Rethinking Daniel O'Connell

[scolairebocht]

Maybe the story of Daniel O’Connell needs a little ‘revision’, to coin a controversial phrase in Irish historiography. He is obviously the Kerry barrister and MP who is known as the ‘Liberator’, because he won the concession of ‘Catholic Emancipation’ for Irish Catholics in 1829. But here are a few points to ponder that might point to a somewhat different story.

– If you were to read the memoirs of somebody like Charles Gavan Duffy, the editor of the famous Nation newspaper and a leading figure in the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s, you end up with quite a different impression of the ‘Liberator’ from that which is usually given.(1) He states that one of the key reasons why many of O’Connell’s early political projects collapsed was because he refused to have any kind of audit of the monies raised by these organisations. In practice any money raised, including the famous ‘Catholic rent’, went straight into his pocket so that as well as living like a king in Kerry all of the employees of these organisations were always completely beholden to him for their wages, not accidentally. He also says that O’Connell asked him and his associates on the Nation newspaper to stop their Nationalist activities, and tried to collapse the paper.

– The basic story of the Irish Famine is pretty well known, and while the severity of it, and the overall degree of culpability of the British government, is obviously disputed, the basic facts are not I don’t think. The overall pattern is that when its severity was known to the British government, about 1845 to 6, they set up food distribution/soup kitchens (alongwith many voluntary organisations, frequently religious both Catholic and Protestant) and imported Indian meal in huge quantities from America and distributed it in a reasonably widespread and successful manner. This was under Sir Robert Peel, widely considered one of the greatest British Prime Ministers ever, but he was ousted in late June 1846.
He was unseated basically by the Liberals, under Lord John Russell, but crucially assisted at all times by the Irish MPs under Daniel O’Connell. If you read somebody like Gavan Duffy the general agreement seems to have been that all government jobs in Ireland were to go through the hands of O’Connell (as political patronage of course, boosting his political position) while on the actual Irish policy O’Connell agreed not to interfere in any way. Russell then proceeded to completely butcher the relief efforts that had been underway, including stopping the importation of the Indian meal for a while, even declaring the emergency over before the disastrous winter of 1847 when actually it was at its worst.
So O’Connell is at least partly responsible for propping up arguably the most disastrous government ever to rule Ireland, during which millions died who could have lived.

– Obviously from about the middle of the 18th century, the Catholic Church has excommunicated anybody associated in anyway with the Freemasons, and remember O’Connell is usually cited as a great Catholic champion. He admitted once, in a letter to the newspapers, that he was involved with one Masonic lodge for a while, but actually he seems to have been a leading Freemason. Here is a few notes from a modern book that covers this subject, based on research among the archives of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in Molesworth Street in Dublin, Patrick Fagan, Catholics in a Protestant Country (Dublin, 1998), p.144-9:
Daniel O’Connell joined Dublin Lodge no. 189 on the 2nd April 1799. This was a South Side lodge founded in 1758 and met at 82 Bride Street in the 1790s.
O’Connell, with Revd John Blennerhassett and Stephen Henry Rice tried to form lodge no. 886 in Tralee in 1800 but didn’t pay the fee in time.
In 1799 O’Connell was elected Master of that Dublin lodge 189 and as such attended meetings of the Grand Lodge of Ireland (the overall governing body of the Freemasons in Ireland obviously) “and in fact he proceeded without delay to take a prominent part in the business of that body.”
In June 1800 he was appointed chairman of a sub committee of the Grand Lodge, tasked with approaching Lord Donaghmore about his continuance as Grand Master.
He was later employed as a legal counsel for the Grand Lodge in their proceedings against Alexander Selon from 1806-1816. He was referred to as “Brother Counsellor O’Connell”.

 

[scolairebocht]

– Of course, as pointed out above, the basic reason why Daniel O’Connell is revered as the ‘Liberator’ is because he is, alongwith the Duke of Wellington, credited with the gaining of ‘Catholic Emancipation’ in 1829, bringing to an end the terrible Penal Laws against Catholics which in some shape or form had persecuted Catholics in Ireland (and Britain) since the Reformation of the 16th century.
But I think the beneficial effect of the 1829 Act could be a little exaggerated. While Catholics could vote before this, they couldn’t be elected as an MP and that was the concession that was won in 1829, and precious little else. The incredibly severe Penal Laws which certainly existed throughout much of the 18th century, and earlier of course, on land holding by Catholics, on education and restricting the professions etc etc, had almost all been abolished long before 1829. 1780 is probably the real key date in the relaxation of these laws (the year of the Gordon Riots of course) but they were under legal and other pressure for quite a few years before that. For example this is a legal summary of the decision of the British House of Lords to overthrow a judgement of the Irish Court of Exchequer which was based on the Penal Laws:

