Daniel O’Connell

The fight for Catholic Emancipation waned in the 1820’s. The Catholic Party was almost in despair but for the emergence of O’Connell. In 1823 he and Richard Lalor Sheil, founded the Catholic Association with military precision without infringing on the Convention Act and other restrictions on the expression of public opinion in Ireland. By 1825, the Government suppressed the association by the Act of Parliament. O’Connell simply changed the name and carried on. 

Catholics were prevented from taking a seat in the House of Commons by the oath which stigmatised the Catholic faith. O’Connell won a seat for Clare in the general election of June 1828. The Emancipation Bill was signed in April 1829 by George IV. By 1843, O’Connell stopped attending parliament and focused on the Repeal movement. 

His victory in forcing the British Government to grant emancipation to the Catholics of Ireland gave the oppressed hope.  O’Connell was a vigorous opponent of slavery. He was a pioneer of public meetings when freedom of speech was frowned upon by governments. Organised opposition to the legislatures was unheard of. Anything in the nature of public meetings for the discussion of grievances was looked upon as seditious and quickly put down. His public meetings were amazing affairs. His monster repeal meeting on the hill of Tara, on 15th August 1843 is estimated to have gathered over a million people from every part of Ireland. 

Viscount d’Arlincourt, a French nobleman, published an account in The Three Kingdoms, (published in Paris, 1844) of his presence at the public meeting at the Hill of Tara in 1843. He travelled with Henry Grattan who was also to speak at the meeting.  “As we drew near the famous hill, a distant and swelling sound repeated from echo to echo. All the houses on the line where OConnwas to to pass were decked with laurels. From the earliest dawn public prayers had been offered up for him in all the Catholic chapels of the country. The valleys, the hills and the plains were covered with approximately 600,000 men hasting onwards in multitudes as if in a kind of delirium on every side were triumphal arches bearing the portrait of the Liberator. It was with difficulty that we advanced through the obstructions of a way where vehicles were counted by thousands and individuals by hundreds of thousands”.

O’Connell’s words to 1,200 people at a banquet following the meeting was prophetic. “Statesmen should recollect the might that slumbered in the arms of a million peasants. Is the main a statesman, or a driveller who expects that that might will always slumber amid grievances continued and oppression endured too long”. He refused to resort to violent means yet pointed out that if statesmen do not correct the evil and restore the right of self government to Ireland, the day will come when they will weep tears of blood. 

On 1st October 1843, O’Connell held another meeting at Mullaghmast in Kildare where over 400,000 people were present. A third monster meeting was arranged for Clontarf on the following Sunday, 8th October but the Crown Forces banned it. Warrants were issued for O’Connell, his son and seven of his associates on a charge of exciting disaffection. At their trial, the prosecution rejected every Catholic juror. O’Connell was publicly escorted by the Lord Mayor and members of the Corporation to a packed jury. The trial lasted twenty five days whereupon he was found guilty. Sentence was deferred until the next term. 

It was during this time that Fr. Canavan invited Daniel O’Connell to lay the foundation stone of the new church of St James. There was no man more fitting than the politician who achieved Catholic Emancipation, making it possible for Catholics across Ireland to build new churches for the glorification of God.

O’Connell and his men were all found guilty in May 1844 and interned at the Richmond Penitentiary (now the National Boxing Stadium) on the South Circular Road. Whilst their liberty was taken from them, they lived in comfortable apartments and were fed good food. In September 1844, an appeal was brought to the House of Lords on the grounds that the jury was unfairly constituted and the verdict was subsequently overturned. Although he was released to a massive audience lining the streets of Dublin, his health deteriorated due to the strain of the trial. The rise of the Young Ireland party was worrying and by January 1847, he left Ireland to make his final speech in Parliament. 

Upon medical advice he took a trip to Europe with his nurse and spiritual adviser. He was presented with an Address by the Society of the Defence of Religious Freedom in Paris. His wish to meet the Holy Father in Rome was never fulfilled. He died in Genoa on 15th May 1847. His funeral mass was held in Rome by Fr. Ventura. Daniel O’Connell ranks amongst the great men of all ages. Kings and Emperors had sought his autograph, although he refused it to the Emperor of Russia writing “I am too sincere a lover of constitutional reform not to detest, politically, the Russian autocrat”. Yet he hand wrote and sent a verse of “The Emerald Isle” to the King of Bavaria.