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Life
| [commonly called “The Liberator” - “The Counsellor” in Irish]; b. 6 Aug. 1775, Carhen, nr. Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry; fostered to herdsman at Termoile, aetat. 3; ed. hedge-school, then at Redington, Co. Cork; taken under patronage by Maurice O’Connell (‘Hunting Cap’, d.1825); proceeded with his br. Morgan to St Omer and Douai, each during a year, 1791-93; Lincoln’s Inn, 1794; attended trial of two highwaymen, 15 Jan. 1796, and learned to hate capital punishment [‘O justice, what horrors are committed in thy name!’]; read Thomas Paine, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecroft with approbation; member of Lawyer’s Corp of Artillery, 1797; Irish bar, 1798; attracted by liberal policies of United Irishmen, but disapproved of rebellion; he was ill and living in Kerry during the Rebellion; joined Munster circuit; protested against Act of Union in speech at Royal Exchange to Catholic citizens, Dublin, 13 Jan. 1800; signed Emancipation petittdion, 1805; secured release of prisoners in Cork assizes, ‘keeping the county courthouse in a roar of laughter for nearly an hour’ [Geoghegan, 2010]; Robert Peel appt. Chief Secretary in Dublin (‘Orange Peel ... a raw youth squeezed out of I know not want factory in England’); suppression of Catholic Board, 1807; O’Connell elected chairman of Catholic Committee, 1811; opposed Grattan’s Emancipation Bill of 1813; opposed Veto agreed between British Government and the representatives of Pius VII, then a prisoner of Napoleon, 1813-16; rescript denounced by Irish Catholic hierarchy, 1814; |
| on release, Pius emphasises scriptural basis of Veto vis-à-vis ‘powers under whom the dioceses to be administered were situated; O’Connell makes celebrated speech while acting for John Magee, vindicating Catholic Ireland in a hostile court, and quoting Charles O’Conor [on the] judicial murder of Brian Mac Felim O’Neill, 1813; fatally wounded Dublin merchant and Orangeman John Norcot D’Esterre, a renowned crack-shot, in duel, and offered to pay his relict a pension for the rest of her life; arrested in London on failure of plan to duel with Peel; published Address to the Catholics of Ireland, 1 Jan. 1821, calling for interdenominational action for the Repeal of Union - i.e., parliamentary reform first and Emancipation after - leading to dissent within his own party; founds, with Richard Lalor Sheil and others, the Catholic Association, superceding the earlier association of that name, later called the Catholic Board, 12 May 1823; simultaneously institutes the Catholic Rent (1d. a month); launches ‘Agitation’, a policy of mass meetings and inflammatory speeches [DNB], marked also by absence of drunkenness and violence in the audience; |
| Catholic Association suppressed under Goulburn Act in 1825; renamed New Catholic Association, 1825; his pro-Emancipation liberal Protestant candidate William Villiers Stuart defeated Lord George Beresford in Waterford election, 1826, initiating freeholders’ polling revolt; founded Order of Liberators, Aug. 1826; Lord Russell introduces Sacramental Test Bill, effectively repealing the Test and Corporation Acts (1661, &c.). Feb. 1828; defeat conceded of Peel and Wellington; O’Connell defeated William Vesey-Fitzgerald, the standing MP then seeking re-election, at the Clare polls, and duly elected MP [in Ennis, Co. Clare] contrary to the exculsionary statutes, June 1828; Catholic Association dissolved, 12 Feb. 1829; Emancipation passed, April 1829; refused oath of supremacy; re-elected at King’s insistence, taking his seat unopposed - and ruefully called ‘the King of Ireland’ by George IV; entered house 4 Feb. 1830; successfully took the defence of the accused against the Crown Prosecutor, in the Doneraile capital (conspiracy) trial of 1829, providing the subject of Canon Sheehan’s Glenanaar (1905); devoted himself to politics thereafter; |