“The issue directed by your Exchequer in this Cause was to try whether John Mead was from the age of 12 years constantly bred a Protestant or not.
This Cause was argued two days upon the construction of the 2nd & 8th of Queen Ann & 6th of George IInd.
The Lords reversed the Decree, and declared that the Barons [of the Exchequer] had no right to direct such an issue upon the rude construction of the 2nd & 8th of Queen Ann, that the 6th of George IInd had no relation to either of the other Acts. That the Bishop’s Certificate was not necessary to be filed. That the Popery Laws of Ireland were rigid & penal, to oust men out of their estates on account of their consciences was unjust & unlawful. That the House, nay no Court of Equity, should encourage these unconstitutional Laws, derogatory to a free state. That these Laws have ever been misconstrued.
That Protestant Informers in Ireland were a most odious set, a character not to be encouraged. That Catholics in Ireland were under the masque of Protestantism robbed of their estates, and sent with their wives & family to starve, contrary to all reason & justice.” (2)

This is the Hobson v Meade judgment of 1767, so if even the House of Lords is taking that view at that early date you can see that the government probably had to relax at least some of those laws by about 1780.
So the beneficial effect of the 1829 concession could be greatly exaggerated in the sense that most concessions had been made long before, but also it could be disputed by arguing that the actual British government policy from 1829 on, was to continue in an anti-Catholic vein, despite ‘Emancipation’. 1829 is about the beginning of the ‘Second Reformation’ in Ireland, the huge Protestant push to convert the Catholics away from their religion. This is the beginning of the ‘soupers’, the Protestant schools founded with the intention of giving food, clothing and education to Irish children provided they converted to being Protestant, and this was via some organisations that in fact received large government funding.
So again what exactly were we liberated from if anti-Catholicism was rife in government circles post 1829? Here is an interesting example of this in reference to Mount Mellary, the great Trappist/Cistercian abbey founded in Waterford (and earlier in Kerry) in the years immediately after ‘Catholic Emancipation’. You might think that with the latter Act, the British government was now relaxed about the foundation of Catholic monasteries in Ireland, and you would be wrong! Here is the beginning of the government file on their attempt to stop the Trappists from setting up in Ireland in 1831/2:

“The attention of the Irish Government was first called to the subject of the order of La Trappe, by a paragraph which appeared in a newspaper in the beginning of July 1831, stating that a monastic establishment had been formed in the County of Kerry. Sir William Gosset immediately wrote to Major Miller, the Inspector General of Police for Munster requesting him to obtain information on the subject. The result of Major Miller’s enquiries was, that ten monks of the Order of La Trappe had resided for about three months at Raghmore House, between Killarney and Millstreet, on the borders of the Counties of Cork and Kerry; that they had been obliged to leave France at the last Revolution; that thirty or forty more were expected to join them, including one foreigner; that it was believed that they had no funds, as they were obliged to work at different trades, in order to earn their support and pay the rent of their place of residence.
In December 1831, a French ship arrived at Cork, having on board 64 Trappists, British subjects, who had been expelled from France in consequence of a tumultuous resistance to the law by which their order had been suppressed.
They had submitted peaceably to this law during some months, and had lived as private individuals, undistinguished by any peculiar dress or mode of life; but at length, under the impression that the Government had no right to enforce the dissolution of their body, they assembled, resumed their monastic habits, and declared their resolution to live according to the rules of their order.
For this conduct, sentence of banishment from France was pronounced against them; and, at their own request, they were conveyed to Ireland.
It appears that several others subsequently arrived, but the papers in the Chief Secretary’s office do not show the exact number.
A part of these joined the original establishment at Raghmore. The remainder, after considerable delay, occasioned by the difficulty of finding an eligible place of settlement, in or about May 1832, were established, on a mountain near Cappoquin in the County of Waterford, where Sir Richard Keane granted them a tract of 400 acres at a nominal rent. He also allotted for their accommodation a large building in the town of Cappoquin, until suitable buildings could be erected on the land. To this new establishment, the monks gave the title of Mount Melleray, being the name of their former place of residence in France.
Major Miller, who had opportunities of procuring confidential information on the subject from a Roman Catholic Gentleman in the County of Kerry, stated, in May 1832, that the monks who were assembled at Raghmore were considered as the parent establishment from which it was proposed to form branch societies and that, besides the settlement then forming near Cappoquin, one was understood to be formed in the County of Clare. Upon enquiry, however, it was found that none of the Trappists had established themselves in that county, nor could any information be obtained by the Inspectors General of Police, of the existence of any of these Communities, other than those of Raghmore and Mount Melleray.” (3)

