Death of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, 7 April 1868

On this day, 7 April 1868, almost a year after Canadian Confederation, Thomas D'Arcy McGee was assassinated in Ottawa. There was an incredible outpouring of grief, he was well known as a politician working towards Confederation and he was one of Sir John A. Macdonald's closest friends. McGee was assassinated outside of his rooming house, located within walking distance of Parliament in Ottawa; his funeral in Montreal was the largest funeral for a Canadian politician, statesman, and poet.

The funeral cortege in Montreal, 1868

Wanted poster for the assassin of Thomas D'Arcy McGee

The funeral cortege in Montreal, 1868

McGee mausoleum at Cote des Neiges Cemetery, 2015

Notman photograph of McGee's Mausoleum, 1926

McGee's mausoleum, 2015

McGee's mausoleum, November 2015

McGee's mausoleum, November 2015

Stephen Morrissey outside of Thomas D'Arcy McGee's mausoleum, winter 2015

At McGee's Mausoleum, 2012

The garden on April 4th, 2023

It's April 4th today and the snow is still here, but rain is forecast and perhaps by later this week the snow will have melted. Our gardening season is short here, it's from May to October. Winter is from January to the end of March and then overlaps into April, and then it is still cold but at least the snow is melting. May 1st comes suddenly and people begin installing their window air conditioning units; at last we can open the windows and turn off the furnace. Here, we all listen to daily weather forecasts, and we wait for this cold weather to end. 

In the sun the snow has already melted

Tulips are already coming up

This is a hollyhock coming up

In the sun, where plants are protected and the
snow has melted, tulips are beginning to grow

Five Poets Breaking into Song, reading on 28 April 2023

You can access this Zoom poetry and music event through the QR code on the poster; I am looking forward to participating in this event!

"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats

 

Western Park located on Atwater Avenue; opened in 1870,
it was renamed Cabot Square in 1957

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

The darkness, surrounding us

 

Photos taken at the Alexis Nihon Plaza, Christmas, 2016

Located on the corner of Atwater Street and Ste. Catherine Street West, the Alexis Nihon Plaza became a part of our consciousness, a part of our life, a place we took for granted. It was the first shopping plaza of its kind in downtown Montreal, the Atwater Metro station was here and above it were floors of stores and offices; many of us passed through here everyday after leaving the newly opened metro to go home on the 102 or 105 city bus. Later, Jung Society of Montreal lectures were held at Dawson College which was connected by an underground passage to the Plaza. We bought things at the many stores, we ate at the food court or at Nickels (owned by Celine Dion), it was a part of our life. It was a great life. 

But those days have ended. Life will not return to what it was before Covid. New stores have opened, Nickels is gone, and the food court is only half open, at least a half of the restaurants have closed and are boarded up. It's a new gang of kids that hang out here, students studying with open books are gone, replaced by a few young people who don't seem to be students, they recognize each other then continue to wherever they are going. Old people are still here in the food court, now it's old men playing backgammon, but the old couple who sat beside each other near the escalator are gone. Alexis Nihon Plaza has been maintained, renovations they did before Covid make it an attractive place, but the people aren't the same, they've been moved down a few notches, they seem poorer than just three years ago, rather drab, colourless, no money. And this is what Covid has done to us, the life that was is gone and will never return, the life ahead of us is different, it is now dark and forbidding. It is our dystopian future.

Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, in March 2010

 Some photographs of Christ Church Cathedral, downtown Montreal, 3 March 2010. 

Dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg

The Bay department store in the background, formerly Morgan`s


Photographs below dated 1930, 1957, and 1869

                 

Christ Church Cathedral, 1869

The bedrock, the permanent, is love

 

Sidewalk drawing, May 2016

The stratified rock of time, layer on layer of experience, weddings and funerals, children and family, the bedrock, the permanent, was always love. The effort was for love and an expression of love, as mysterious as gravity, as electricity, as a flock of birds crossing the sky as one entity, mysterious and taken for granted; the foundation of existence was always love. Not birth or life or death or suffering, but love; we know this with age, with advancing years; the permanent is not money or possessions, it is not all the other stuff of life; it is one thing only, consistent and constant, the bedrock, the permanent, is love.

