O'CON'NELL, DANIEL ( 1715-1847 ) . An Irish politician. He was the eldest son of an ancient but unimportant family I if County Kerry, Ire land, and was horn on August 6, 1775. O'Con nell received his first education from a hedge schoolmaster, but afterwards, under the patron age of his uncle, Maurice O'Connell, attended Father Herrington's school at Cove, and the Catholic colleges of Saint-Omer and Douai, France. His scholarship had just begun to win for him promises of a brilliant future when he was driven home prematurely by Ole outbreak of the Freneh Revolution, and in 1791 he entered as a law-student at Lincoln's Tim. In 179S he was called to the Irish bar. By degrees, the Roman Catholic party having begun to rally from the prostration into which it had been thrown by the rebellion of 1798, IConnell was drawn into public life, and his unquestioned ability soon made him a leader. lie was an active member of all the successive associations which. under the various mums of '1 atholic hoard,' Catholie ('ommincy,"('atholie Associa tion,' etc., were organized for the purpose of procuring the repeal of the civil disabilities of the Catholic body. Of the Catholic Association he was himself the originator; and by means of this association he created so formidable an agita tion throughout Ireland that it gradually became apparent tint the measures of relief could no longer be safely withheld. The crisis was precipitated by the bold expedient adopted by rConnell, of causing himself to be elected member of Parliament for Clare in 1828, notwith standing his incapacity to serve in Parliament, in consequence of his being obliged to refuse the prescribed oaths of abjuration and supremacy, which then formed the ground of the exclusion of Roman Catholics from the Legislature. This step. although it failed to procure for O'Connell admission to Parliament at the time, led to dis cussions within the House, and to agitations outside so formidable that in the beginning of the year IS39 the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel found it expedient to give way; and deserting their party in the face of strenuous Tory and Royal resistance, they introduced and carried through, in the spring of that year, the well-known measure of Catholic emancipation. O'Connell was at once rMected and took his seat for Clare, and from that date until his death continued to sit in Parliament. During all these years he received, by means of an organized annual subsidy, a large yearly income from the voluntary contributions of the people, by whom he was idolized as their 'liberator,' and who joined with him in all the successive agita tions against the Act of against the Protestant Church establishment. and in favor
of reform, in which he engaged. In the progress of more than one of these political agitations his associations were opposed by the Govern ment. The agitation for the repeal of the Union, begun in 1811, was carried on by 'monster meet ings' throughout Ireland. at which O'Connell him self was the chief speaker. This agitation as sumed proportions so formidable that O'Connell, in common with several others, was indicted for a seditious conspiracy in 1813, and was convicted and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, with a fine of £2000. This judgment AV:1S, reversed by the House of Lords; and O'CIamell, on his discharge, resumed his career. But his health had suffered from confinement. and still more from dissensions and opposition in the councils, of his party; and since, on the return of the Whigs to power in 1816. he consented to support their Government, the malcontents of the repeal association openly separated from him, and a hitter feud between 'young' and 'old' Ireland ensued. In this quarrel O'Connell steadfastly maintained his favorite pre cept of 'moral force,' and was supported by the great body of the Catholic bishops and clergy-; but his health gave way in the struggle. He was ordered to try a milder climate. and on his jour ney to Rome in the spring of I817 he was sudden ly seized with paralysis, and (lied at Genoa on May 15th of that year. As a public. speaker, and especially as a master of popular eloquence, he was almost unsurpassed in his day. His ability as a lawyer was of a high order. Ile published a single volume, A Memoir of Ireland, Native and Saxon. and a few pamphlets, the most important of which, as illustrating his personal history and character. is A Letter to the Earl of Shrews bury. Consult: O'Connell (son), Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell (Dublin. 1846) ; id., Recol lections and Experiences During a Parliamentary Career from 1S33 to 18',IS (London, 1849) ; Fitz patrick, Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell (ib. 1888) : Daunt. Recollections of Daniel O'Conneti (ib. 18481; Fagan, Life of Daniel O'Connell (Cork. 1847).