Daniel O’Connell’s legacy

250 years on

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the characters of Joyce’s Dublin pass repeatedly “under the hugecloaked Liberator’s form”: the monument erected to the memory of Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847). As the first Roman Catholic to sit in the UK House of Commons, O’Connell shook up the political establishment and played a key role in moulding Irish nationalism, forging a career as the spearhead of a hitherto-unseen mass movement. Up until the moment of his death, he remained a towering political figure, whose renown had spread far beyond the shores of Ireland and Great Britain. Balzac ranked him alongside Napoleon, as one of the great men of his time, crediting him with having “embodied a people”.

Daniel O’Connell, Painting by Sir George Hayter, 1834.
© National Portrait Gallery, London

In short, here are the stakes of the game I am playing. Four men will have had great lives [in this half-century]: Napoleon, Cuvier, O’Connell, and I want to be the fourth. The first lived on the lifeblood of Europe; he inoculated himself with armies! The second espoused the globe. The third has embodied a people, and I will have carried an entire society in my head.

Honoré de Balzac – Letter to Mme Hanska, 6 February 1844

Handwritten Letters by Balzac to Ms Hanska

© Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France (Ms Lov. A 302 f. 138-146)

Transcription of the letter

Ireland is a small country on whose soil the greatest problems of politics, morality and humanity are struggling.

… wrote Gustave de Beaumont in 1839. At the time, news from the island was attracting considerable interest in Europe, in North America and throughout the British Empire. How important, then, was O’Connell’s influence on the social dynamic that led to the country’s largely poor and rural population mobilising to form a unified political movement?

Page for 2 January 1799 in the personal diary of Daniel O’Connell

Making his Entrance “on the grand theatre of the world” (1775-1823)

O’Connell was born on 6 August 1775 into a prominent family in the Southwest of Ireland. In spite of the Penal Laws – which denied citizenship to Roman Catholics and blocked their access to the legal professions, to public office and to property rights – the O’Connells of Kerry had retained their social standing and a proportion of their land, and they had remained quite wealthy, thanks largely to trade and smuggling.

Between 1791 and 1793, Daniel was sent to the continent by his uncle Maurice, the family patriarch, to study at the Catholic colleges of Leuven, Saint-Omer and Douai. It was a daunting experience for the young man, uprooted and left to fend for himself in the cauldron of revolutionary France, only to make a hasty return to London, where he embarked upon a law degree – the ban on Catholics becoming barristers having been lifted by act of parliament in the previous year. O’Connell completed his legal studies in Dublin (1796-1798) and became one of the first Catholics accepted to the Irish bar. His youthful diary (1795-1802) provides a unique record of the formative years of a young man who was both in tune and at odds with his era. He committed to its pages his thoughts on his professional training, his conversion to liberal and radical ideas (after reading the Enlightenment philosophers), his discovery of the national question, and his moments of hesitancy and self-doubt, especially on the issue of religion, under the influence of Thomas Paine.

Mary O’Connell, Painting by John Gubbins, 1812
© Wikimedia Commons

In 1802, O’Connell married Mary (1778-1836), a devout woman whose piety led him to abandon his religious scepticism. His uncle Maurice disapproved of the match and initially wrote Daniel out of his will, before the two men reconciled in 1806. On Maurice’s death, in 1825, O’Connell inherited the family estate, Derrynane.

Derrynane House © Ana Modrega Pascual

Mary and Daniel had seven children between 1803 and 1816. A somewhat profligate man with little head for business, O’Connell lived beyond his means and ran up considerable debts, especially after purchasing the house at 30 Merrion Square, Dublin in 1809.

30 Merrion Square
Print / *The Illustrated London News*, 18November 1843

Meanwhile, between 1800 and 1820, O’Connell was making a name for himself in the courtroom. During the Kerry assizes, his eloquence and skill earned him the epithets “Advocate of the People” and “Counsellor D. O’Connell”. It was here that he first carved out a reputation as a public figure and an opponent of the political establishment, before gaining prominence within the nationalist movements. Two great causes spurred him to political action: the Repeal of the Act of Union of 1801, which sought to reinstate a sovereign Irish parliament, and Catholic Emancipation, a lifting of the ban on Roman Catholics sitting in the House of Commons. Little progress was made on either of these fronts during the first two decades of the century. Despite the lobbying of Catholic and liberal elites, there was not yet a mass social movement capable of creating the conditions necessary to put serious pressure on London. However, the campaign that first saw light in the early 1820s, and in which O’Connell was the central figure, fundamentally altered the equation.

