Treachery, nationalism and murder in Ottawa: the story of Canada’s first political assassination

In downtown Ottawa, at the corner of Sparks and Elgin Streets, sits D’Arcy McGee’s, an Irish pub known for comfort food, pub fare and live music. It’s frequented by locals and political staffers and is a familiar landmark, just around the corner from The National War Memorial, Parliament Hill, and the Rideau Canal.

But what many of its patrons may not know is that it marks the spot where, just a few steps away, its namesake, an Irish politician and father of Confederation, was assassinated in 1868.

Thomas D’Arcy McGee was born an Irish Catholic in County Louth, Ireland in 1825. Little is known about his background, but it is believed that he learned about Irish history from his mother, who was the daughter of a Dublin bookseller. 

He was quickly known as an Irish nationalist who opposed British rule in Ireland, and at age 17, he left Ireland for the United States.

There, he worked as a journalist and editor, writing about the growing movement for Irish self-determination. At the time, he advocated that Canada should join the United States.

In 1845, he returned to Ireland, where he argued for Irish freedom and continued his political journalism. He was also a key figure in the 1848 Young Irelander Rebellion, an armed uprising against British Rule.

Following the failed revolt, a warrant was issued for his arrest by the British government, and he escaped Ireland disguised as a priest, returning to the United States. His fellow leaders were tried for treason and exiled to penal colonies.

James Powell, communications officer and writer at the Historical Society of Ottawa, said he was a controversial and political figure while in Ireland, and again in the United States.

“After the rising of 1848, he had to get out of dodge,” Powell told the Lookout. “That year, there were revolutions right across Europe, and he hoped in Ireland, but it fizzled.”

Upon returning to the United States, Powell’s controversial opinions and advocacy continued. He continued working as a journalist and wrote a number of history books, and defended the continuation of slavery in the United States, attacking supporters of abolition.

Then, at some point in his brief time in America, he became disillusioned with the United States, many of his nationalist views, and much of what he had stood for as a young man.

“He completely changed his mind in a lot of ways,” said Powell. “He initially supported the United States taking over Canada, and was against British rule entirely in Canada, but he found that the Irish were being treated better in Canada than in the United States.”

He saw “active intolerance” for Irish immigrants in the United States and discovered many of the Irish who were coming to Canada were “treated better”, had religious rights, and were able to own land and make a living.

“In many ways, they had more rights than actually in Ireland, so it was quite an eye opener that in Canada, Roman Catholics and Irish, in particular, were being treated better than in the so-called Republic of the United States,” explained Powell. “So, he was invited up to Canada and won a seat in the general election in 1857.”

By 1862, McGee became a cabinet minister in the reform government of John Sandfield Macdonald, who served as the first Premier of Ontario. The following year, he crossed the floor and became the minister of agriculture and immigration under Sir John A. Macdonald’s Conservative government in 1864.

“And so there, just like that, you have a convert from an anti-British Irish nationalist to a minister of the Crown,” said Powell. “It's quite a 180-degree swing.”

There is little evidence to explain what caused McGee to switch up his views so dramatically, but he maintained his passion for what he believed was right and his desire to enact change.

“We don't know much more than this disillusionment with what was going on the United States, and his belief that perhaps the political system in Canada under the Crown was better than it was in the so-called Republican system in the United States,” said Powell. “He started looking more closely at what was going on, and on his arrival in Canada became an ardent defender and proponent of Confederation.”

At this point, he also disavowed his Irish nationalist views, arguing that he had been foolish and naive in his youth. This, in turn, placed him under scrutiny among the Fenian Brotherhood, both back in Ireland and within North America.

The Fenian Brotherhood was a an Irish republican organization founded in the United States by Irish immigrants that was dedicated to an independent Ireland, serving as the American counterpart to the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland. 

The movement gained traction and power after the American Civil War, when thousands of Irish-American veterans joined the cause. 

The Fenians were responsible for a series of raids into Canadian territory with the goal of using Canada as a bargaining chip to pressure the British Empire. 

Often confused with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Fenian movement was its own distinct organization, primarily active in the 1800s and fractured after failed raids on Canada.