The point is that this is a high up serious police enquiry, tracking the Trappists, and they made enquiries from the police forces all across Ireland on this. In otherwords it feels like the Penal Law atmosphere against Catholics despite everybody knowing of Catholic Emancipation of only a few months earlier? The excuse they offered by the way, the law they were going to use if they could against the monks, was that if they were French they might have exceeded the terms of their visas in Ireland, which allowed them to visit but not to work. (The monks got around this because actually they were nearly all Irish and couldn’t be caught this way.)
So the legend of the ‘Liberator’ can I think be challenged on the basis that he didn’t win much in 1829, the vast majority of concessions to Catholics been conceded decades before, and in fact the British government did not let up at all in its anti-Catholic activities, although it might have been much more indirect and secretive than before.
The other point is to focus on what he did get in 1829, the right of Catholics to sit in the House of Commons. That was great but obviously it depended on the ability of Catholic voters to elect MPs to there, and on that they were plumb out of luck. As part of the 1829 Catholic Emancipation concession, the British government drastically cut back on the number of Catholic voters. Instead of the well known requirement where a voter had to have some property, or at least a long lease, exceeding 40 shillings in value, the government drastically increased that to £10 in 1829. With that stroke of a pen they reduced the Irish electorate from 215,000 to 40,000 overnight, in practice destroying the nascent Irish Catholic electorate. So even on the narrow question of electing Catholic MPs, it doesn’t seem that we were ‘liberated’ in 1829 at all, so the hype surrounding O’Connell on this deserves to be looked at again?

Its been this writers experience that you can never take the political currents of the day at face value, the real story is always hidden, and the same is therefore true of history. If establishment historians are just going to repeat the then media version of events, they are always going to get it wrong, and exalt people undeserved of it and vilify those who do deserve our respect. Such I think is what has happened with Daniel O’Connell.

by Brian Nugent, http://www.orwellianireland.com

 

[scolairebocht]

Footnotes
1. See his numerous detailed books on the history of this era for example, in which he talks about O’Connell at length, e.g. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Ireland 1840-1850 (London, 1880) and Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Four Years of Irish History 1845-1849, A Sequel to Young Ireland (London, 1883).

2. NLI 16,520, Munimenta Nugentiorum no 111, Decree of the House of Lords on Popery Laws, Hobson v Meade [1767].

3. NAI CSO RP 1833 6296, Chief Secretary Office Registered file on the Trappists of Rathmore Co. Kerry and Mount Melleray Co. Waterford (1833).

 

[nobody knows I'm a dog]

Excellent post, thank you.

 

[SeekTheFairLand]

Footnotes
1. See his numerous detailed books on the history of this era for example, in which he talks about O’Connell at length, e.g. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Ireland 1840-1850 (London, 1880) and Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Four Years of Irish History 1845-1849, A Sequel to Young Ireland (London, 1883).

2. NLI 16,520, Munimenta Nugentiorum no 111, Decree of the House of Lords on Popery Laws, Hobson v Meade [1767].

3. NAI CSO RP 1833 6296, Chief Secretary Office Registered file on the Trappists of Rathmore Co. Kerry and Mount Melleray Co. Waterford (1833).

I think you could mention too the popular but scurrilous sentiment of the time. That if you threw a stick over the wall of any workhouse in Ireland you'd hit one of O'Connell's bastards.

In addition to that, that he lamented the cost of the Poor Law schemes to rate payers and begged off the Mother Parliament assistance to Ireland to help emigrate its destitute to other places.

 

[scolairebocht]

Yes a bit of your former sentiment there is no doubt true, e.g. one girl, underage, chased him down in Kerry claiming that he fathered her child and abandoned her.

Hopefully I was trying to concentrate on the bigger issues...

