Top questions
Who was Daniel O'Connell?
Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Catholic majority in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was born near Cahersiveen, County Kerry, and trained as a barrister. His mobilisation of Catholic Ireland secured the final installment of Catholic emancipation in 1829.
Why was O'Connell called The Liberator?
He earned the name by mobilising Catholic Ireland, down to the poorest class of tenant farmers, to win Catholic emancipation in 1829. In 1823 he founded the Catholic Association, which for a "Catholic rent" of a penny a month drew the labouring poor into a national movement and allowed "monster" rallies of over 100,000 people.
How did O'Connell win Catholic emancipation?
In July 1828 O'Connell won a County Clare by-election but could not take his seat because he refused the Oath of Supremacy. Wellington and Peel recognised a powerful populist organisation behind him, and Wellington proposed a new oath. The Catholic Relief Act became law in April 1829, and O'Connell was returned unopposed in July 1829.
Did O'Connell succeed in repealing the Act of Union?
No. O'Connell failed in his declared objective of repealing the Act of Union 1800 and restoring an Irish Parliament. In 1843 he called the repeal year and drew a crowd estimated at close to one million to Tara, but he cancelled the planned Clontarf rally when troops occupied the site.
Where was Daniel O'Connell educated?
In 1791 O'Connell was sent to the English Jesuit college of Saint-Omer in France, and he fled in January 1793 amid revolutionary upheaval, an experience said to have left him with a lifelong aversion to mob rule and violence. He studied law in London, including a pupillage at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Irish Bar on 19 May 1798.
What is Daniel O'Connell's legacy?
Irish nationalists continued to dispute O'Connell's legacy, though Dublin's principal thoroughfare was renamed in his honour in 1922. Biographers have suggested that his combination of confessional politics and liberal principle was a forerunner of European Christian democracy. At Westminster he was also internationally renowned as an abolitionist.
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