Background
O'Connell was born in 1775 at Carhan near Cahersiveen, County Kerry. The eldest son of Morgan O'Connell, a small landowner of Iveragh, County Kerry, he was adopted in infancy by his childless uncle Maurice.
Political activist statesman barrister
O'Connell was born in 1775 at Carhan near Cahersiveen, County Kerry. The eldest son of Morgan O'Connell, a small landowner of Iveragh, County Kerry, he was adopted in infancy by his childless uncle Maurice.
Adopted by his childless uncle, Maurice, head of the clan, O'Connell was sent to the Continent for secondary schooling, attending Saint-Omer and then Douai.
In 1798 O'Connell was admitted to the Irish bar. Student reading converted O'Connell to the liberal views of the Enlightenment, including religious skepticism.
O'Connell eventually returned to Catholicism but never ceased to consider himself a radical.
When revolution came in 1798, O'Connell condemned physical force.
He argued that violence would inflame the passions of illiterate peasants, causing them to damage life and property, and lead to their slaughter by trained soldiers.
When it was all over, Ireland and Irishmen would be less free than before.
Three years later O'Connell joined the Catholic Committee, quickly becoming its dominant personality.
O'Connell opposed theveto, splitting Catholic forces and delaying emancipation but preserving the Church as a vehicle for Irish nationalism.
In 1823 O'Connell, Richard Lalor Sheil, and Sir Thomas Wyse organized the Catholic Association.
Two years later O'Connell initiated the strategy that made it the most powerful political force in the United Kingdom.
With Catholic Ireland united behind him, O'Connell promised that organized and disciplined public opinion would free the Irish people.
During the early 1836 O'Connell led an Irish nationalist party in the House of Commons.
He also spoke for United Kingdom Benthamism.
His efforts made possible the 1832 Reform Bill.
In 1835 O'Connell entered the Lichfield House Compact with the Whigs: he agreed to stop agitating for repeal of the union in exchange for a promise of significant reform in the administration of Irish affairs.
But he took a virtual sabbatical from agitation to concentrate on his duties as first Catholic lord mayor of Dublin. In 1843 O'Connell exploited the mistakes of British politicians, Irish grievances (mainly the poor law and the existence of a large and well-organized temperance movement initiated by Father Mathew), and the journalistic talent of Young Ireland and its paper, the Nation, to build an agitation equal to the Catholic movement of the 1826.
Again the priests rallied the people, and shillings flowed to Dublin.
In a series of monster meetings O'Connell promised freedom before the year was out. The situation was unlike that in 1828: Peel now had a Parliament united against repeal.
He refused to budge, and O'Connell, opposed to violence, had to retreat.
In early October 1843 the government banned a monster meeting scheduled for Clontarf.
O'Connell obeyed the proclamation.
A week later the government arrested him and some of his lieutenants.
They were convicted of sedition, fined £2, 000, and sentenced to a year in prison.
Early in 1844 the Law Lords reversed the verdict of the packed Dublin jury.
O'Connell was free, celebrated as a hero and martyr, but he lacked the energy and will to exploit his victory by resuming agitation.
The last years of the "Liberator" were a contradiction to former glories.
O'Connell's inclination to resume contact with the Whigs, jealousies, bad advice (mainly from his son, John), and a liberal patriot distrust of the narrowness of cultural nationalism led to conflict with Young Ireland and, finally, a split in the repeal movement.
O'Connell's health deteriorated, but he lived to witness the onslaught of famine and the refusal of the British Parliament to respond to his final plea for mercy and justice to starving Ireland.
He died at Genoa on May 15, 1847, on his way to Rome. Many 20th-century nationalists condemn O'Connell for his opposition to revolutionary tactics and for his compromise style of politics.
O'Connell eventually returned to Catholicism but never ceased to consider himself a radical. He opposed theveto, splitting Catholic forces and delaying emancipation but preserving the Church as a vehicle for Irish nationalism.
He campaigned for Catholic emancipation—including the right for Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament, denied for over 100 years—and repeal of the Act of Union which combined Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1810 he urged unity among all Irishmen in a speech to a Protestant meeting.
He spoke for United Kingdom Benthamism.
His efforts made possible the 1832 Reform Bill.
In 1835 O'Connell entered the Lichfield House Compact with the Whigs: he agreed to stop agitating for repeal of the union in exchange for a promise of significant reform in the administration of Irish affairs.
When his old enemy Sir Robert Peel became Tory prime minister in 1841, O'Connell organized the Loyal National Repeal Association.
O'Connell's tactic of using the pressure of public opinion, backed by the implied threat of reform or revolution, was used by subsequent Irish nationalists and British Radicals in marches toward freedom, social reform, and democracy.
He argued, that violence would inflame the passions of illiterate peasants, causing them to damage life and property, and lead to their slaughter by trained soldiers.
Later in life he freely admitted the influence on his political and social thinking of Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism.
He was a Member of Parliament for Clare, Member of Parliament for Dublin City.
In 1802 O'Connell married his third cousin, Mary O'Connell. It was a love marriage, and to persist in it was an act of considerable courage, since Daniel's uncle Maurice was outraged (as Mary had no fortune) and for a time threatened to disinherit them. They had four daughters (three surviving), Ellen (1805–1883), Catherine (1808), Elizabeth (1810), and Rickard (1815) and four sons. The sons—Maurice (1803), Morgan (1804), John (1810), and Daniel (1816)—all sat in Parliament. The marriage was happy and Mary's death in 1837 was a blow from which her husband never fully recovered.
(m.1802)
officer in the Irish Brigades of the French Army