| became beneficiary of a national annual tribute known as “the O’Connell Tribute”, organised by Patrick Vincent Fitzpatrick; series of letters on political questions, 1830; arrested for evading proclamations arising from Reform of Union activism, 1831; returned for Dublin, 1832; supported Reform Bill, 1832; introduced motion to reduced tithes by two-thirds, 1834; impugned the calculation of the Irish levy to support Imperial expenditure at 2/17ths, calling it a ‘fraction purposely introduced in order that Ireland might be robbed with greater facility’, in the course of a five-hour speech in Commons, 22 April 1834; imposed sought to establish enquiry into state of the Union, 1834; rejected offer of Master of Rolls and Att.-General for Ireland, extended by Lord Melbourne, 1834; Lichfield House Compact with Peel during the latter’s brief tenure of PM office, 1835; supported Whigs in municipal reform; supported non-denominational National School system both in Ireland and in England, where it was not admitted, pronouncing it a disgrace that ‘of all the countries of Europe, England alone should have no system of national education’); founded General Association targeting menu of reforms, 1836; estab. Dublin Review, 1836; disbanded General Association on securing 46 Repeal MPs, 1837; founded Pre-Cursor Society, 1837; |
| secured abolition of arrears, 1838; opposed introduction of Poor Law; successful brought about reforms under Municipal Corporations Act, 1840; founded National Association of Ireland for full and prompt Justice and Repeal, 15 April 1840 [later Loyal National Repeal Association, Jan. 1841]; visited Belfast, Jan. 1840 and challenged to debate with Rev. Henry Cooke; greeted by rioting and forced to travel in disguise - the event occasioning William McCoobe’s The Repealer Repulsed (1841); elected lord mayor of Dublin, 1841 [viz.,. 1841-42]; cause strengthened by establishment of The Nation by Young Ireland; further support from The Pilot; addressed monster meetings at Mullingar, Mallow (11 June), Lismore, and Tara; countermanded Clontarf Monster Meeting, 8 Oct. 1843; established Council of Three Hundred to oversee Arbitration Courts usurping govt. justice courts; arrested; subject to ‘state trial’ for seditious conspiracy [‘for creating discontent’ ODNB] with his son John and others, before packed jury, the prosecution being led by Francis Blackburne; fined and sentence to one year, 1844; cheered in Westminster, May 1844; served sentence in Richmond Bridewell Prison; judgement reversed by House of Lords, 1844; released, with triumphal procession through Dublin, 1 Sept. 1844; |
| declared in favour of Federalism as against Repeal, but withdrew under denunciation by Young Ireland in The Nation; opposed Charitable Bequests and Donations Act, already denounced by MacHale; supported endowment of Maynooth; denounced Peel’s University Bill and proposal for establishment of Queen’s Colleges, at meeting of the Repeal Assoc., 26 May 1845 (speaking ‘as a Catholic, and for the Catholics of Ireland’, and leading to split with Young Ireland; called for obedience to the non-violence resolution of June 1845, ‘both in theory and in practice’, and thereby forced Young Ireland’s withdrawal July 1846, proclaiming, ‘It is, no doubt, a very fine think to die for one’s country, but believe me, one living patriot is worth a whole churchyard full of dead ones’; at first opposed by the single dissentient voice of Thomas Francis Meagher, and afterwards by John Mitchel - who has written the most scathing accounts of his character as an ‘aristocrat’ who was the ‘greatest enemy’ of the Irish because formerly their ‘greatest friend’ (in Jail Journal and Last Conquest of Ireland); |
| called attention to Irish famine distress, 1846; increasingly jostled by the members of the newly-formed Irish Confederation (Young Ireland), whose revolutionary politics he condemned; made his last speech in the House of Commons, 8 Feb. 1847; the formal secession of Young Ireland from the Repeal Movement occurred on 5 Feb. 1848; travelled abroad for his health on on medical advice, chosing Rome as his destination out of a desire to meet the Pope before his death; d. en route in Genoa, 15 May 1847; his heart is buried in Rome, were a funeral oration was delivered by Padre Ventura; his body otherwise [i.e., his remains] brought back to Ireland and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, under an Irish round tower [the O’Connell Tower], at a which interment Fr. Tom Burke gave the oration; O’Connell was caricatured by John Doyle - inter mult. al. - in his lifetime; Hogan’s statue of O’Connell was installed in the City Hall, Dublin, in 1846; the first outdoor monument to O’Connell erected in Limerick, 1857; a monument on Sackville St., Dublin, was proposed in 1862 and sculpted by John Foley (1818-74) - the foundation being laid in 1864, and the plinth being finished by others at his death, to be unveiled before huge crowds in 1882; Sackville St. officially became O’Connell St. in 1924; there is a full-length portrait by David Wilkie (NGI); |