“Counsellor D. O’Connell”, Print / Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, September 1810.
© National Library of Ireland

The “Liberator” (1823-1829)

In his political speeches, O’Connell would eloquently urge his countrymen to put his words into action. The decision to allow the poorest among them to join the Catholic Association, the movement’s driving force, founded in 1823, proved to be the most potent strategy of this shift to collective action. For only a penny a month, anybody could become a member. The policy proved to be a resounding success. It led to a huge surge in membership among the Irish population, underpinning the legitimacy of the movement and giving it a new lease of life. The grassroots activism was dynamic, and requests made by local branches were relayed to Dublin.

Between 1826 and 1829, hundreds of assemblies were organised across the country, including more than fifteen “monster meetings”, at which tens of thousands of people would gather to hear O’Connell speak. This new form of collective action was a far cry from traditional politics – most participants did not even have the vote. Crucially, it relied on the support of the Catholic clergy and the Church’s organisational networks. At O’Connell’s behest, violence of all forms was banned from these assemblies. His commitment to peaceful protest is commonly attributed to a rejection of the revolutionary violence he had witnessed in France in 1792-1793. However, more than any adolescent trauma or pacifist ideals – after all, O’Connell had flirted with the United Irishmen in 1796-1797, killed a political adversary in a duel in 1815 and sent one of his sons to fight beside Simón Bolívar in the 1820s – this decision was the result of a calculated strategy. For O’Connell, the idea that the British Empire could be overcome by force of arms was a fantasy. He called instead for the use of “moral force” and the application of political pressure, while hinting that outbreaks of violence were inevitable should the movement’s demands fall on deaf ears.

“Shooting of D’Esterre”
Print / The Irish Magazine and Monthly Asylum of Neglected Biography, March 1815.
*© National Library of Ireland*

The money raised from membership fees funded collective action, election campaigns and protection for tenant farmers threatened with eviction for defying their landlords at the ballot box. In the 1826 general election, several candidates supporting Catholic emancipation were returned to Westminster. Two years later, O’Connell’s resounding victory in the Clare by-election, despite his disqualification from taking a seat in the Commons, triggered a political upheaval of seismic proportions.

“The M.P. Marching at the Head of his 300 Jontlemen!!!”
Print / William Heath, 1828-1829.
*© Trinity College Dublin*
This satirical etching published in London between 1828 and 1829 encapsulates the fears of the British ruling classes, faced with the prospect of the emancipation of Irish Catholics. The composition pivots on the stark contrast between the respectable leader and the disorderly rabble, who are following literally on his coattails. In the foreground on the right, O’Connell – depicted in profile, sporting a barrister’s black gown – strides resolutely toward the House of Commons. Behind him, the page is dominated by the low-born mob of “300 Jontlemen”, recognisable as a representation of the Irish people via the stereotypical attributes they are commonly given in such caricatures: barefoot, with ape-like features, restless, unruly and violent (armed with traditional *shillelaghs*), devoid of reason, and in thrall to the Catholic Church, as symbolised by the bishop’s mitre worn by O’Connell and the priest at his side. The depiction, in the foreground, of a woman wearing the red coat of the British army above a ragged green skirt further undermines the credibility of the central figures. Despite adopting a tone of light-hearted mockery, the cartoonist seeks to alert the viewer to the gravest of threats. O’Connell, as the only real gentleman in the scene (the class-distinction is stark), is represented as the thin end of the wedge: to let him in would be to throw the door wide open to the Irish hoi polloi.

The political crisis left the Tory government with little choice but to relent and force through the Roman Catholic Relief Act, which received royal assent on 13 April 1829. The following day, O’Connell celebrated what he called “the first day of freedom”. The law altered the oath of allegiance, removing the sacramental test and thus allowing Catholics access to the highest civil and military offices of state. As a quid pro quo, a significant rise in the property value required to vote in Ireland slashed the electorate from 216,000 to 37,000. Initially, however, that setback caused little alarm. The most important battle, it seemed, was being fought on another front. Catholic emancipation was hailed as a victory of David over Goliath: an extraordinary event via which Irish men and women would take control of their own destinies. This collective victory was also a personal triumph for O’Connell. The “Agitator” had become the “Liberator”.