Despite his previous views, McGee changed his tune, branding himself a traitor to the Irish nationalist cause.

“He thought they were irreligious and foolish, and that he himself had been foolish as a youth, and he had grown up and gotten wiser and saw a future in a United Canada, United Britain, and North America,” explained Powell.

His nationalist days behind him, McGee became a famed orator and key player in the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences that led to Canadian Confederation in 1865. 

McGee argued that by uniting Canada’s provinces and colonies, the territory would be able to better resist and defend against the United States. At the Quebec conference, he presented the motion to protect minority educational rights for Catholics and Protestants under the new “Canada”.

“He is not only a big proponent of Confederation, but a spokesman for Canadian Confederation.”

McGee was also one of the first leaders to encourage a non-hyphenated Canadian identity — rather than identifying as French-Canadian, Irish-Canadian, Scottish-Canadian, etc., he argued that “we were all Canadians”, Powell said, marking a big step in Canadian unity and identity.

There is also evidence that McGee helped draft the British North America Act, which became part of the Canadian Constitution in 1982.

At 42 years of age, McGee was considering getting out of politics and taking a step back from the radical political advocacy he had sustained throughout his life, said Powell. 

In the early hours of April 7, 1868, he delivered a speech in the House of Commons in favour of Confederation. His speech was meant to address regions that were getting “cold feet”, said Powell, and encourage a sense of unity among all Canadians. 

“I, Sir, who have been, and who am still, its [Confederation’s] warm and earnest advocate, speak here not as the representative of any race, or of any Province, but as thoroughly and emphatically a Canadian, ready and bound to recognize the claims, if any, of my Canadian fellow subjects, from the farthest east to the farthest west, equally as those of my nearest neighbour, or of the friend who proposed me on the hustings,” stated McGee. 

They were among the last public words he would ever speak.

After the House adjourned around 2:05 a.m., McGee reportedly bought three cigars, stopped to chat with Prime Minister Macdonald, then retrieved his overcoat, gloves, new white top hat, and silver knobbed bamboo walking stick, said Powell.

He left Parliament’s Centre Block — then brand-new — and began to walk home with Robert McFarlane, another member of Parliament. The two politicians strode down Metcalfe Street to Sparks Street, where they separated; McFarlane headed towards Sappers’ Bridge and Lowertown, and McGee began walking to his boarding house at 71 Sparks St.

As the story goes, McGee made it to the door of Mrs. Trotter’s boarding house and bent down to insert his key into the front door lock when he was shot at point-blank range.

“Mrs. Trotter was awake at the time, waiting up for her son, who was a page in the House of Commons, and so she heard the shot,” said Powell. “Then she opened the door, and there was McGee on the wooden sidewalk with blood pouring out of him.”

A doctor was quickly called to the scene and declared McGee dead. The gunshot had gone through the right side of his neck, with enough impact to knock out his fake teeth, and the slug had embedded in the front door. 

There was a post-mortem in the newspaper that revealed a variety of details that were commonly publicized at the time, said Powell.

Later that day in the House of Commons, Macdonald addressed his government:

“He who only that morning had charmed them with the eloquence, elevated them by his statesmanship, and instructed them by his wisdom, the echo of whose voice was yet ringing in their ears, has passed from among them, foully murdered. If ever a soldier who had fallen on the field of battle in the front rank of the fray had deserved well of his country, Thomas D’Arcy McGee had deserved well of Canada and her people.”

The mayor quickly announced a $2,000 reward for anyone who could bring in the murderer, and police initially arrested anybody who had been heard threatening or speaking ill of McGee.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, within 24 hours of the deadly gunshot, police were sure they had their man. They acted on a tip and arrested Patrick James Whelan in his hotel room on Clarence Street, where they reportedly found copies of a revolutionary Irish American newspaper and membership cards of Irish Canadian organizations that included many Fenians. They also found a Smith & Wesson revolver that had apparently been fired the previous day.

Witnesses testified that they had overheard Whelan threatening to assassinate McGee and that the Fenian had been stalking McGee in the days before the assassination. 