| an exhibition of O’Connell memorabilia was mounted by the National Museum, Dublin in 1997; restoration to the 150-foot tower marking his burial place in Glasnevin Cemetery began in Aug. 2008; there is a bust of O’Connell in the Irish College in Rome, with bas-reliefs by Banzoni, engraved with the words (actually penned for it by John Henry Newman) with which he refused the oath in the House of Commons (viz., ‘I at once reject this declaration, part of which I believe to be untrue, and the rest I know to be false’). CAB ODNB JMC DIB DIH RAF FDA OCIL |
| O’Connell in 1823 |
 |
| Engraved by B. Reilly from a painting by John Gubbens [see infra] |
| In April 2014, President Michael D. Higgins paid honour to the Irish parliamentarians who served at Westminister in previous generations, reflecting on O’Connell’s dedication to the pursuit of Irish independence from England ‘attained not by the effusion of human blood, but by the constitutional combination of good and wise men’. (See The Irish Times, 9 April 2014 - online.) |
[ The Memoir of Ireland: Native and Saxon (1843) is available at Internet Archive - online. ]
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Works
|
| See also Erin I. Bishop, The World of Mary O’Connell, 1778-1836 (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1999), 224pp.; Francis Griffith, ‘Found: A Great Speech by Daniel O’Connell’, in Éire-Ireland, 3, 2 (Summer 1968), pp. 27-36 [speech on Catholic Emancipation, Freemason’s Hall. London, 25 Feb. 1825]; |
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Bibliographical details
A Memoir on Ireland Native and Saxon by Daniel O’Connell MP, [2nd edn.], Vol. I (Dublin: James Duffy, 24 Anglesea St 1844), 347pp. The volume bears the epigraph ‘On our side is VIRTUE and ERIN, / On theirs is SAXON and GUILT’ (from Moore). Dedicatory notice, ‘This book / is / humbly inscribed / to / Her Most Gracious Majesty / the Queen / of Great Britain / and / of IRELAND. The text - which is materially derived from Matthew Carey’s Vindiciae Hiberniae (1819) - cites copious passages from English histories and records of the subjugation of Ireland, effectively condemning England for barbarism and perfidy in Ireland. The historians cited include chiefly Davies, Leland, Hollinshed [sic], Spenser, Stanihurst apud Holinshed, Taylor, Milner, Harris [Dublin and Fiction Unmask’d], Sir Edw. Walker, Strafford State Letters, Grainger, Warner, Carte, Clarendon, Rushworth, Col. Laurence, Parl. Papers, Borlase, Lingard, Temple, Morrice [Life of Orrery], Burnet [Life of Bedell]; Macpherson [Hist. G. Britain]. On the Irish side, chiefly Lynch, Curry, and Castlehaven, with frank material from Carte. The first volume ends with a sanguinary English pamphlet of 1647 cursing he that ‘maketh not his sword starke drunk with Irish blood to compense them double for their hellish treachery to the English’. [See further under Quotations, infra.]
Selected Speeches of Daniel O’Connell, M.P., edited, with historical notives, &c., by his son, John O’Connell Esq. [2nd series] (Dublin: James Duffy & Sons [n.d.]), 472pp. CONTENTS: The Corn Laws; Catholic Aggregate Meeting, Aug. 15 1815; Remonstrance to Pope Pius VII; Rhemish Bible; Public Dinner [...] Tralee; A Union Member; Catholic meeting; Lett to the Catholics of Ireland; The Dublin Election; Catholic Affairs; Catholic Meeting, June 22, 1820; Meeting at Kilmainham; Letters of Mr O’Connell; Answer ... by Mr Sheil; Statue of King William; The Marquis of Wellesley; Statue to Mr Grattan; Address to the Catholics of Ireland; Aggregate Meeting, Feb. 18, 1822; National Testimonial to George IV; National Board of Education; Distress of the Poor in South and West [...]; further subjects incl. Tithe Communation; Catholic Association; Catholic burying ground; Catholic grievances; Daily Evening Mail; Catholic Association; Barristers; Disarming the Orangemen; Lord Redesdale; Education in Ireland; Caumnies against O’Connell; Catholic Rent; Church Rates; Prospects of Emancipation; Dr. Plunkett; Penal Code - Army; Newspapers; Prosecution [for] seditious words; Arrest of O’Connell; False Alarms; Resolution relative to Proceedings against Mr O’Connell.