“Justice for Ireland” (1830s)

From 1830 onwards, as the new leader of a grouping of around forty MPs, O’Connell was seen as the embodiment in Westminster of the struggle to improve the plight of the Irish people. By now, he had become a full-time politician and was living primarily off the annual “rent” paid to him by his countrymen, in recognition of his work on their behalf. In his quest to find the best way to obtain “Justice for Ireland”, his initial approach was to demand the unconditional repeal of the Act of Union of Ireland and Great Britain, which he had been calling for since 1800. Then, between 1835 and 1840, he made an electoral pact with the British Whigs and Radicals, in exchange for substantial reforms in Ireland. As this period of cooperation drew to an end, however, its success appeared to have been somewhat limited. While significant gains had been made in the realms of justice and government, including the enactment of a crucial bill allowing Catholics to sit on local councils, these were offset by a disappointing compromise on the tithes paid to the Anglican Church.

O’Connell’s record during this decade, in which he established himself as one of the major figures in parliamentary life, provides a fascinating window into his complex ideological standpoint: a combination of political radicalism and social conservatism.

“Daniel O’Connell, Esqr, M.P.”, Print / John Henry Robinson, around 1830.
© National Library of Ireland

In the eyes of the British authorities, O’Connell was a subversive firebrand, the instigator of a previously unheard-of grassroots movement. Not only was he the standard-bearer of Irish nationalism, he was also a leading figure in the broader Radical movement in the UK. As such, he was a tireless opponent of slavery and campaigned for the democratisation of political life, supporting policies such as universal male suffrage, the secret ballot, the redrawing of constituency boundaries, and Jewish emancipation.

On the other hand, this great political reformer, like most MPs of his era, remained conservative in his views on social relationships. He sought to avoid class conflict and to bring together social groups as diverse as the landed gentry, wealthy farmers, the urban middle classes, and the mass population of tenant farmers and agricultural labourers, rallying them all under the same banner. His policy documents invariably include an economic component, evoking the need to rectify certain inequalities, but never by radically transforming the living conditions of the poorest members of society. The interests of the middle classes – those who oversaw the national movement – were usually enshrined in non-interventionist policies of economic equilibrium, O’Connell often being influenced by a prevailing social conservatism characterised by a profound mistrust of trades unions.

“King of the Beggars” (1840-1847)

The year 1840 marked a return to the resolute demand for a repeal of the Act of Union. O’Connell reverted to the tried and tested methods employed in the campaign for Catholic Emancipation, announcing the creation of a new organisation, the Loyal National Repeal Association, which anybody (including female members, who had been accepted in the Precursor Society since 1838) could join for a small subscription fee. The membership card became a tangible marker of belonging to the nationalist community. In the words of Charles Gavan Duffy it was “a sort of diploma of political rank”.

Membership card of the LNRA
1843 *© National Library of Ireland*
In this example from 1843, a stylised depiction of the façade of the Irish Parliament building, accompanied by the words “It was and shall be”, refers to the legislative independence secured in “1782” and lost in 1800, which the *repealers* intended to win back. In keeping with the stated desire to encompass “the universal People of Ireland”, transcending sectarian divisions, national unity is symbolised by a shamrock carrying an inscription on each of its leaves naming one of the island’s three main creeds: “Catholic”, “Dissenter” (Non-Conformist), and “Protestant” (Anglican). The biblical motto “*Quis separabit?*” (“Who shall separate us?”) affirms the unbreakable bond that exists between the three. Finally, the joint allegiance to the Nation and the Crown is signified by the adjectives “Loyal” and “National” and especially by the epigram “God save the Queen”.

At first, the movement was rather subdued, but it gained momentum in 1841 when O’Connell was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, becoming the first Roman Catholic to hold the office since 1690. Another source of impetus was the intermediary role of the parish clergy, as was the zeal of the activists of Young Ireland, whose periodical, The Nation became an influential instrument of national education. The newspaper was widely read throughout Ireland, and published not only political news, but also poems and stories glorifying Irish history, penned by notable writers such as Thomas Davis. The wave of popular support reached its peak during the spring and summer of 1843, when almost 1.5 million people took part in thirty or more “monster meetings”, the highlight of which would always be a speech by O’Connell. These carefully planned and orchestrated events, which often took place in sites loaded with historical significance – such as the mass-meeting on Tara Hill on 15 August 1843 – were unlike anything seen in continental Europe at the time. They represented a reoccupation of the political territory by Irish Catholics. As demonstrations of national unity and as forums of liberty, they offered participants the opportunity to reclaim their rights and to express their anger via non-violent means. It was a form of peaceful protest that allowed the hidden masses to gain a certain visibility.

