Above : Illustrating Picture, Daniel O’Connell Giving Speech

The years that immediately followed the gaining of Emancipation saw O’Connell at the height of his power. He was well fitted in every way to play the part of a popular leader; a part which demands almost of necessity the possession of certain physical, as well as certain mental gifts. With these gifts O’Connell was very specially endowed. He was tall and well made. His face, in spite of rather coarse features, was, as a whole, decidedly handsome. Like most men born with a genius for command, he had remarkably fine and brilliant eyes. The power and clearness of his voice was extraordinary ; when speaking in an immense hall, he could, apparently without difficulty, make his words distinctly heard at its very furthest extremity. As an orator, he is entitled to take a high place, if not one of the highest. The most remarkable fact about him as a speaker was the ease and wonderful skill with which he could adapt himself, not only in style, but in subject matter, in his manner of reasoning ; even, it has been remarked, in gesture to the audience which he happened at the moment to be addressing. Yet no man was more honest, more outspoken, less of a hypocrite. He merely presented different sides of his personality on different occasions.

We have already remarked that the chief aim of O’Connell’s entire Political life was the Repeal of the Act of Union, and to it he now turned, rendered confident by the victory he had won in the gaining of Emancipation. No doubt he was unduly hopeful, and failed to realize of strong would be the opposition in England to any scheme to revive he Irish Parliament. With all the vigour of his nature he plunged into the struggle and in Ireland for this, were undeserved. He had abandoned a lucrative and growing practice at the bar to serve the cause of those who were for the most part, too poor to individually reward him, and he was there-fore entitled to take from their collective subscriptions an amount sufficient to maintain himself, and those dependent on him, in a position analogous to that in which his exertions would have enabled him and them to live, had he continued the practice of his profession. Moreover he was not by any means the ” beggarman ” which the English Press delighted to represent him. His private means were considerable, and, although, as in the keeping of accounts he was extremely careless, it is impossible to say what proportion of the ” Tribute ” he applied to his own uses, and what to public work; there can be no doubt that the latter absorbed the enormously larger proportion of the money subscribed.