Top 5 Quotes & Sayings by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Thomas D'Arcy McGee was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was an Irish Catholic who opposed British rule in Ireland, and was part of the Young Ireland attempts to overthrow British rule and create an independent Irish Republic. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States in 1848, where he reversed his political beliefs. He became disgusted with American republicanism, Anti-Catholicism, and Classical Liberalism. McGee became intensely conservative in his political beliefs and in his religious support for the embattled Pope Pius IX. He moved to the Province of 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 self-governing Canada within the British Empire. His passion for Confederation garnered him the title: 'Canada's first nationalist'. McGee denounced the Fenian Brotherhood in both Canada and the United States, which was a secret society of exiled Irish Republicans, who resembled his younger self politically. McGee succeeded in helping create the Canadian Confederation in 1867, but was assassinated, allegedly by Patrick J. Whelan, in 1868.