“The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin”
Print / Henry O’Neil, 1841.
© *National Library of Ireland*

Ireland: map of the main Repeal meetings in 1843
Map / produced by Yann Roche

“Repeal Meeting at Tara”
Print / The Illustrated London News, 26th of August 1843. © National Gallery of Ireland

However, this time around, the strategy that had been so successful in 1826-1829 failed to make London back down. The cancellation of the rally scheduled to take place in Clontarf on 8 October 1843 provides a clear indication of the power struggle at play between the movement and the authorities. Peel’s Tory government imposed a last-minute ban on the assembly, invoking a threat to public order and mobilising a significant military response. Fearing a bloodbath, O’Connell called the meeting off. It was a decision that would knock the wind out of the campaign, raising the ire of the Young Ireland militants, who were already displeased by O’Connell’s overly close ties with the Catholic Church, his collaboration with the British Whigs and his refusal to consider armed rebellion. This split, which was made official in 1846, further undermined the movement.

Daguerreotype of Daniel O’Connell
1844, Photography, Alexandre Doussin-Dubreuil.
*© National Gallery of Ireland*

Meanwhile, in 1844, O’Connell was convicted of “conspiracy”, alongside seven other Repeal Association officials, and given a one-year prison sentence. Photographs were taken of the men while they were in custody, which is how we come to have this daguerreotype, a unique record of an aging man, now well into his sixties, whose face seems to be as marked by the passing years as the patina of the photographic plate. O’Connell’s release from prison, merely seven weeks after his incarceration, took on the proportions of a victory parade. Crowds cheered him as he drove through the streets of Dublin, aboard a purple and gold carriage drawn by a team of six horses.

“Mr. O’Connell, in his triumphal car”, Print / The Illustrated London News, 14th of September 1844

Frail and exhausted by illness, O’Connell died in Genoa on 15 May 1847, just as the Great Famine was devastating Ireland. His death cut short a pilgrimage to Rome and came before he had achieved his goal of securing political sovereignty for the country of his birth. It was a failure that would do little to tarnish the reputation of the “King of Beggars”.

International Reverberations

During the spring of 1847, the tributes paid to O’Connell at every stage of his final journey to Italy bear witness to the great esteem in which the Irish statesman was held. In Paris, Montalembert, the great proponent of Liberal Catholicism, acclaimed him as a preeminent figure of international importance, while from Lyon to Marseille, huge crowds of well-wishers turned out to greet him:

We are all your children, or rather your pupils; you are our master, our role model, our illustrious tutor. This is why we have come to pay the heartfelt and respectful tribute we owe to the man who, during our lifetime, has done more than any other to advance the dignity and liberty of mankind. […] We have come to honour the Liberator of Ireland […] But you are not merely the man of a nation, you are the man of all Christendom. Your glory is not only Irish; it is Catholic! In every place where Catholics reclaim the practice of the civil virtues and join the battle to secure their legitimate rights, your hand is at work. In every place where religion achieves emancipation from the yoke imposed upon it, forged by generations of sophists and jurists, it is first to God, and then to you it owes its liberty.

Charles de Montalembert – Speech addressed to O’Connell on 28 March 1847 in Paris, reported in Le Correspondant, 1847, vol. 18, p. 641-651 (extract).

Read the article

The public demonstrations of sympathy and admiration that had sprung up during O’Connell’s journey from Paris to Lyon, became more frequent and more animated on the road from Lyon to Marseille. In Valence, for example, O’Connell boarded the steamboat amid a sizeable throng of locals, who cheered his departure with applause that will have reminded O’Connell of his faithful support among the Irish people. In Avignon and Arles, he would no doubt have received more expressions of encouragement had his doctor not ruled out any form of public commotion likely to cause him agitation.

