Rory O'Connell

“ If O’Connell had been at Lord John’s side at that juncture, England might have sent a practical message of good-will to Ireland instead of falling back on the old policy of coercion. O’Connell had learnt to trust Russell—as far, at least, as it was possible for a leader of the Irish people to trust a Whig statesman—and Russell, on the other hand, was beginning to understand not merely O’Connell, but the forces which lay behind him, and which rendered him, quite apart from his own eloquence and gifts, powerful. ”

“ O’Connell wisely deprecated rebellion and bloodshed. “He who commits a crime adds strength to the enemy,” was his favorite motto. Through a whole generation, with wonderful skill, he kept the public mind at the highest pitch of political excitement, yet restrained it from violence. But with all his power the old chief began to lose control of the enthusiastic Young Ireland party and, confident that the government must soon yield to the impassioned appeal from a whole nation, he allowed himself in his speeches to outrun his sober judgment. ”

“ If you break the Whig party, sir, where am I to go?" And says Lowell, "We held our breath, thinking where he could go. If he had been five feet three, we should have said, 'Who cares where you go?'" So it was with O'Connell. There was something majestic in his presence before he spoke; and he added to it what Webster had not, what Clay might have lent—infinite grace, that magnetism that melts all hearts into one. I saw him at over sixty-six years of age; every attitude was beauty, every gesture grace. ”

“ It is this thorough identification with the national spirit, with the religion which the persecution of centuries had made inseparable from it, that makes O’Connell without equal or second among the great men who nobly contended for their country’s freedom at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. He stands alone, gifted with a power to which neither the highest intellect nor the most brilliant oratory could otherwise obtain. ”

“ Publ. Rec. Ireland) . At some uncertain time between 1550 and 1557 Rory O'More was killed, and was succeeded by a certain Connell O'More, who may be the Connell Oge O'More mentioned in 1556 in the settlement of Leix (cf. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors, i. 400, and Cal. State Papers, Irish Ser. 1509-73, pp. 135,414) . He was put to death in 1557 (Annals of the Four Masters, ii. 1545) . Rory left two sons, Callagh and Rory Oge. ”

“ O'Connell was all for the poor. See what he did at Saint Patrick's Island—he cast out every bad thing and every whole thing, to England and to America and to every part. He fought it well for every whole body. ”

“ Daniel O’Connell, of Kerry, was the head man of that movement. He was a great man at moving the Irish people, and carrying them with him. Many of the people thought he meant to fight, too, in the long run, for at some of his monster meetings, speaking to tens of thousands of people, he’d cry out “Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not! Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” But he never seriously meant fight. If he did he would, in a quiet way, or in some way, have made some preparation for it. Those same remarks hold good as regards the later Irish movement of Charles S. Parnell. ”

“ On the whole, O'Connell exceeded my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at his wit.... ”

“ But it soon appeared that O'Connell was this time in earnest. ‘My struggle has begun,’ he wrote on 25 May 1840, ‘and I will terminate it only in death or Repeal.’ The circle of agitation gradually widened. In October he addressed a large meeting on the subject at Cork. He was enthusiastically received, and on entering the city the people, in their desire to do him honour, attempted to take the horses from his carriage. ‘No! No! No!’ he exclaimed, ‘I never will let men do the business of horses if I can help it. ”

“ He had given up the practice of his profession, to him most lucrative, in order to devote himself wholly to what he believed to be the good of his country, and, accordingly, the people contributed liberally to enable him, as the leader of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, to hold his place without indignity in the face of the parliament and people of England. In theory this contribution was at all events creditable to the generosity and zeal of the Irish people, and no discredit to O’Connell himself. ”

“ No man in our modern history was ever so bitterly and savagely denounced in England as O'Connell. No words were too rough for him. He was commonly called in English newspapers the "Big Beggarman." He was accused every day, of making a fortune out of the contributions of a half-starving people. The truth was that all and much more than all the money raised by the Irish people, was spent on the agitation for repeal of the Union. The truth was that O'Connell gave up his splendid practice at the bar, for the sake of advocating the Irish national cause. ”

“ The apathy of the mass of the people, as shown by the results of the general election, greatly depressed him; but he was more alarmed by the prospect of the passing of a bill on the lines laid down by Canning, which Grattan, with the best intention in the world, but with altogether insufficient knowledge of the state of catholic opinion in Ireland, had introduced on 30 April 1813. It was a critical moment in O'Connell's life. ”

“ It happened that O'Connell, shortly after his return to Ireland from London, where he had been arrested on his way to the continent to fight a duel with Peel, was arguing a case before Norbury to which the latter was apparently paying no attention. ‘I am afraid your lordship,’ said O'Connell severely, ‘does not apprehend me.’ ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. O'Connell,’ replied the chief justice, with a sneering chuckle, ‘no one is more easily apprehended than Mr. O'Connell when he wishes to be.’ The bons mots ascribed to him are innumerable, and doubtless many spurious ones were fathered upon him. ”

“ O'Connell sighed as the thought of his fifteen years of withered youth in that poor little village came up before him.
"Let my people alone, I tell ye!" cried the priest. "It's contented they've been until the likes of you came amongst us."
"Then they must have been easily satisfied," retorted O'Connell, "to judge by their poor little homes and their drab little lives."
"A hovel may be a palace if the Divine Word is in it," said the priest.
"Sure it's that kind of tachin' keeps Ireland the mockery of the whole world. The Divine Word should bring Light. ”