To this day, skeptics argue over whether they were true testimonies or were connected to the $2,000 reward. 

In an unexpected twist, the chief prosecutor for the case was James O’Reilly, an Irish Catholic who excluded fellow Catholics from the jury, arguing that they would hold bias against McGee.

The defense attorney was John Hillyard Cameron, and he quickly poked holes in the previously airtight case.

“While Whelan’s revolver had been recently fired, the defense showed that it had been accidentally fired by a hotel made a week before McGee's murder,” said Powell. “She had shot herself in the arm. Where this guy left his gun, I don't know.”

The trial was marred by political interference, allegations of bribing witnesses, and legal procedures that do not stand the test of time, but on September 15, 1868, Whelan was found guilty and sentenced to death. 

On Feb. 11, 1869, Whelan was executed at the Carlton County Jail on Nicholas Street in a public hanging in front of more than 8,000 people. 

According to historical records, his final words were “God save Ireland, and God save my soul.” To the day of his death, he insisted that he was innocent.

“Whalen never admitted guilt. The night before his execution, Waylon told his wife that it was better to hang than be an informer,” said Powell. “He said he knew who shot McGee, because he had been there, but that it wasn’t him.”

In the centuries since, many have continued to question Whelan’s guilt and the fairness of his trial, arguing that the evidence was circumstantial. Anti-Fenian sentiments were also popular in Canada at the time, and McGee had been supported as a politician.

Macdonald reportedly sat beside the judge, overseeing the trial. Modern-day ballistic tests that were conducted in 1973 on Whelan’s revolver were inconclusive. And when the verdict was appealed — twice — the presiding judge sat on the hearing and was the deciding vote.

Whelan’s was the last public hanging in Canada, and was attended by men, women and children who cheered at the gallows. He is reportedly buried in an unmarked, undisclosed grave in the courtyard of the jail. 

In 2002, a memorial ceremony was held, and a box of earth from the grounds was taken by Whelan’s descendants to Montreal, where it was buried next to Whelan’s wife’s body.

McGee’s funeral was held on Easter Monday, April 13th, 1868, in Montreal, where he lived when the House was not in session. The day of the funeral was declared a day of public mourning, and at least 15,000 people were reported to have joined the procession to St. Patrick’s Church. An estimated 80,000 people turned out to the streets to pay their respects.

He was buried in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-des-Nieges cemetery — the same cemetery where Whelan’s family buried earth from their ancestor’s grave, more than 130 years later.

The funeral took place on what would have been McGee’s 43rd birthday, and the events were “sensational”, featuring an exposed coffin, an extensive procession and a gun salute. 

While the trial verdict and Whelan’s guilt remain a topic of debate, McGee’s impact on Canada is more certain, whether known or forgotten.

“Unfortunately, I think most Canadians have long forgotten him,” said Powell. “But his legacy really comes through the enduring nature of our Confederation and the Constitution.”

At Carlington Heritage Centre, in the coastal village where he was born, McGee is remembered as a former Irish freedom fighter who died a Canadian parliamentarian. His disdain for the Irish nationalist movement damaged his popularity among the very people he once defended, and he was eventually seen as a traitor in many ways. 

At the Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, Ireland, McGee has been dubbed “the Irishman more famous in Canada than in Ireland.” Museum records tell the “tale of two countries” and explore the monuments to McGee in Ireland, including a bust in Carlingford alongside a plaque presented by former Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. 

Here, McGee is remembered in the Bytown Museum, which displays a plaster cast of McGee’s hand that was made shortly after his death. He is also memorialized in the Canadian Museum of History and in the many buildings, parks, electoral districts, schools and landmarks across the country that bear his name. 

At the Museum of History, he is remembered through a portrait, commissioned by his friends as a gift for his 43rd birthday, though he never lived to see it unveiled. There, he is described perhaps most fittingly as an “unlikely” father of Confederation, leaving behind radical efforts for Irish independence for a loyalty to Canada and British rule.

Traitor? Patriot? However, he may be remembered, McGee’s death remains the first political assassination in Canada, and one of Ottawa’s oldest, most fascinating ghost stories.