Extract from the daily newspaper L’Univers, 9 May 1847

Read the article

Article “Voyage d’O’Connell” in L’Univers, 9 May 1847

The funeral procession passing Mr. O'Connell's house, in Merrion Square
Print by Thomas Matthew Ray
*© National Library of Ireland*

O’Connell’s international renown was deeply rooted in the political struggles of the preceding decades. The campaign for Catholic emancipation had resonated well beyond the confines of Ireland. The success of 1829 was widely discussed in the United States and across the British Empire. The Irish example became an inspiration as far away as the Province of Lower Canada, where Louis-Joseph Papineau, leader of the Quebec nationalist “Parti Patriote”, was given the nickname “the Canadian O’Connell” during the 1830s.

News from Ireland also drew considerable attention in Europe. Intellectuals, journalists, and politicians – including Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne, Charles de Montalembert, Gustave de Beaumont and Jacob Venedy – all crossed the sea to meet O’Connell. In Spain, in the German States, in France, and the Italian peninsula, the press dedicated copious column inches to the events in Ireland up until the mid-1840s. There were numerous issues of transnational relevance – the growth of nationalist sentiment, the rights of the oppressed, the emancipation of peoples, individual and communal liberties, the burgeoning role of the masses in political life – and they echoed powerfully across the continent.

Part and parcel of O’Connell’s originality was the way he drew together Catholicism, liberty, and the idea of the nation. In a Europe in which the Catholic Church had invariably allied itself with reactionary powers, this novel convergence appealed strongly to the pioneers of Liberal Catholicism in the Rhineland, in Prussia and in Rome. In Paris, the Agence générale pour la défense de la liberté religieuse, founded in 1830, took direct inspiration for its organisation and operational structure from the Catholic Association in Ireland. On the occasion of O’Connell’s death, the momentous funeral orations given by Gioacchino Ventura in Rome and Henri-Dominique Lacordaire at Notre-Dame de Paris stressed the magnitude and universal relevance of the Irishman’s message, presenting him as a symbol of Catholic regeneration. “In our age of division,” declared Lacordaire, O’Connell was “the principal mediator between the Church and modern society. […] Gentlemen, we must follow him, if we wish to serve God and mankind.”

Funeral oration of Daniel O’Connell in Notre-Dame de Paris 10 February 1848
*© BnF, Gallica*
View on Gallica

The wide range of differing appraisals published during his lifetime reflect the protean nature of O’Connell as a political figure. In the Catholic daily L’Univers, Louis Veuillot hailed “the Irish Moses”. Gustave de Beaumont, on the other hand, offered the portrait of a level-headed democrat, attentive to the people’s needs, but able to rein them in. Meanwhile, Flora Tristan celebrated a mentor who had made it possible for the grievances of an excluded people to reach Westminster, and in 1835 Lamennais described O’Connell as a “colossal revolutionary […] who, with a vigorous arm, is thrusting the old world into the abyss, proclaiming the advent of a new set of rights: the rights of peoples, of equality and of liberty”. In the years leading up to the revolutions of 1848, O’Connell’s name was seen all over Europe as emblematic of the revival of nations and the march of oppressed peoples toward democratic freedom. No other Irish leader of the nineteenth century achieved the same level of international recognition.

Title page: Joséphine-Marie de Gaulle, Le Libérateur de l’Irlande, ou vie de Daniel O’Connell, Paris, Lefort, 1887.
© *CCI Old Library*

Following his death, the admiration continued unabated. In 1848, Joséphine-Marie de Gaulle, grandmother of the future General (himself a confessed admirer of O’Connell), wrote a biography of the Irish statesman in French, portraying him as a man of providence.

Jules Verne made him one of the “great men of history” whose portraits adorn Captain Nemo’s cabin, placing him in the rarefied company of Washington, Lincoln, and Daniele Manin. O’Connell had become a symbol of a universal struggle for justice and liberty whose influence reached as far as the literary imagination.

Daniel O’Connell, Print / John Kirkwood, Dublin, 1841.
© National Library of Ireland

O’Connell’s Ireland as a Political Testing Ground

The Ireland of the 1820s to the 1840s was seen as a crucible for ambitions of community enfranchisement, with wide-reaching ramifications. As such, developments on the island were closely observed throughout the world. By choosing to directly mobilise the masses, rather than to speak in their name, the nationalist movement created the conditions necessary for the emergence of the “people” as a political agent in its own right. In the historical sources, this phenomenon is often presented as indissociable from the figure of O’Connell himself. “It is impossible to conceive of the magical influence this extraordinary being exerts on the masses who appear before him”, wrote the French consul in Dublin in 1830.

