Above : Painting Of Daniel O’Connell

We have seen how discouragement had come upon the Catholics after the successive failures of the petitions which they addressed to Parliament in the first two decades of the century, praying for the removal of their remaining disabilities. They were now to find amongst the men of their own faith a leader, who, using methods not hitherto employed, would bring about the triumph of their cause.

Daniel O’Connell was born near Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry, in August, 1775. His family were landed gentry of good position, and he was given, first in Ireland, and later on the Continent, all the educational advantages then within the reach of Catholics. In 1793 he returned home and began to prepare himself for the legal profession.

While a student at the College of St. Omer in France, O’Connell had seen something, and heard much more, of the excesses of the French Revolution. The impression made on his young mind was so deep that it was never effaced. To the end of his career he expressed the utmost abhorrence of violent methods in politics.

With the Rebellion of 1798 he had no sympathy, but his detestation of the Union was whole-hearted and intense. Against this measure, when it was in contemplation, his first public speech was made (January, 1800), and to obtain its repeal were directed, when he was actually dying, the last efforts of his enfeebled mind and body. O’Connell reanimated it with new life and spirit. He was now a barrister in large and increasing practice, but he spared time from the duties of him, profession to form new local committees all over the country, and to induce the leading Catholics, clerical and lay, to join them. The Government, alarmed, proclaimed the Emancipation meetings, dissolved the Catholic Committee itself; relying on a law of 1793 which forbade representative bodies to be formed without authorisation from the State. O’Connell was not easily defeated. He now proceeded! to found a new society—the Catholic Board, which, however, was not well supported, and did little.