Daniel O’Connell Of Ireland
Daniel O’Connell was born a Catholic in 1775; he came from a wealthy family who had managed to hold on to their position as a moderately aristocratic family by keeping quiet and possibly a bit of smuggling as well. He benefited from the Catholic Relief act of 1793; which allowed him to become a lawyer.
He disliked what he called futile political violence as he had witnessed the French Revolution first hand as he studied in France and was also a member of the militia in Ireland who were used to fight the insurgents in 1798.
Because George III’s vow he was not permitted to take up politics so in 1823 he founded the Catholic Association to help the advancement of Catholics and to rid the country of that law stating that Catholics could not sit in parliament. He set up a subscription membership where members of the Association had to pay a penny a month to remain a member. Priests were used to collect the subscription fees at mass. This was the first occurrence of Priests having anything to do with politics.
In 1828 William Vasey Fitzgerald was standing in the by-election in Clare. He was a Protestant heralding from one of the oldest families in Ireland the Fitzgeralds of Desmond. This election was just a formality until O’Connell decided to stand against him. By the power of numbers rather than anything else O’Connell won. This was seen as a great triumph by the Catholics.
The government were forced to concede, Catholics could once again sit as MP’s in Westminster. But victory came at a price. The majority of the voters for the Catholic Association were people who were called ‘forty-shilling Freeholders’ these were people who were tenants who either had a house or land valued at not less than forty shillings or two pounds. The government raised this valuation to ten pounds so creating a richer and more conservative electorate. O’Connell went along with this because he believed that would change over time but getting Catholics into parliament was too valuable to loose. He also had to accept the fact that Ireland was now a sectarian state a fact that he was not happy with but felt powerless to do anything about.
After Catholic emancipation O’Connell’s main objective was the join between England and Ireland. But first there were other immediate issues to be sorted. The Catholics had been forced to pay tithes to the Church of Ireland over the last 100 years this was a major bone of contention to the Catholics. The rioting that happened in 1830’s along with the murders etc were known as the ‘tithe war’. It took until 1838 to remedy this problem.
Not everyone was satisfied with the work that O’Connell was doing especially among the younger generation who were fed up with O’Connell’s compromises. They formed themselves into what became known as the Young Ireland movement. They produced a paper called ‘the nation’ but achieved nothing else except a minor rebellion in 1848.
O’Connell started on what would be his last campaign the ‘Repeal of the Union’ he stared to campaign for Ireland to be separated from England although he did not include Ulster in this. Ha largely ignored Ulster having only visited a few times and always been met with strong opposition by the Ulster Protestants. O’Connell’s repeal faced too much opposition from the Irish government and it faded into the background. By now Daniel O’Connell was suffering ill health and Ireland was suffering from the effects of the famine.
Daniel O’Connell died in 1847. For all his faults as much as his strength and determination Daniel O’Connell will be remembered as the creator of modern Ireland.
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