For many of his fellow countrymen, O’Connell was an embodiment both of the “self” (one of their own, with whom they shared a great deal and in whom they saw themselves reflected) and of the “other” (the exception, a stand-alone figure leading them to new horizons). He was also simultaneously the first popular major politician of the modern era and the last traditional Gaelic folk hero. Contemporary poet Aodh Mac Domhnaill called him “a distinguished tree without reproach that grew from the Irish-speaking area” (an bile gan táir a d’fhás ón nGaeltacht), and his Gaelic origins were a source of strength and authority.

This was, according to Max Weber’s definition, a form of “charismatic authority”, relying as it did on the legitimacy granted to a leader by those who identify extraordinary qualities in him, making him the nexus of all their hopes. Through his speeches, his imposing presence in the courtroom, at the podium, and in parliament, and through his bearing both in adversity and before his ardent followers, O’Connell personified resistance and dignity reborn. He was a ceaseless advocate for his countrymen, calling on them to raise their heads and to reclaim their rightful place, after centuries of humiliation. More than any of his contemporaries, he helped the Irish people to regain their confidence. This was particularly true of the Catholic majority, because, despite his constant efforts to encourage Protestants to join the movement, in his ambition to consolidate “the universal People of Ireland”, there can be little doubt his struggle for equal rights for Catholics and the virulence of his attacks on the Protestant Ascendancy exacerbated sectarian divisions and galvanised an emerging Catholic Nationalism in Ireland.

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

O’Connell was born a year before the United States Declaration of Independence, and he died on the eve of the European revolutions of 1848. In the ensuing years, his life has been the object of innumerable studies, offering interpretations that are often polarised, ranging from unequivocal approval (the champion of Catholicism, the popular hero, the great patriot, the democrat) to virulent critique (the opportunist, the demagogue).

The festivities held in Dublin to celebrate the centenary of his birth, between the fifth and the seventh of August 1875, fall squarely into the former category. The three-day event comprised a succession of speeches, church services, parades, banquets, firework displays, concerts, and a regatta on the Liffey, all attended by tightly packed crowds and a bevy of foreign dignitaries. The event was sponsored by the Catholic Church and Dublin City Council. In attendance were Cardinal Paul Cullen and his close friend Peter Paul McSwiney, Lord Mayor of Dublin, who had overseen the planning of festivities. O’Connell was feted as a great Catholic, and the man who had secured Emancipation, as illustrated by the frontispiece of the weighty souvenir album published to coincide with the occasion, entitled O’Connell Centenary Record.

O'Connell's Centenary Record, 1875
Published by authority of the O'Connell Centenary Committee.
Copy gifted by Peter McSwiney to the Irish College.
*© CCI Old Library*

In stark contrast, John Mitchel, and a number of like-minded Irish Republicans in the twentieth century, wove a darker tale of a man who had been, in their view “next to the British Government, the worst enemy that Ireland ever had, – or rather the most fatal friend”. After the “Irish Revolution” (1916-1923), the tradition of constitutional nationalism and peaceful protest faded into the background, overshadowed by the memory of other cases of direct action.

Today, however, the significance of this period of Irish history as a political testing ground seems to have regained a certain contemporary salience. 2025 marks the 250^th anniversary of O’Connell’s birth, and several important public commemorations have been held this summer, including a state-led ceremony at Derrynane House, broadcast live by RTÉ News, and a two-day academic conference at Trinity College Dublin, called the “O’Connell 250 Symposium: Liberty, Democracy, and the Struggle for Human Rights”. The Irish Post Office (An Post) has also issued a pair of commemorative stamps depicting O’Connell in action, adding to the set of three stamps carrying his portrait that were issued in 1929 to mark the centenary of Catholic Emancipation. These institutional events have been mirrored by more informal gestures of commemoration, such as the unveiling of a brightly coloured mural in Dublin by the local artist Maser. It borrows elements from one of his own previous works of street art, produced in 2010, adding the motto “Emancipate Yourself” in bold letters.

The “O’Connell moment” in Irish history does seem to provide contemporary political debates with a compelling historical perspective, at a time of ongoing crisis in representative democracy. Two centuries later, comparable questions are being asked about what spurs people to action, what makes individuals identify with one another and band together, finding common cause behind a popular leader.