"Adam's Curse" by W.B. Yeats

 

Knights Hospitallers, Limerick, Ireland

We sat together at one summer’s end,

That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,   

And you and I, and talked of poetry.

I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;

Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,   

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.   

Better go down upon your marrow-bones   

And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones   

Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;   

For to articulate sweet sounds together

Is to work harder than all these, and yet   

Be thought an idler by the noisy set

Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen   

The martyrs call the world.’

                                          And thereupon

That beautiful mild woman for whose sake   

There’s many a one shall find out all heartache   

On finding that her voice is sweet and low   

Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know—

Although they do not talk of it at school—

That we must labour to be beautiful.’

I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing   

Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.

There have been lovers who thought love should be   

So much compounded of high courtesy   

That they would sigh and quote with learned looks   

Precedents out of beautiful old books;   

Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;   

We saw the last embers of daylight die,   

And in the trembling blue-green of the sky   

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell   

Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell   

About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:   

That you were beautiful, and that I strove   

To love you in the old high way of love;

That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown   

As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

Vincellli's Garden Centre, March 2023

I finally took some photographs of the old Vincelli's Garden Centre; they closed about two years ago. What you see below is about one quarter to one third of the size of the property, and public hearings on building a large condo building here are slated for this week. This is also one of the few unbuilt property lots in the City of Cote Saint-Luc (which is adjacent to where I live in Montreal); it is a mostly residential city but includes Cavendish Mall and Cote Saint-Luc Shopping Centre. Is this the best development of this property? Housing is needed, or seems to be needed, and a growing population means more tax dollars for Cote Saint-Luc. Of course, this might be considered a remote location in this area, but nothing is all that far from something else in CSL; and while there are some stores across the street from Vincelli's, out of five stores only two are still in business, so I am not sure if the commercial part of this development will succeed. I am also not sure other services are available for the future inhabitants of this condo; I expect they will be mostly elderly people moving from single family residences to condos. The development (one tower will have 8 to 12 storeys) will bring a lot of people and their cars into the neighbourhood; stores, bus service, EMS, infrastructure, and so on will have to be improved, or will have to be provided. Would it be better to make this a park instead of more condos? That won't happen because the desire for increased tax revenue is strong and there is no need to promote the area for future residents, many people want to live in CSL and residents are happy to live there. Personally, I don't like what I see slated for this site; if I lived in the area I would oppose it, oppose two years of construction, trucks, noise, pollution, and an influx of people to the area. But it is a prestige condo development as long as no one cares about the noise from the adjacent CPR rail yards. Consider a modified version a done deal. 

This is what is planned at this location

People have begun dumping construction material and other garbage on the site

There is a cardinal on the left, the site is home to many birds and small animals

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Memories of both our Irish heritage and family on this St. Patrick's Day, 2023. In the following newspaper article, all of the references to Callaghans are to my great great uncles, Fr. Martin, Fr. James, and Fr. Luke Callaghan. The three priests were brothers of my great grandmother, Mary Callaghan; she was born on my mother's birthday in 1845 and died on my birthday in 1906. 

Chronological History of the Irish in Montreal,
from The Gazette, 23 May 1942
(click to enlarge)

And thinking of my grandmother Edith Sweeney Morrissey. I took these photographs at my grandmother's home, where she lived until her passing in 1965, located at 2226 Girouard Avenue. I was driving home one day in May 2009 and I saw that the place was for sale and they were having an open house; I rushed home, got my camera, and returned to take these last photographs of where she had lived from around 1925. Those of us who are still alive and knew her, we all loved her and still miss her. 

Front entrance to 2226 Girouard Avenue

Looking out living room window at
2226 Girouard Avenue

Living room, 2226 Girouard

May 2009, 2226 Girouard Avenue

From left, my mother, my Auntie Ivy, my grandmother;
outside Parliament, Ottawa, 1962

My grandmother at our home on Montclair
Avenue, 1963

My grandmother, back porch of Girouard Avenue 
flat, around April 1938, holding her grandson,
Herb Morrissey