Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
Excerpted from The Hour's article Irish in Their Blood featuring Thomas D'Arcy McGee.
Just as we do not know the name of those who actually killed Kennedy – Oswald was as he said he was, the patsy – we still do not really know who killed Thomas D’Arcy McGee, even though Patrick Whelan was hanged for it. It was said of Whelan that "he didn’t kill McGee – but he held the horse for the man who did." His trial was a farce. He was railroaded to the gallows, the last public hanging in Canada.
The name Thomas D’Arcy McGee has poetic power. A poet, a writer and the greatest speaker of his time. A key figure in the cabinet of Sir John A. Macdonald, he became a father of Confederation. He too was murdered for a radical idea. The idea was Canada – a Canada where the Old World hatreds would be left behind.
According to the magisterial new two-volume biography of McGee by David A. Wilson, "You always knew where McGee was in a room: that was where people were laughing." McGee believed that the country could be sewn together, and could work using principles of fairness and equity. The key to his vision was the recognition of minority rights. At the time this was another radical idea. His nationalism became broad minded and inclusive, with a place for francophones and Protestants. He also recognized that the English of Canada were not the English of his native Ireland. English Canadians were not the English who took advantage of a potato famine to drive a million people from the land, and kill another million.
You can also catch the author, David Wilson, on Sun News.
There's still time to enter our McGee Facebook contest! Simply post the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Facebook contest post on your Facebook profile by clicking on the "share" link and you'll be entered into the draw. You have until December 1st to enter.
To learn more about Thomas D'Arcy McGee, or to order online, click here.
To arrange an interview with the author, contact MQUP Publicist Jacqui Davis.
No comments yet.