O’Connell Mural “Emancipate Yourself”
Maser, 2025

The O’Connell Monument
Dublin (O’Connell Street), 2021.
© *Laurent Colantonio*

Daniel O’Connell
Print / from the painting of J. Haverty, by W. Ward.
*© National Library of Ireland*

Some of O’Connell’s qualities bear a resemblance to those attributed to populist figures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: the visionary leader who speaks directly to the people, the ability to garner an almost blind loyalty, the tendency to reduce social issues to patriotism, even the hints of a retreat into identity politics. However, while O’Connell’s Ireland may well be considered an early case study of a nationalist mass movement with a charismatic leader, we should be wary of aligning it with the violent nationalism of the late nineteenth century or with early twenty-first century populism. The “direct” relationship between man and people never led O’Connell to reject the intermediary bodies and institutions (to enter Westminster and to play a leading role in Parliament were among his primary objectives). The movement never had a military wing (it was a far cry from the prætorianism of most Latin American populist movements, for example), nor did it possess any means of coercing the population. Above all, the Irish testing ground was the site of a groundswell of emancipatory momentum which, despite being reined in (particularly by the pronouncements of its leader), allowed it to overcome the withdrawal into a hidebound nationalism. The experience of mobilisation at a national level allowed a message of hope to spread among the people: an open invitation to take the road less travelled and to face important challenges head-on, especially when the odds seem insurmountable and the future unclear. The collective commitment to act (the power of the powerless), the knowledge that change is possible, with individual determination and the coordinated action of all, shook the very foundations of institutions that had seemed immovable. Ultimately, the experiment was left unfinished, but its significance remains undimmed.

Scientific direction: Laurent Colantonio, Professor of Irish and British History at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada

Translation: Samuel Trainor

Explore Further

In this episode of Aujourd'hui l'histoire, Laurent Colantonio discusses the criticism levelled at Daniel O'Connell towards the end of his life and following his death, particularly because of his commitment to non-violence.

Podcast: Daniel O'Connell, le libérateur de l'Irlande - Radio Canada (in French)

This episode of the Irish History Podcast traces the life of Daniel O'Connell, combining biography, historical context and reflections on his political influence. A useful resource to learn about his life and career.

Podcast: Ireland’s Liberator: The Life of Daniel O’Connell | Irish History Podcast (in English)

Patrick Geoghegan dedicates an episode of his programme Talking History to the 250^th anniversary of Daniel O'Connell, with guests Christine Kinealy, Maurice Bric and Davide Mazzi.

Talking History with Patrick Geoghegan: Daniel O’Connell | Newstalk (in English)

Lecture given on the 250^th anniversary of Daniel O'Connell's birth. Patrick M. Geoghegan, a history lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, discusses O'Connell's fight for civil rights.

Video: Daniel O'Connell & the Campaign for Civil Rights | Culture Date with Dublin 8 (in English)

Selected bibliography

Cited references

(Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of French sources are our own)

Balzac, Honoré de, Lettres à Mme Hanska, textes réunis, classés et annotés par Roger Pierrot, Paris, Éd. du Delta, 1968, vol. 2, lettre 217, 6 févr. 1844, p. 374.
De Beaumont, Gustave, L’Irlande sociale, politique et religieuse, Paris, Gosselin, 1839, vol. 1, préface.
De Gaulle, Joséphine, Le Libérateur de l’Irlande, ou vie de Daniel O’Connell, Lille, Lefort, 1861.
Duffy, Charles Gavan, Young Ireland. A Fragment of Irish History, Londres, Paris et New York, Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1880, p. 214.
Joyce, James, Ulysse, traduction et édition sous la dir. de Jacques Aubert, Paris, Gallimard, 2013, p. 183.
Lacordaire, Père Henri-Dominique, Éloge funèbre de Daniel O’Connell, Paris, Sagney et Bray, 1848.
Lamennais, Félicité, Correspondance générale, éditée par L. Le Guillou, Paris, A. Colin, 1977, vol. 6, p. 495, lettre 2468, à Montalembert, 6 oct. 1835. « Voir la lettre dans une autre édition ».
Mitchel, John, The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps), Dublin, UCD Press, 2005 (1861), p. 136.
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O’Connell, Daniel, « Address to the honest and worthy people of the county Tipperary », 30 sept. 1828.
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Daniel O’Connell’s legacy - 250 years on

The Embassy of Ireland and the CCI mark the 250th anniversary of Daniel O'Connell, a major figure of Irish history who shook up the political establishment of his country.