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Criticism
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| See also UCD Reprint series |
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Bibliographical details
Maurice R. O’Connell, ed., Daniel O’Connell: Political Pioneer (Dublin: Inst. Publ. Relations 1991), 147pp., index. Contents, J. J. Lee, ‘Daniel O’Connell’ pp.1-6; Tom Garvin, ‘O’Connell and Irish Political Culture’, pp.7-12; Brian Girvin, ‘Making Nations, O’Connell, Religion and The Creation of Political Identity’, pp.13-34; Fergus O’Ferrall, ‘Liberty and Catholic Politics 1790-1990’, pp.35-56; James N. McCord, ‘The Image in England, the Cartoons of HB [John Doyle]’, pp.57-71; Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, ‘O’Connell in Irish Folk Tradition’ pp.72-85 [being a revised version of the article of the same title in K. B. Nowlan and M. R. O’Connell, eds., Daniel O’Connell, Portrait of a Radical, Appletree 1984; Fordham UP 1986]; Paddy Bushe, ‘A Resonant Tradition, some Gaelic poetry of Uíbh Ráthach’, pp.86-97; Pierre Joannon, ‘O’Connell, Montalembert and the Birth of Christian Democracy in France’, pp.86-109; Peter Alt, ‘O’Connell and German Politics’, pp.110-118; Geraldine Grogan, ‘O’Connell’s Impact on the Organisation and Development of German Political Catholicism’, pp.119ff. [end].
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Commentary
See separate file [infra]
Quotations
See separate file [infra]
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References
Dictionary of National Biography contains a notice on Magee by one “R.D.” [see under John Magee, q.v.]. Bibl. incl. studies by W. Fagan (1847); M. F. Cusack (1872); J. O’Rourke and O’Keeffe (1875); John Hamilton [Life of Daniel O’Connell, 1888], and other works including issue of the Irish Monthly Magazine and Asylum; also Fitzpatrick’s Life of Cloncurry and his Life of Dr Doyle, et al. See Concise ODNB: ‘He recreated national feeling in Ireland’.
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904), gives extracts from speeches, ‘On Catholic Rights’, Justice for Ireland’, Colonial Slavery’, &c.
Legends from Ireland [gen. ed. Venetia Newall] (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd. 1977), contains two examples of stories about O’Connell, viz.: O’Connell saves the migrant worker who has killed a robber in the road with his spade by tricking the ‘peeler’ who discovered his hat at the scene into pretending that he noticed the man’s name written inside it; O’Connell gains fair treatment for a man cheated of the value of his herd of cattle by a dishonest shopkeeper by snipping off the top of the man’s ears and posting them to England while enjoining the man to ask the shopkeeper for as much tobacco as would reach from his feet to the tips of his ears. (Items 76(a) & (b); pp.127-29.)
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, quotes Speech in Defence of William [?recte John] Magee, 941-48; and Seven Letters, 1129-35. FDA contains approx. 45 incidental references to O’Connell.
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Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, Vol. 2 (Gerrards Cross 1980), quotes O’Connell on the Irish language: ‘I am sufficiently utilitarian not to regret its [the Irish language’s] abandonment. [.. &c.]; see under Quotations, infra.] Further Daniel O’Connell chastises the anti-national clergy, ‘How dismal the prospect of liberty would be if in every Catholic diocese there were an active partisan of the Government and in every Catholic parish a priest as an active informer.’ (Quoted by Edmund Curtis, A History of Ireland, p.357. [77] John Mitchel gives his account of O’Connell at the ‘height of his popularity and power’ when ‘the people believed he could do anything; and he almost believed it himself.’ (The Last Conquest of Ireland, (Perhaps)- Letter I, p.5.) Also the mass meeting at Tara: ‘From the reports of the eye witnesses, as well as from the statements made by public journals, it is manifest, that never before was there such an assembly of people together in Ireland; and if the numbers mentioned be any thing near the truth, it must be allowed, that never was there in Europe beheld such a multitude collected on the one state. It is stated that there were 500,000 men assembled [...]’ (p.8) [82]. Rafroidi quotes O’Connell: ‘I am for Old Ireland [...] Young Ireland may play what pranks they please. I do not envy them the name they rejoice in. I shall stand by Old Ireland; and I have some slight notion that Old Ireland will stand by me.’ (See C. G. Duffy, Young Ireland, p.705; Rafroidi, op. cit., p.85, and p.297, n.10.)
