Assassination of Thomas Darcy McGee - Ottawa, Ontario
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Thomas Darcy McGee was assassinated on April 7, 1868, in Ottawa, Ontario.
Waymark Code: WMDH7G
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 01/16/2012
Views: 61
Text of a plaque identifying Thomas Darcy McGee as the victim of an assassination on Sparks Street in Ottawa, Ontario.
"The Honourable Don Boudria, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, officially named this Governemnt of Canada building on this 13th day of March, 2002, to commemorate Thomas Darcy McGee, considered the most eloquent of the Fathers of Confederation. Born in Ireland on April 13, 1825, McGee was assassinated near this location on April 7, 1868."
"Thomas D'Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee, PC, (April 13, 1825 – April 7, 1868) was an Irish Nationalist, Catholic spokesman, journalist, and a Father of Canadian confederation. He fought for the development of Irish and Canadian national identities that would transcend their component groups. He is, to date, the only Canadian victim of political assassination at the federal level.
On April 7, 1868, McGee participated in a parliamentary debate that went on past midnight. Afterward he walked to his Sparks St. boarding house at 2:00 AM. While trying to enter the boarding house (the door was locked from the inside and McGee was waiting for the landlady to open the door), McGee was purportedly assassinated by Patrick J. Whelan as the door was being opened. He was given a state funeral in Ottawa and interred in a crypt at the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal. The government of Canada's Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building stands near the site of the assassination.
Patrick J. Whelan, a Fenian sympathizer and a Catholic, was accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime."
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