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It is, of course, the birthday of the poet of Confederation, the great Thomas D’Arcy McGee. To help mark this important Canadian anniversary, I have turned to his modern-era biographer, Professor David Wilson of the University of Toronto. A distinguished academic, he has brought the inspirational story of D’Arcy McGee to a whole new generation of Canadians. Our country is in his debt. Over to you David.
The journey from Irish revolutionary to Canadian conservative was the product of hard-bought experience, earned through his decade-long experiences as an exile in the United States. Faced with a Protestant nativist backlash against Irish Catholic immigrants and appalled by what he saw as the collapse of public and private morality in the American republic, McGee abandoned his earlier liberalism and embraced an ultra-conservative form of Catholicism.
A brilliant orator, an outstanding journalist, author of a dozen books and hundreds of popular poems, McGee moved to Canada in 1857 and rapidly established himself as one of the country’s leading figures. He was reborn as a moderate politician who attempted to balance liberty and order, soften the edges of sectarian conflict, uphold minority rights, and foster a society in which people could bring out the best in themselves and others.
The major threats to this vision, in his view, were militant forms of Orangeism and revolutionary Irish nationalism, both of which had the potential to reproduce in Canada the kind of ethnic conflict that was tearing Ireland apart.
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