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English (1980), Vol. 2, lists W. J. O’Neill [Daunt], Personal Recollections [1848]; Angus MacIntyre, The Liberator (London 1865); Sean O’Faolain, King of the Beggars (1938); also, O’Connell’s A Memoir of Ireland, Native and Saxon [1844]. Pamphlets by O’Connell are listed in catalogues of National Library of Ireland and the British Library.
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Arthur Ponsonby, Scottish and Irish Diaries &c ([Methuen] 1927), contains journals of Daniel O’Connell and numerous others. (Ponsonby also issued English Diaries from the 16th to the 20th centuries, Methuen 1923.)
Library & Booksellers
R. R. Madden Papers (Pearse St. Public Library, Dublin) hold Daniel O’Connell & J. N. d’Esterre Duel, 2pp.; also printed extracts from the Galway Chronicle (8 Feb. 1815), viz. (1) J. N. d’Esterre’s letter to Daniel O’Connell, 26 Jan. 1815; (2) Daniel O’Connell’s reply, 27 Jan. 1815; (3) James O’Connell’s letter to J. N. d’Esterre [undated], stating that d’Esterre’s letter had not been opened by him or Daniel; (4) printed death notice of d’Esterre following the duel with Daniel O’Connell (undated). [Supplied by Sean Mythen, Feb. 1997].
Hyland Books (Cat. 224) lists Henry Shaw, Shaw’s Authenticated Report of the Irish State Trials, 1844 (1844) (14), 678pp.
Emerald Isle Books (1995) lists Memoir of Ireland, Native and Saxon (1845) [sic]; Letter to Members of the House of Commons [Intent to Take his Seat] (1829), 29pp.; A Collection of Speeches Spoken by Daniel O’connell and Richard Sheil on Subjects Connected [with the] Catholic Question (Dublin: Cuming 1828) [Carlow Coll, Prize vol.]; J. A. Hamilton, Life of Daniel O’Connell (1st edn. 1888); James Sheridan, A Full report of the Speech of Daniel O’Connell on the Subject of Church Rates [on] 10th Jan. 1827 (Dublin: Coyne 1827), viii+65pp.; T. C. Luby, Life and Times of O’Connell (Glasgow n.d.), ix+538pp.; Oliver MacDonagh, The Emancipist: Daniel O’Connell, 1830-1847 (1st edn. 1989); Select Speeches of Daniel O’Connell, MP, ed. by his Son, John O’Connell (1st edn. Dublin 1846); Sean O’Faolain, King of the Beggars: A Life of Daniel O’Connell (1938); John O’Hanlon, Report of the O’Connell Monument Committee (1888), lxxx, 183pp. [Hyland Oct. 1995]. Denis Gwynn, Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Liberator (Hutchinson [1920]).
Ulster libraries: Belfast Linenhall Library holds A Memoir on Ireland, Native and Saxon (Duffy 1844); Belfast Central Public Library holds Memoir on Ireland (1843); Select Speeches (1854, 1860); Excursions in Ireland during 1844 (1852). University of Ulster (Morris Collection) holds A Memoir [...] (1843).
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Notes
Genealogy: Daniel O’Connell [or Daniel Charles] (?1745-1833), Count; French General and uncle of the Liberator; entered French army 1790; cross of St. Louis; adjutant of Clare Regt.; wounded at Gibraltar; colonel of Salm-Salm Regt.; accepted revolution but joined Bourbons; suggested formation of Irish Brigade to Pitt, 1796; lieut.-gen. under Bourbons; d. Mâdon, Blois. John O’Connell (1810-1858), his son [q.v.]. Sir Maurice Charles O’Connell (1812-1879), son of Maurice Charles Philip O’Connell (d.1848). Morgan O’Connell (1804-1885), son of Daniel O’Connell; served in Irish S. American legion and Austrian army; MP Meath, 1832p asst.-reg. of deeds for Ireland, 1840-68; fought duel with William, Baron Alvaly, on his father’s account, 1835; declined challenge from Disraeli; d. 20 Jan., 12 St. Stephen’s Green. Moritz O’Connell (Baron); ?1740-1830), Austrian officer; went abroad with Count Daniel O’Connell; Imperial Chamberlain for 59 years; died Vienna.
