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| Sunday, 29 May 2005 |
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Famous trials that shook the world : Trial of Daniel O'Connell by Lionel Wijesiri Daniel O'Connell (August 6, 1776 - May 15, 1847), known as 'The Liberator' or 'The Emancipator', was Ireland's predominant politician in the first half of the nineteenth century.
He was born in an Irish County known as Kerry, to a family of Catholic aristocracy and was adopted at an early age by his wealthy childless uncle. He absorbed the traditional culture of song and story still strong in Kerry at the time, acquiring knowledge of the rural mind that served him in later years at the bar. At this particular period, Ireland was practically under the control of England. Ireland, however, had its own separate Parliament and a reasonable amount of political control. The Irish Parliament, however, was composed entirely of the Protestants of the established church, who were unwilling to extend the suffrage to Roman Catholics. In 1791, The Society of United Irishmen, a revolutionary movement was founded in Dublin to bring the democratic ideals to Ireland and create an independent, religiously tolerant state. The same year O'Connell was sent to two distinguished Catholic schools in France, and his glimpses of the French revolutionary army in action left him with a lifelong abhorrence of violence for political ends. He returned to Ireland, studied law, and in 1794 entered Lincoln's Inn. He did not confine his studies to law books. His reading of Voltaire, Rousseau, Godwin, Smith and Bentham moulded his political and economic thinking and influenced him towards Catholic liberalism and economic laissez-faire. In 1798, O'Connell became a barrister. That was the same year in which the United Irishmen staged their famous rebellion. The disorganised uprising was bloody, and British forces suppressed it harshly. O'Connell did not support the rebellion: he believed that the Irish would have to assert themselves politically, rather than by force. So, for the next decade, he went into a fairly quiet period of private law practice in the south of Ireland. He built up a highly successful practice as a lawyer and dealt with many cases of Irish tenants against English landlords. In 1800, Ireland became an integral part of the United Kingdom by the Act of Union. King George III permitted only Church of England Irish to participate in the British Parliament, which had a centuries-old history of discrimination against Catholics. The Roman Catholic Irish felt betrayed because they had not acquired the right to hold political office. In 1802, O'Connell married his cousin, Mary O'Connell; their marriage was happy and they had five sons and three daughters. Aspirations of Catholic emancipation were beginning to rise among the people, and O'Connell was soon drawn into political action. In 1823, he founded the Catholic Association, with the object of using all constitutional means to secure emancipation, and turned it into a mass crusade with the support of the Catholic clergy. A turning point came with the Clare County election in 1828, when O'Connell, had an overwhelming victory against the government candidate, but was unable to take up his seat as the Catholics were debarred. The whole country was aflame. The government feared a rising and conceded the Catholic emancipation in April 1829. O'Connell then became a full-fledged member of the House of Commons and an eloquent spokesman for the Irish cause. He succeeded in getting more reforms enacted improving the treatment of the Irish. O'Connell was now the undisputed leader in Ireland, and he gave up his practice at the bar to devote his time wholly to politics. He addressed himself to the task of winning repeal of the Act of Union and securing a representative parliament for the Irish people. O'Connell argued for the recreation of an independent Kingdom of Ireland to govern itself, with Queen Victoria as Queen of Ireland. O'Connell was not a separatist in the republican sense and indeed had a strong personal loyalty to the monarchy. Emancipation had been wrung from the British government by a massive display of the will of the people, and he thought that Repeal could also be won without firing a shot. But British political leaders feared Repeal as they did not fear emancipation. Behind Repeal they saw the spectre of an independent Irish nation. O'Connell, however, pressed on as before with agitation on constitutional lines. The number of Irish Catholic MPs rose rapidly in the 1830s and in 1840. O'Connell formed the Repeal Association, believing he could gain the Repeal of the Act of Union in the same peaceful manner as he had won Catholic Emancipation. In 1841, O'Connell became the first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin. On January 1, 1843, O'Connell pledged that he would achieve repeal before the end of the year. Once again O'Connell suggested that if Parliament did not take action it faced the possibility of civil war. He now began to organise monster meetings throughout the country. For example, three-quarters of a million people, it was estimated, assembled on the hill of Tara to hear the Liberator. The government became alarmed at the fast-growing strength of the movement and decided to act. Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, outlawed a proposed large meeting to discuss repeal at Clontarf. Despite the fact that O'Connell suggested that his followers should accept this decision and obey the law, he was arrested and charged with sedition. O'Connell was found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail. On appeal, the Law Lords reversed the decision, and after three months O'Connell left prison as a hero in the fight for freedom of speech. However, over the next few years O'Connell was unable to make much progress in his fight to have the Act of Union repealed. The tactics that had won emancipation had failed, and O'Connell, now almost seventy, his health failing, had no clear plan for future action. Conscious that he had failed to reach his great goal, O'Connell left Ireland for the last time in January 1847 and made a touching but hardly audible speech in the House of Commons, reminding his hearers of the sufferings of his country. He left for the Continent in February, wishing to die in Rome, but did not survive the journey, dying in Genoa on May 15, 1847. At his wish his heart was sent to Rome; his body rests in a vault in Glasnevin Cemetery under a round tower, which can be seen for miles around. O'Connell's eminence as a leader and creator of national feeling and unity greatly affected the history of Ireland.
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