Tea at Trianon: Daniel O'Connell

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, March 16, 2009

Daniel O'Connell

You may taunt the ministry with having coalesced me, you may raise the vulgar cry of "Irishman and Papist" against me, you may send out men called ministers of God to slander and calumniate me; they may assume whatever garb they please, but the question comes into this narrow compass. I demand, I respectfully insist: on equal justice for Ireland, on the same principle by which it has been administered to Scotland and England. I will not take less. Refuse me that if you can.
–Daniel O'Connell, February 4, 1836, in a speech before the House of Commons

Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) is known as the "Liberator" of Ireland. Through his political struggles, the Irish people regained the most basic civil rights which they had been long deprived of. My husband's great grandmother was the niece of Daniel O'Connell. Here is a short biography:

O'Connell was born near Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry, on 6 August 1775. Adopted by a childless uncle, Maurice 'Hunting Cap' O'Connell of Derrynane House, overlooking Kenmare Bay, he attended English colleges in France before they were closed by revolutionaries. The O'Connells were prosperous Roman Catholics; it had been illegal to educate the boy abroad, but a 1792 Relief Act changed this and also allowed him to become a successful barrister on the Munster Circuit.
A constitutionalist in politics, O'Connell opposed the violence of the 1798 and 1803 risings, and in 1815 was distressed when he killed an opponent who had forced him into a duel. In 1823, he formed the Catholic Association; membership eventually cost a 'Catholic rent' of a penny a month. His objective was Catholic emancipation, opening up state and judicial posts and the right to sit in parliament. A powerful nationwide organisation quickly emerged, with the help of clergy, and in 1824 the government unsuccessfully prosecuted O'Connell for inciting rebellion.

In 1828, he won a by-election in Co. Clare, but unwillingness to take the anti-Catholic oath of supremacy kept him out of Westminster. The following year, the government conceded Catholic emancipation; 'The Liberator', as he was now known, entered parliament after a by-election. In 1840, O'Connell again marshalled mass support in the National Repeal Association, his oratory drawing enormous crowds. However, in 1843, he accepted a government ban on a rally planned for Clontarf, on the outskirts of Dublin. and lost ground to the more militant 'Young Irelanders' under Thomas Davis. In 1844, he was found guilty of creating discontent and disaffection, and was in prison for three months before the House of Lords reversed the judgement. He died in Genoa, on his way to Rome, on 15 May 1847.