Lady Morgan: O’Connell appears in Lady Morgan’s Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence (London 1862), Vol. II, p.226:’ March 1826: ‘Here is a picture of O’Connell [...] It came today in a letter from William Curran [...] O’Connell [...] walks the streets here in the full dress of a verdant liberator - green in all that may and may not be expressed, even to a green cravat, green watch-ribbon, and a slashing shining green hat-band’ [ref. to uniform of Order of Liberators, started at time of Waterford election]; see also entry for 20 Jan. 1830 which records dining on the previous day at Lord Dungarvon’s when O’Connell was present, being the second occasion when she met him; ‘Dan is not brilliant in private society - not even agreeable. He is mild, silent, unassuming, apparently absorbed, and an utter stranger to the give-and-take charm of good society; I said so to Lord Clanricarde, who replied, “If you knew how I found him this morning; his hall and the very steps of his door crowded with his clientele - he had a word or a written order for each and all, and then hurried off to the law courts, and from that to the Improvement Society, at the Royal Exchange, and was the first guest here today, when I arrived. Two hours before he was making that clever but violent speech to Mr. la Touche, and now no wonder he looks like an extinct volcano.’ (Ibid., p.291; supplied by Gary Owens.)
John Norcot D’Esterre challenged O’Connell to a duel on the grounds that he had called the Dublin Corporation ‘beggarly’. Purportedly D’Esterre, before dying, said: ‘I was a fool not to have stayed where I was and not come here as a tool of ravenous hounds. In the end it is my wife and children who will suffer. Alas, it was not for the good of my dependents that I was brought here!’ O’Connell is said to have offered to settle a pension on his widow, and to have worn a black glove on his pistol-hand at Communion thereafter. (See Daithí Ó hÓgáin, The Hero in Irish Folk History, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1985, pp.110-11.)
W. E. H. Gladstone called O’Connell ‘the greatest popular leader the world has ever known’. Honoré de Balzac called him ‘the embodiment of a people’. [Q. sources - Jeffares, 1984; or Tuohy, 1976.]
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Frederick Douglass (1818-95): the American anti-slavery writer travelled to Europe on the Cambria and arrived in Ireland during the Famine. He wrote: ‘Eleven days and a half gone and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab - I am seated beside white people - I reach the hotel - I enter the same door - I am shown into the same parlour - I dine at the same table - and no one is offended. ... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, “We don’t allow niggers in here!” (viz., Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, 1845 - “My Bondage and My Freedom”) Douglas met Daniel O’Connell, and became an important influence and an inspiration to him. (vide. Tom Chaffin, ‘Frederick Douglass’s Irish Liberty’, in The New York Times (February 25, 2011) [available online; accessed via Wikipedia’s “Frederick Douglass” page - 20.03.2011].
Note that O’Connell initially accepted Repeal subscriptions from American slave-owners but later refused them, this being a key issue in his alienation from the Young Irelanders, among whom John Mitchel [q.v.]
Thomas Moore: The drum of Foley’s O’Connell monument incls. a figure holding a page of musical score showing Moore’s lines, ‘Oh, where’s the slave so lowly / Condemned to chains unholy’. (See Paula Murphy, John Henry Foley’s O’Connell Monument’, in Irish Art Review, 1995, pp.155-56.)
Patrick Kennedy tells stories of O’Connell in Modern Irish Anecdotes (n.d.), pp.140-48. This text is cited as source of O’Flanagan’s Bar Life of O’Connell (n.d.), a political hagiography, with much evidence of his family devotion and religious piety.
Liam O’Flaherty: O’Flaherty writes in Famine (1937), ‘The purpose of the Nationalist movement under O’Connell (a movement which was really economic, although it was religious on the surface), was to support the rising Catholic petty middle-class traders against their Protestant competitors.’ (p.69; quoted in Noël Debeer, ‘The Irish Novel Looks Backward’, in The Irish Novel in Our Time, ed. Patrick Rafroidi & Maurice Harmon, Université de Lille 1975-76, pp.106-23, p.109).
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Douglas Hyde: ‘And yet O’Connell used to call us “the finest peasantry in Europe”. Unfortunately, he took little care that we should remains so.’ (‘The Necessity of De-Anglicising Ireland’, 189; quoted in Mark Storey, ed., A Source Book of Irish Poetry, 1988, p.83.)
