite, were invited to a banquet at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier hotel on 13th of April 1925. The banquet’s speeches were also broadcast on CNRO radio coast to coast, and would focus on McGee the statesman.
At the time, Maclean’s magazine described the event as “one of the most imposing, the most unique, ever held in Canada” and “Canada’s tribute to an adopted son who belongs to the centuries; and an event of significance in the national life that will have its place in history.”
Jonathan Barrett wrote to the Murphy a week after the event to tell him: “You have brought honour to our race and religion and written a bright page of Canadian history”.
The celebration was also covered in many international papers, as a momentous nod to a founding father of Canada.
Speaking of confederation, the Diamond Jubilee of Canada was also soon to be feted. There was a widespread feeling that a series of stamps depicting some of the principal Canadian statesmen should be issued. There would end up being 8 stamps issued on June 29, 1927 to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. There were five stamps issued as part of what is called the Confederation series, but for our purposes, we want to look closer at the 3 stamps issued, part of what is called The Historical Issues, Scott# 146–148.
These stamps featured Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir John A. Macdonald , Robert Baldwin and Sir Louis Lafontaine and finally Thomas D’Arcy McGee alone on his own stamp. They were originally supposed to be issued in July 1926, but their release was deferred to June 29, 1927.
So now let’s look a bit more about the stamp. It’s a 5 cent denomination, steel engraved stamp with a deep violet colour. It’s based on a portrait of McGee taken by noted photographer William James Topley.
The design was approved by postmaster Charles Murphy on Oct 25th 1925, two years before it was released.
You can learn more about the specifications of the stamp here.
Looking at decision to have D’Arcy McGee on his own stamp, it’s hard to not see the unmistakable hand of Charles Murphy. While McGee was one of the so-called founding fathers of Canada, he was not one of sixteen delegates sent to the 1866 London conference, which directly led to the creation of The British North America Act. So while there could have been many other politicians to choose from, they were not honoured in the same way as McGee. For this reason, we can say with some certainty the popularity garnered by the McGee’s centennial birthday celebration and the role Charles Murphy held as Postmaster general must have had a significant impact on McGee’s being selected for commemoration on a stamp.
If you don’t have the stamp in your own collection. Don’t despair. The stamp is not hard to find in good condition or expensive for that matter, but that’s not a bad thing. It makes it easy to make it a great addition to your collection to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.