“ The effect of his death was to produce a sudden and immense reaction. A vast revulsion of love and reverence sprang up all over the country; an immense sense of his incomparable services, and with it a vehement anger against all who had opposed him. Upon the 'Young Ireland' party, as was inevitable, the weight of that anger fell chiefly, and from the moment of O'Connell's death whatever claim they had to call themselves a national party vanished utterly. The men 'who killed the Liberator' could never again hope to carry with them the suffrages of any number of their countrymen. ”

“ Omer and in Douay, until the outbreak of the French Revolution made it unsafe for him to remain longer in France—or at all events until his family believed that it would not be safe for him to remain there any longer. The excesses of the Revolution greatly shocked and horrified the young O'Connell, and indeed the effect of that early shock was felt by him all through his career. He became impressed with an almost morbid detestation of all forms of blood-shedding; and for a while after his return to Ireland he firmly believed himself to be a Conservative in politics. ”

“ Though the best and truest friends of Ireland, including that venerable hierarchy which has steadily seconded every rational movement for justice and equal rights, have never hesitated to give their support to O’Connell’s policy of moral force, there have not been wanting from the first restless spirits who have made it their bitterest reproach against him, that he was unwilling to fling away the scabbard and plunge the country into rebellion. ”

“ If Science still, in not unholy walls, Sets its high chair, and dares unchartered halls, And still ascending, ever heavenward soars, While capped Exclusion slowly opes it doors, It is his breath that speeds the spreading tide, It is his hand the long-locked door throws wide. Where'er we turn the same effect we find-- O'Connell's voice still speaks his country's mind. ”

“ The great repeal leader proved at last that he was utterly insincere in these protestations of voluntarism, for afterwards, during the English agitation concerning the Maynooth grant, he turned “the voluntaries” and their principle into open ridicule. He had served his turn of them, and then held them and the principles he pretended in common with them to support, in derision. Yet O’Connell was not a dishonest politician, apart from his religious mission. He was a man to be trusted in political engagements ”

“ O’Connell’s views than the Tory one, would have naturally created a sort of link between this singular man and the Whig Government. To keep his followers together, he wanted the influence of patronage; to obtain the aid of his followers, the Government did not show itself unwilling to bestow patronage upon him. In the meantime the independence of his attitude and language—an independence which the peculiarity of his position obliged him somewhat ostentatiously to display—apparently justified the accusation that the Premier was his protégé, and not he the protégé of the Premier. ”

“ Dublin Castle unbarred its venerable portals to those who had ceased to be welcome there, because of their connection with the repeal agitation. O’Connell’s reiterated declaration, that the Young Ireland leaders did not possess the intelligence, experience, tact, or discretion to conduct any great movement, much less one of such magnitude and peril as they proposed, made a deep impression on the minds of the people, and checked the insurgent progress of these eloquent declaimers. ”

“ O'Connell's agitation even for Repeal was essentially religious. Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church were indissolubly associated in his mind. His habits as a nisi prius barrister made him an advocate more than a statesman; and having pleaded the cause of his Church for forty years, having been rewarded and retained for so doing by an annual "tribute" collected in the chapels of the kingdom, and having won his unparalleled popularity and almost kingly power by his services in this cause, he could not help regarding himself as the special champion of the Irish priests and their people. ”

“ O’Connell was far too sharp-sighted—far too intelligent and clever a man to make so grave a mistake as this. By the sheer force of his genius he exercised for many years of his life a most powerful influence on English politics. He figures in one of John Doyle’s sketches in the character ascribed to him probably by most of his contemporaries. In the sketch referred to, the Governor of Barataria is represented by the typical Irish peasant ”

“ The Association might be broken up by the conflict with O'Connell, or it might endure a worse fate if it became despicable by suppressing convictions of public duty at his dictation. With these fears were mixed the recollection of the generous forbearance from blame and the promptitude to praise which marked his own relations to O'Connell, and the painful contrast with these sentiments presented by the scene he had just witnessed. He shed tears from the strong passion of a strong man. ”

“ From the moment when it was known that he was reappointed, he was treated by the demagogues as an enemy. And the extraordinary progress of Liberalism made during his lieutenancy must in candour be set down to the account of his courage and perseverance in fighting the cause of the people against both themselves and their enemies." On the eve of his departure for Ireland he wrote to Lord Cloncurry, saying, "O'Connell is my avant-courier. ”

“ In that age, under those skies, Daniel O’Connell was born.
One hundred years have passed. Rises now the Genius of the Irish race in America to celebrate the centennial anniversary of that glorious birth, to invoke in tones that peal across the waves—the memory of that illustrious and beloved name. A majestic, youthful presence, daughter of Erin, robed in white and with a garland of green upon her brow, comes with her sisters to lay a wreath upon the tomb of the Liberator of his country. Non omnis moriar, wrote the Latin poet:
“I shall not wholly die. ”

“ One of the drollest scenes of vituperation that O'Connell ever figured in took place in the early part of his life. Not long after he was called to the bar, his character and peculiar talents received rapid recognition from all who were even casually acquainted with him. His talent for vituperative language was perceived, and by some he was, even in those days, considered matchless as a scold.
There was, however, at that time in Dublin, a certain woman, Biddy Moriarty, who had a huckster's stall on one of the quays nearly opposite the Four Courts. ”