Clongowes Wood: O’Connell wrote in a letter of application to the school where he sent his sons: ‘that they should be strongly imbued with the principles of Catholic faith and national feeling. These advantages I should entertain sanguine hopes of, if they were placed under your care.’ (Quoted in Peter Costello, Clongowes Wood, A. A. Farmar 1991, p. 80.)
Cailín Bán: For O’Connell’s connection with the trial arising from the murder of ‘the Colleen Bawn’, see Gerald Griffin, q.v.
Samuel Ferguson styled O’Connell a ‘fraudulent demagogue’ in Dublin University Magazine (April 1834; cited by Terence Brown, Northern Voices, 1975; see Ferguson, supra.)
Irish language [1]: Brian Friel quotes O’Connell’s remarks on the Irish language in Translations under the word of the words ‘the old language is a barrier to modern progress’ [see Quotations, supra].
Irish language [2]: O’Connell dismissed the author of an Irish dictionary as ‘an old fool to have spent so much of his life on so useless a work’ (quoted in Oliver MacDonagh, Daniel O’Connell, 1775-1847, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991, p.11; cited in Rosalind M. O. Pritchard, ‘The Irish Language in Ulster: Preserve of Nationalists?’ [symposium paper 1999], UUC.)
Doneraile trial: the corrupt witness Clowmper Dawly told of finding a cap at the scene of the attack on the murdered landlord which was subsequently identified as that of the accused - a falsehood. On inspecting the cap, O’Connell spelled out the name letter by letter as if reading, and asked, ‘Was the name on it when you found it?’, to which to reply was ‘yes’; ‘Well, it is not on it now!’, rejoined O’Connell. (Supplied by Gerald K. McAuliffe from family tradition.)
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John Bowen, reviewing Jim Cooke, Charles Dickens’s Ireland: An Anthology including an Account of His Visits to Ireland (Inchicore: Woodfield Press), faults the compiler for omitting the “Watertoast Association” in Martin Chuzzlewit and Dickens’ article on “The Agricultural Interest” in the Morning Chronicle, both responses to Daniel O’Connell.
Immigration?: At the John Hewitt Summer School (July 2008), Dr Piaras Mac Éinrí (UCC) said that he viewed the influence of Wolfe Tone’s “universalist republicanism as opposed to its narrower romantic nationalist 19th century variant” as helpful in influencing benign attitudes to immigration. This prompted one member of the audience to suggest Daniel O’Connell as a better role model over his “support for Jews, his opposition to slavery, his anti-colonialism and his Enlightenment values”. (See The Irish Times, 31 July 2008.)
Liberator’s crypt: O’Connell’s refurbished crypt was opened to the public at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin on 21 Oct. 2009. The crypt was built in 1860-68. The Irish oak coffin - which is now visible and can actually be touched through a series of portals - lies entombed within the tower under a large altar stone in black Kilkenny marble, resting on a bed of limestone. This bears a brass band stating in Latin: ‘Daniel O’Connell of Ireland, the Liberator. To the seat of the apostles going, on 15 May 1847, Genoa. Fell asleep in the Lord, having lived for 73 years.’ Access had been restricted since the 1970s on account of damage to the tower believed to have been caused by a Loyalist bomb. (See Irish Architectural Archive, sourcing the Irish Times, online; accessed 27.10.2009.)
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Portraits [1 - oil, &c.]: 1] Portrait by G. J. Mulvany, NGI; see BREF 63; also cited in Anne Crookshank, ed., Great Irishmen and Women Portrait Exhibition [Catalogue] (Ulster Museum 1965)]; also a full-length oil portrait by Joseph Haverty, held in the Reform Club, London; another by David Wilkie, on loan to the NGI; another attrib. to John Gibbons, sold at Mealy’s (Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny, 2002); another by Catterson Smith, sold at Christie’s, May 2006 (€14,500).
