Just a few days ago on “Art’s History,” we took time out to commemorate the day in 1868 that Canada lost to an assassin's bullet the great poet of Confederation, Thomas D’Arcy McGee. Today, however, we get to mark this passionate Canadian’s 1825 birthday, an ocean away in his beloved Ireland.Back in the day, Canada’s Tories always hired a piper to celebrate McGee on this date on Ottawa's Sparks Street.  And back in my own days in the Parliamentary Press Gallery in the early 1990s, McGee’s birthday was always a big day on the calendar and we would hold a party in his honour at the National Press Club and leave a wreath at his statue or Sparks Street plaque.I noted that we are only a few years away from celebrating the bicentennial of McGee’s birth.  I’d respectfully suggest to the Government of Canada that planning begin to mark this important day.  In 1925, on McGee’s 100^th birthday, Liberals and Conservatives joined, as one, at a large dinner at the Chateau Laurier to pay tribute to this Father of Confederation.  Both Prime Minister Mackenzie King and former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen addressed the audience.  We can only hope a similar spirt of non-partisanship tribute will guide official Ottawa in marking McGee’s 200^th birthday in 2025.[caption id="attachment_550515" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Father of Confederation[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.