Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Nationalist, Writer, and Canadian Politician, Born in Carlingford, Co. Louth

Thomas D’Arcy McGee (13 April 1825 – 7 April 1868) 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 monarchistic in his political beliefs and in his religious support for the embattled Pope Pius IX.

Widely known as D’Arcy McGee, he was born on 13 April 1825 in Carlingford, Ireland, and raised as a Roman Catholic. From his mother, the daughter of a Dublin bookseller he learned the history of Ireland, which later influenced his writing and political activity. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Wexford, where his father, James McGee, was employed by the Irish coast guard (then under His Majesty’s Coastguard and likely at the Wexford Town Station near Customs House Quay.[