Daniel O''connell
The quest for Catholic emancipation by peaceful constitutional means was the life's work of Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847), the lawyer who became known as "The Liberator" and whom Gladstone called "the greatest popular leader the world has ever seen". He founded the Catholic Association in 1823, which attracted a mass following in Ireland with its campaign for full political rights for Catholics. O'Connell himself was elected to the British House of Commons as the member for Ennis, County Clare in 1828. As a Catholic, he was forbidden to take his seat in Westminster; but the moral force of his victory was such that a change in the law had to be conceded. Royal assent was given to the Catholic Emancipation Bill on April 13, 1829, granting voting rights to some Catholics. Stringent property qualifications, however, ensured that the Catholic vote remained a small one. At the height of his success, O'Connell's popularity was phenomenal. He was elected Lord Mayor of (Protestant) Dublin for the year of 1841, and two years later embarked on an ambitious campaign for the repeal of the Union with England. O'Connell addressed a series of vast "monster meetings" throughout Ireland; according to the conservative estimate of The Times , over a million people - one-eighth of the Irish population - attended the meeting symbolically held at the Hill of Tara. The climax of O'Connell's campaign was to be a meeting at Clontarf (where Brian Boru had defeated the Danes in the eleventh century) on October 8, 1843. All Ireland was poised and waiting, conscious of the sympathy that O'Connell's profoundly peaceful movement had won from around the world. The pacifism which had led him to say that "no political change is worth the shedding of a single drop of human blood", and his determination always to act within the law, were, however, exploited by the British. One day before the Clontarf meeting it was declared to be an illegal gathering and O'Connell, remarkably, obliged by calling it off. The crowds which had already gathered, and the population at large, were baffled that O'Connell backed down from direct confrontation. His moment passed and the stage was left to those who, having seen pacifism fail to secure independence, believed that armed struggle would prove the only way forward. The Young Ireland movement , once aligned with O'Connell, attempted an armed uprising in 1848, but by then there was little chance of mass support. The country was already undergoing a national disaster.
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