Agitation Grows in Ireland

The success of the Catholic Association became every week more striking.

Continuing Catholic Emancipation in Ireland,
with a selection from Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland by William E.H. Lecky published in 1871. This selection is presented in 6.5 installments, each one 5 minutes long. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Catholic Emancipation in Ireland.

Time: 1829

It would be tedious to follow into minute detail the difficulties and the mistakes that obstructed the Catholic movement and were finally overcome by the energy or the tact of O’Connell. For some time, the gravest fears were entertained that the Pope would pronounce in favor of the veto. A strong party at Rome, headed by Cardinal Gonsalvi, was known to advocate it, and the deputy of the Irish bishops adopted so importunate a tone that he was peremptorily dismissed, and pronounced by His Holiness to be “intolerable.” Innumerable dissensions dislocated the movement and demanded all the efforts of O’Connell to appease them. When the Roman Catholic gentry had seceded, a multitude of those eccentric characters who are ever ready to embark in agitation from the mere spirit of adventure assumed a dangerous prominence, and it was found necessary to adopt a most despotic tone to repress them.

In 1815 O’Connell fought a duel with a gentleman named D’Esterre, which was attended by some very painful circumstances and gave rise to much subsequent discussion. It arose out of the epithet “beggarly” which O’Connell had applied to the corporation of Dublin. D’Esterre was killed at the first shot. In the same year Mr. Peel had challenged O’Connell, on account of some violent expressions he had employed. O’Connell, however, was arrested at his wife’s information, and bound over to keep the peace.

Several times the movement was menaced by Government proclamations and prosecutions. Its great difficulty was to bring the public opinion of the whole body of the Roman Catho lics actively and habitually into the question. The skill and activity of O’Connell in arousing the people were beyond all praise, and the consciousness of the presence of a great leader began to spread through the whole mass of the dispirited and de pendent Catholics. All preceding movements since the revolution (except the passing excitement about Wood’s halfpence) had been chiefly among the Protestants or among the higher order of the Catholics. The mass of the people had taken no real interest in politics, had felt no real pain at their disabilities, and were politically the willing slaves of their landlords.

For the first time, under the influence of O’Connell, the great swell of a really democratic movement was felt. The simplest way of concentrating the new enthusiasm would have been by a system of delegates, but this had been rendered illegal by the Convention Act. On the other hand, the right of petitioning was one of the fundamental privileges of the constitution. By availing himself of this right O’Connell contrived, with the dexterity of a practiced lawyer, to violate continually the spirit of the Convention Act, while keeping within the letter of the law. Proclamation after proclamation was launched against his society, but by continually changing its name and its form he generally succeeded in evading the prosecutions of the Government.

These early societies, however, all sink into insignificance compared with that great Catholic association which was formed in 1824. The avowed objects of this society were to promote religious education, to ascertain the numerical strength of the different religions, and to answer the charges against the Roman Catholics embodied in the hostile petitions. It also recommended petitions (unconnected with the society) from every parish, and aggregate meetings in every county. The real object was to form a gigantic system of organization, ramifying over the entire country, and directed in every parish by the priests, for the purpose of petitioning and in every other way agitating in favor of emancipation. The Catholic “Rent”* was instituted at this time, and it formed at once a powerful instrument of cohesion and: a faithful barometer of the popular feeling. It is curious that at the first two meetings O’Connell was unable to obtain the attendance of ten members to form a quorum. On the third day the same difficulty at first occurred, but O’Connell at length induced two Maynooth students, who were passing, to make up the requisite number, and the introduction of this clerical element set the machine in motion.

[* A system of small subscriptions, as low as a penny a month, collected from the peasantry throughout Ireland. – ED.]

Very soon, however, the importance of the new society became manifest. Almost the whole priesthood of Ireland was actively engaged in its service, and it threatened to overawe every other authority in the land. In the elections of 1826 sacerdotal influence was profoundly felt; and the defeat of the Beresfords in the Catholic County of Waterford, in which, in spite of their violent anti-Catholicism, they had for generations been supreme, foreshadowed clearly the coming change. The people were organized with unprecedented rapidity, and O’Connell and Sheil traversed the country in all directions to address them. Though both were marvelously successful in swaying and in fascinating the people, it would be difficult to conceive a greater contrast than was presented by their styles.

If we compare the two speakers, I would say that before an uneducated audience O’Connell was wholly unrivalled, while before an educated audience Sheil was more fitted to please and O’Connell to convince. Both were powerful reasoners, but the arguments of O’Connell stood in bold and clear relief, while the attention was somewhat diverted from those of Sheil by the ornaments and mannerism that accompanied them. Both possessed great powers of ridicule, but in O’Connell it assumed the form of coarse but genuine humor, and in Sheil of refined and pungent wit. By too great preparation Sheil’s speeches displayed sometimes an excess of brilliancy. By elaborate preparation O’Connell occasionally fell into bombast. O’Connell was much the greater debater, Sheil was much the greater master of composition. O’Connell possessed the more vigorous intellect and Sheil the more correct taste.

The success of the Catholic Association became every week more striking. The Rent rose with an extraordinary rapidity. The meetings in every county grew more and more enthusiastic, the triumph of priestly influence more and more certain. The Government made a feeble and abortive effort to arrest the storm by threatening both O’Connell and Sheil with prosecution for certain passages in their speeches. The sentence cited from O’Connell was one in which he expressed a hope that “if Ireland were driven mad by persecution a new Bolivar might arise” but the employment of this language was not clearly established, and the bill was thrown out. The speech which was to have drawn a prosecution upon Sheil was a kind of dissertation upon “Wolfe Tone’s Memoirs,” of which Canning afterward said that it might have been delivered in Parliament without even eliciting a call to order.

William E. Gladstone begins here. William E.H. Lecky begins here. Daniel O’Connell begins here.

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