 

[SeekTheFairLand]

– Of course, as pointed out above, the basic reason why Daniel O’Connell is revered as the ‘Liberator’ is because he is, alongwith the Duke of Wellington, credited with the gaining of ‘Catholic Emancipation’ in 1829, bringing to an end the terrible Penal Laws against Catholics which in some shape or form had persecuted Catholics in Ireland (and Britain) since the Reformation of the 16th century.
But I think the beneficial effect of the 1829 Act could be a little exaggerated. While Catholics could vote before this, they couldn’t be elected as an MP and that was the concession that was won in 1829, and precious little else. The incredibly severe Penal Laws which certainly existed throughout much of the 18th century, and earlier of course, on land holding by Catholics, on education and restricting the professions etc etc, had almost all been abolished long before 1829. 1780 is probably the real key date in the relaxation of these laws (the year of the Gordon Riots of course) but they were under legal and other pressure for quite a few years before that. For example this is a legal summary of the decision of the British House of Lords to overthrow a judgement of the Irish Court of Exchequer which was based on the Penal Laws:

This is the Hobson v Meade judgment of 1767, so if even the House of Lords is taking that view at that early date you can see that the government probably had to relax at least some of those laws by about 1780.
So the beneficial effect of the 1829 concession could be greatly exaggerated in the sense that most concessions had been made long before, but also it could be disputed by arguing that the actual British government policy from 1829 on, was to continue in an anti-Catholic vein, despite ‘Emancipation’. 1829 is about the beginning of the ‘Second Reformation’ in Ireland, the huge Protestant push to convert the Catholics away from their religion. This is the beginning of the ‘soupers’, the Protestant schools founded with the intention of giving food, clothing and education to Irish children provided they converted to being Protestant, and this was via some organisations that in fact received large government funding.
So again what exactly were we liberated from if anti-Catholicism was rife in government circles post 1829? Here is an interesting example of this in reference to Mount Mellary, the great Trappist/Cistercian abbey founded in Waterford (and earlier in Kerry) in the years immediately after ‘Catholic Emancipation’. You might think that with the latter Act, the British government was now relaxed about the foundation of Catholic monasteries in Ireland, and you would be wrong! Here is the beginning of the government file on their attempt to stop the Trappists from setting up in Ireland in 1831/2:

The point is that this is a high up serious police enquiry, tracking the Trappists, and they made enquiries from the police forces all across Ireland on this. In otherwords it feels like the Penal Law atmosphere against Catholics despite everybody knowing of Catholic Emancipation of only a few months earlier? The excuse they offered by the way, the law they were going to use if they could against the monks, was that if they were French they might have exceeded the terms of their visas in Ireland, which allowed them to visit but not to work. (The monks got around this because actually they were nearly all Irish and couldn’t be caught this way.)
So the legend of the ‘Liberator’ can I think be challenged on the basis that he didn’t win much in 1829, the vast majority of concessions to Catholics been conceded decades before, and in fact the British government did not let up at all in its anti-Catholic activities, although it might have been much more indirect and secretive than before.
The other point is to focus on what he did get in 1829, the right of Catholics to sit in the House of Commons. That was great but obviously it depended on the ability of Catholic voters to elect MPs to there, and on that they were plumb out of luck. As part of the 1829 Catholic Emancipation concession, the British government drastically cut back on the number of Catholic voters. Instead of the well known requirement where a voter had to have some property, or at least a long lease, exceeding 40 shillings in value, the government drastically increased that to £10 in 1829. With that stroke of a pen they reduced the Irish electorate from 215,000 to 40,000 overnight, in practice destroying the nascent Irish Catholic electorate. So even on the narrow question of electing Catholic MPs, it doesn’t seem that we were ‘liberated’ in 1829 at all, so the hype surrounding O’Connell on this deserves to be looked at again?

Its been this writers experience that you can never take the political currents of the day at face value, the real story is always hidden, and the same is therefore true of history. If establishment historians are just going to repeat the then media version of events, they are always going to get it wrong, and exalt people undeserved of it and vilify those who do deserve our respect. Such I think is what has happened with Daniel O’Connell.

by Brian Nugent, http://www.orwellianireland.com

With regard to the raising of the property qualification. Its hardly O'Connell's fault that the British acted with such vengeance.

However O'Connell did rather pick a fight with the Protestant population in Ireland on the matter. Particularly in the election of the Emancipationist Villers Stuart in Waterford in 1826. Villers Stuart was Protestant of course, but he was stood against Beresford, the sitting MP. It was no co-incidence that Beresford was brother to incumbent Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, Lord John Beresford.

Still with what other tactic would you rally the troops but tilt at the head of the hydra?

Still, i dont know if it was entirely a religious motivation for raising the 40 shilling freehold. There was some considerable concern amongst the Establishment that voters voted against their landlord. Waterford put the fear in them that the social order was being overturned, that a tenant would vote against his landlord's candidate. I see it as much as attempt to hold back the rise of 'working class' self awareness as religious.

O'Connell's connection of the religion to political action did set in motion the Tithe Campaign of the early 1830s and even though it would be 1869 before Dis-Establishment happened, some victories on this matter were scored before the 1830s were out.

 

[Myles O'Reilly]

Hopefully I was trying to concentrate on the bigger issues.

