Publisher's Synopsis
Thomas D'Arcy McGee, PC, (1825-1868), who also wrote under the pseudonym A Backwoodsman, was a Canadian journalist, Father of Confederation, and, to date, the only Canadian victim of political assassination at the federal level. In 1843 at age 17 he emigrated to the United States where he found work as assistant editor of Patrick Donahoe's Boston Pilot, a Catholic newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts. A few years later he returned to Ireland where he became politically active and edited the nationalist newspaper The Nation. In 1857 he went to Canada where he set up the publication of the New Era in Montreal, Quebec. Politically active, he advocated a new nationality in Canada, to escape the sectarianism of Ireland. In 1858, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and worked for the creation of an independent Canada. Amongst his works are: Historical Sketches of O'Connell and His Friends... (1845), Two Speeches on the Union of the Provinces (1865) and A Popular History of Ireland: From the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics (2 volumes) (c1865).