Portraits [2 - cited in Fergus O’Ferrall, ‘Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, 1775-1847, Changing Images’, in Brian Kennedy & R. Gillespie, eds., Ireland: Art into History (1994), pp.91-102: ills. incl. ‘Counsellor O’Connell; Dublin Magazine, March 1813; ‘Fatal Shooting of D’Esterre’, engrav.; port. by John Gubbins; port. issued by J Robins, London; engrav. after drawing by John Comerford; port. by Stephen Catterson Smith, 1825; another by Smith, 1830, in Carpenter’s Political Letter; another by Gubbins, 1829; O’Connell with Richard Lalor Sheil, by Daniel Maclise, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1834; full length port. in oil by Joseph Patrick Haverty, engrav. by W. Ward [‘apotheosis of O’Connell’s self-image as Kerry chieftain’], c.1836; port. by George Mulvany; O’Connell as Lord Mayor of Dublin, by William Henry Holbrooke, 1841; daguerreotype by Dousin-Dubreuil, rendered as lithograph by D’Aubert, Paris; port. by Thomas Heathfield Carrick after water-colour miniature [NGI holdings]. See also Mary Cusack, the Nun of Kenmare; also a mezzotint engraving by William J. Ward after a painting in the Reform Club by J. P. Haverty, held in NGI.
Portraits [3 - poil of seated figure by Sir Martin Shee, formerly at Met., NY]: An oil portait of O’Connell by Sir Martin Shee [q.v.], at one time originally owned by W. S. Campbell, a 19th-c. US diplomat in Europe, was afterwards sold in a New York gallery and purchased there by a philanthropist, John Crimmons, who later donated it to the Metropolitan Museum, NY, being exhibited in 1900. In 2007 the museum staff came to doubt it was a portrait of O’Connell on the basis of the receding hairline, not knowing that he was commonly portrayed in his wig and was partially bald; sold at Sotheby’s in early 2008 and purchased for 5,000-6,000$ by two Irish buyers whose research in NY authenticated its subject. The portait will be auctioned at the RDS, 29th Sept. 2008.(See John Armstrong, in The Irish Times, 16 Aug., 2008, p.19.)
Portraits [3 - in fiction]: O’Connell is a character in novels by John Banim (The Anglo-Irish in the Nineteenth Century, 1828), Walter Macken (The Silent People, 1926), &c.
Portraits [4 - engraved]: There is an engraved portrait of O’Connell, attributed to William Henry Holbrooke (1821-1848), engraver of 4 Crowe St., Dublin [presum. 1829], addressing the bar of the House of Commons with the words with which he rejected the anti-Catholic oath of allegiance required of new MPs: “I at once reject this declaration, part of which I believe to be untrue, and the rest of which I know to be false.” He is shown at full-length standing to the right of picture wearing a green coat, with members of Parliament seated on either side, looking at him, his face in profile and with a card raised in his left hand. (See NLI Collection / EP OCON-DA (13B) I.) The dimensions of the image are 17.5 x 12 cm. on a sheet of 20.5 x 15 cm. See reference in Rosalind M. Elmes, Catalogue of Irish Portraits (Dublin 1975), p. 149.
Inscription: O’Connell at the Bar of the H[ouse] of Commons refusing the Anti-Catholic Declaration By this he forfeited his first election for Clare. NB. The declaration was tendered on a printed card ... (NLI Collection - online.)
Portraits [4 - engraved]: William Say, engraver, from an orig. painting by M. O’Connor, port. of O’Connell as “The Man of the People. Daniel O’Connell, Esq.”: Three quarter length, to front, looking to right, standing, dark cut-away coat buttoned, seals, right hand touching table to left, on which are inkstand, books, cup, etc., scroll in left hand, pillars in background to right, curtain to left, rectangle. In mezzotint, 17.2 x 14.5, on a sheet of 27.6 x 19.5 (NLI Collection - online.)
Portraits [5 - engraved]: Daniel O’Connell engraved by B. O'Reilly [176, N. King St., Dublin], 1 Feb. 1823, from an original painting by Mr. Gubbens [sic - i.e., John Gubbins]; stippled; 20.2 x 15.6 cm. on a sheet of 27.3 x 17.5 cm. It shows O’Connell at three-quarter length, to left, looking to front, standing, wearing tail coat buttoned, cut away in front, seals, frill, left hand on wait, right hand closed on table to left resting on open scroll with a number of signatures, behind on table cup, books, inkstand and pen, etc., curtain in background to left, pillars behind. With words “Hereditary Bondsmen, know you not, Who would be free ... Themselves must strike the blow”. (NLI Collection - online - and supra.)
Time-piece: The Liberator’s fob-watch (or timepiece) was sold at auction by George Mealy & Co. (Castlecomer) for €26,000 in March 2024.
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