July 1, is Canada Day - commemorating the 1867 confederation of Canada - and connects with Tremone Bay, Inishowen, where a plaque commemorates the 1848 escape of Thomas D’Arcy McGee.

Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Association campaigned to undo the 1800 Act of Union. But D’Arcy McGee joined Young Ireland, the group that then attempted the violent 1848 rebellion. Evading arrest, he left for America: “Politically we were a pack of fools - but we were honest in our folly”.

An active journalist, D’Arcy McGee thought Canada more hospitable for Catholic Irish. He moved to Montreal in 1857 and urged Irish people to emigrate to Canada rather than the US.

Elected to the legislative assembly and reshaping his political philosophy, he supported a federation of Canada – a political association of British North America with a constitutional monarchy, that he considered a fairer and freer system.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee and the reward poster for his assassin.

placeholder image — Thomas D'Arcy McGee and the reward poster for his assassin.

A member of the 1864 coalition planning the dominion of Canada, he became one of the ‘Fathers of Confederation’ and urged Ireland to follow Canada’s model of self-government within the British empire.

But, after a late-night parliament session in 1868, D’Arcy McGee was assassinated on Spark Street, Ottawa – widely believed to have been killed by Fenians as a ‘turncoat’.

Eighty thousand people attended his enormous Montreal funeral. His statue stands at the Federal Parliament. Schools are named after him. The D’Arcy McGee government building stands at Spark Street, Ottawa - as does the D’Arcy McGee pub.

And Tremone Bay’s plaque reminds us of his covert leaving from there 178 years ago.