Bocht you are a Catholic zealot. Do you ever stop thinking about your Church?

 

[scolairebocht]

No, never! In my defence my ancestors were much the same way!lol

 

[Hermit]

Bocht you are a Catholic zealot. Do you ever stop thinking about your Church?

 

[AN2]

View attachment 7628

He didn't want to burn Ezra with it though


View: https://t.me/saintharrison/12439

 

[AUL LAD]

– Of course, as pointed out above, the basic reason why Daniel O’Connell is revered as the ‘Liberator’ is because he is, alongwith the Duke of Wellington, credited with the gaining of ‘Catholic Emancipation’ in 1829, bringing to an end the terrible Penal Laws against Catholics which in some shape or form had persecuted Catholics in Ireland (and Britain) since the Reformation of the 16th century.
But I think the beneficial effect of the 1829 Act could be a little exaggerated. While Catholics could vote before this, they couldn’t be elected as an MP and that was the concession that was won in 1829, and precious little else. The incredibly severe Penal Laws which certainly existed throughout much of the 18th century, and earlier of course, on land holding by Catholics, on education and restricting the professions etc etc, had almost all been abolished long before 1829. 1780 is probably the real key date in the relaxation of these laws (the year of the Gordon Riots of course) but they were under legal and other pressure for quite a few years before that. For example this is a legal summary of the decision of the British House of Lords to overthrow a judgement of the Irish Court of Exchequer which was based on the Penal Laws:

This is the Hobson v Meade judgment of 1767, so if even the House of Lords is taking that view at that early date you can see that the government probably had to relax at least some of those laws by about 1780.
So the beneficial effect of the 1829 concession could be greatly exaggerated in the sense that most concessions had been made long before, but also it could be disputed by arguing that the actual British government policy from 1829 on, was to continue in an anti-Catholic vein, despite ‘Emancipation’. 1829 is about the beginning of the ‘Second Reformation’ in Ireland, the huge Protestant push to convert the Catholics away from their religion. This is the beginning of the ‘soupers’, the Protestant schools founded with the intention of giving food, clothing and education to Irish children provided they converted to being Protestant, and this was via some organisations that in fact received large government funding.
So again what exactly were we liberated from if anti-Catholicism was rife in government circles post 1829? Here is an interesting example of this in reference to Mount Mellary, the great Trappist/Cistercian abbey founded in Waterford (and earlier in Kerry) in the years immediately after ‘Catholic Emancipation’. You might think that with the latter Act, the British government was now relaxed about the foundation of Catholic monasteries in Ireland, and you would be wrong! Here is the beginning of the government file on their attempt to stop the Trappists from setting up in Ireland in 1831/2:

The point is that this is a high up serious police enquiry, tracking the Trappists, and they made enquiries from the police forces all across Ireland on this. In otherwords it feels like the Penal Law atmosphere against Catholics despite everybody knowing of Catholic Emancipation of only a few months earlier? The excuse they offered by the way, the law they were going to use if they could against the monks, was that if they were French they might have exceeded the terms of their visas in Ireland, which allowed them to visit but not to work. (The monks got around this because actually they were nearly all Irish and couldn’t be caught this way.)
So the legend of the ‘Liberator’ can I think be challenged on the basis that he didn’t win much in 1829, the vast majority of concessions to Catholics been conceded decades before, and in fact the British government did not let up at all in its anti-Catholic activities, although it might have been much more indirect and secretive than before.
The other point is to focus on what he did get in 1829, the right of Catholics to sit in the House of Commons. That was great but obviously it depended on the ability of Catholic voters to elect MPs to there, and on that they were plumb out of luck. As part of the 1829 Catholic Emancipation concession, the British government drastically cut back on the number of Catholic voters. Instead of the well known requirement where a voter had to have some property, or at least a long lease, exceeding 40 shillings in value, the government drastically increased that to £10 in 1829. With that stroke of a pen they reduced the Irish electorate from 215,000 to 40,000 overnight, in practice destroying the nascent Irish Catholic electorate. So even on the narrow question of electing Catholic MPs, it doesn’t seem that we were ‘liberated’ in 1829 at all, so the hype surrounding O’Connell on this deserves to be looked at again?

Its been this writers experience that you can never take the political currents of the day at face value, the real story is always hidden, and the same is therefore true of history. If establishment historians are just going to repeat the then media version of events, they are always going to get it wrong, and exalt people undeserved of it and vilify those who do deserve our respect. Such I think is what has happened with Daniel O’Connell.

by Brian Nugent, http://www.orwellianireland.com

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