Daniel
O'Connell was born in Cahirciveen,
County Kerry, on 6th August 1775. The O'Connell family were members
of the Irish Catholic aristocracy in Ireland. Although Daniel's family
were fairly wealthy, discriminatory legislation denied the O'Connell
family status, opportunity and influence. In 1791 Maurice O'Connell,
the head of the O'Connell clan, adopted Daniel and paid for him to
attend the best Catholic colleges in Europe. This included periods
at St. Omer and Douai.
In 1794 O'Connell enrolled in Lincoln's Inn, London and two years
later transferred to the King's Inn, Dublin.
While in London O'Connell became interested
in politics. He read a great deal and was influenced by the ideas
of radicals such as Tom Paine, Jeremy
Bentham and William Godwin. By the
time he qualified as a lawyer in 1798 O'Connell was fully committed
to religious tolerance, freedom of conscience, democracy and the separation
of Church and State.
In Ireland
O'Connell developed a reputation for his radical political views.
He became involved with the United Irishmen, a group that had been
inspired by the French Revolution. During the 1798 insurrection, O'Connell
feared he would be arrested by the English authorities and went into
hiding in Kerry. Despite his radical views, O'Connell opposed the
insurrection. He argued that the Irish people "were not sufficiently
enlightened to hear the sun of freedom" and that the insurrection
had decreased rather than increased the desire for Irish liberation.
Instead of rebellion, O'Connell advocated using the machinery of Parliament
to obtain political and religious equality.
For the next ten years O'Connell ceased to be active in politics and
concentrated on developing his law practice. It was not long before
O'Connell was the most successful and famous barrister in Ireland.
Gradually he returned to politics and by 1815 he was acknowledged
as the leader of the Catholic Emancipation
movement.
In 1823 O'Connell, Richard Lalor Sheil and Thomas Wyse formed the
Catholic Association. O'Connell turned it into a mass organisation
by inviting the poor to become associate members for a shilling a
year. Catholic priests were encouraged to advertise the Catholic Association
and were employed as recruiting agents.
The Catholic Association campaigned for the repeal of the Act
of Union, the end of the Irish tithe system, universal suffrage
and a secret ballot for parliamentary elections. Although O'Connell
rejected the use of violence he constantly warned the British government
that if reform did not take place, the Irish masses would start listening
to the "counsels of violent men".
By 1826 the Catholic Association began supporting
candidates in parliamentary elections. They had some spectacular victories,
including O'Connell defeating C.
E. Vesty Fitzgerald, President of the Board of Trade, in a County
Clare by-election. However, as a Catholic, O'Connell was not allowed
to take his seat in the House of Commons.
Radical MPs such as Sir Francis Burdett
and Joseph Hume, had been arguing for some
years that Parliament should bring an end to anti-Catholic legislation.
After O'Connell's victory, even Tories such
as Sir Robert Peel and the Duke
of Wellington began arguing for reform. They warned their Conservative
colleagues that here would be civil war in Ireland unless the law
was changed. In 1829 the British Parliament passed the Roman Catholic
Relief Act, which granted Catholic Emancipation
and enabled O'Connell to be elected as representative for Kerry in
1830. However, the government also outlawed the Catholic Association
and eliminated the traditional forty-shilling freehold suffrage in
Ireland.
In the 1830s Daniel O'Connell became a major figure in the House
of Commons. He was active in the campaigns for prison and law
reform, free trade, the abolition of slavery and Jewish
emancipation. He was also a prominent figure in the campaign for universal
suffrage. After the disappointment of the 1832
Reform Act, British Radicals adopted the tactics that had been
used by O'Connell successfully in Ireland. Organizations such as the
Chartists used O'Connell's methods of organizing
and applying the pressure of public opinion while implying that if
this was not successful, the movement might resort to violence.
O'Connell had a major influence on MPs. Of the105 Irish MPs, 45 loyally
supported O'Connell, including Feargus O'Connor,
who was later to become one of the main leaders of the Chartist
movement. O'Connell's control over this group enabled him to exert
considerable pressure on the government. In 1835 O'Connell and fellow
Catholic MPs agreed to support Lord Melbourne
and his Whig government in return for significant
Irish reforms. Although the Whig government passed the Tithe Commutation
Bill and the Irish Municipal Reform Act, O'Connell thought this was
inadequate. He was also totally opposed to the passing of the Irish
Poor Law and when the Whigs refused to change it, O'Connell withdrew
his group's support for the government.
In 1841
O'Connell became the first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin.
After completing his year in office, O'Connell announced he now intended
to concentrate of achieving the repeal of the Act
of Union. On the 1st January 1843, O'Connell pledged that he would
achieve repeal before the end of the year. Once again O'Connell suggested
that if Parliament did not take action it faced the possibility of
civil war. However, very few MPs in the House of Commons supported
the repeal of the Union, and therefore O'Connell was not in a strong
negotiating position.
Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, decided
to go on the offensive. He outlawed a proposed large meeting to discuss
repeal at Clontarf. Despite the fact that O'Connell suggested that
his followers should accept this decision and obey the law, he was
arrested and charged with sedition. O'Connell was found guilty and
sentenced to a year in jail. On appeal, the Law Lords reversed the
decision, and O'Connell left prison as a hero in the fight for freedom
of speech. However, over the next few years O'Connell was unable to
make much progress in his fight to have the Act
of Union repealed.
In 1845 O'Connell was unable to persuade Parliament to take quick
action to deal with the Irish Famine. O'Connell now came under attack
from the Young Ireland movement and leading members began describing
his tactics as ineffective.
In 1846 the Young Ireland group broke away from O'Connell's Repeal
Association. O'Connell was now a sick man and in March 1847 he decided
on a pilgrimage to Rome. When he reached Paris he was greeted by a
large crowd of radicals who wished to pay tribute to the man they
described as the "most successful champion of liberty and democracy
in Europe".
Daniel
O'Connell
never completed his journey and died while in Genoa on 15th May, 1847.
As requested, O'Connell's heart was buried in Rome and his body in
Dublin.
Cartoon
showing problems for Irish voters in elections.
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