Daniel O'Connell - The Barrister

• Author: Paul Gallagher
• Position: Senior Counsel
• Pages: 70-88

IRISH JUDICIAL STUDIES JOURNAL

[2017] Irish Judicial Studies Journal Vol 1 70

DANIEL O’CONNELL - THE BARRISTER

Paul Gallagher, Senior Counsel

Introduction – Daniel O’Connell and his causes

Daniel O'Connell was a truly remarkable man. I remember in national school in the 1960s we

regarded Daniel O'Connell as a failure – a failure because he did not succeed in achieving

Repeal. Underlying this perspective was the sense, sometimes, unspoken, that he was a failure,

because he refused to resort to violence to achieve his aims and because he cancelled the Great

Clontarf Repeal meeting, in October 1843, following its proscription by the British

Government, rather than stand up to the threat of British violence. An Irish History Reader by

the Christian Brothers which was popular in the 20thcentury criticised O’Connell for thinking

that Britain’s hold over Ireland could be damaged by cheers and speeches. History has not

always been kind to Daniel O'Connell and his extraordinary achievements have often been

overlooked. Patrick Geoghegan’s two volume biography provides some deep insights into his

achievements and helps redress this omission.

Apart from his extraordinary career at the Bar Daniel O'Connell had three great causes, namely,

Catholic Emancipation, Repeal and the ending of slavery. He succeeded fully only in the first

of these but it would be wrong to assess his achievements solely by the metrics of a successful

outcome particularly given the almost insuperable odds he faced. I believe his greatest

achievement was his almost intuitive understanding of the Irish People (greatly enhanced by

his career at the Bar) and his ability to transform that understanding into a gravitational force

that channelled opposition to British injustice into a constitutional process.

O’Connell worked within the law, and gave hope to a downtrodden and helpless people. He

was a champion for those who never had a champion. He was a voice for those who never had

a voice. He gave self-respect to those who enjoyed no respect. He taught the People to disown

servility and to develop the courage to oppose. In a real sense all the Catholic population of

Ireland were his clients. It was this universal appeal and instinctive connection to his own

countrymen while always working within the law, which made him such a unique force in Irish

history. He left a legacy of opposition to injustice, the benefit of which extended beyond these

shores. He did not consider his people expendable in the cause of some great ideology or

cause. He always remembered they were his cause.

Such was his international fame that in 1830 when the Belgian parliamentarians voted on their

new King, three of them voted for O'Connell. William Makepeace Thackery said that no man

had done so much for his nation since the great George Washington. Bismarck praised him in

the 1830’s but when he became a dictator, he said O’Connell was a man who ought to be shot.

Honoré de Balzac included him among a list of four men, (including Napoleon) in the first

half of the 19thcentury who had an immense influence. Captain Nemo in Jules Vernes 20,000

Leagues under the Sea had a portrait of O’Connell hanging in his cabin. James Joyce referred to

O’Connell in Ulysses paying glorious tribute to his oratory

“the Tribune’s words howled and scattered to the four winds. A people sheltered within his voice”.

IRISH JUDICIAL STUDIES JOURNAL

[2017] Irish Judicial Studies Journal Vol 1 71

Daniel O’Connell’s international reputation was enhanced by his opposition to slavery. He was

one of the most influential and outspoken critics of slavery in the world. He opposed slavery

because he firmly believed that men and women could not reach their potential until they were

free. He brought a more inclusive and humanitarian dimension to the anti-slavery movement.

William Lloyd Garrison called him “the most wonderful of the statesmen and orators of the age”. Charles

Lenox Remond, like Frederick Douglass, an African American abolitionist said “No country or

people possess a superior to Daniel O'Connell”.

In 1845 Frederick Douglass accepted an invitation from Daniel O'Connell to speak at the

Conciliation Hall in Dublin. A great orator himself he believed that all the stories of

O'Connell’s great oratory were surely exaggerated and O'Connell could not live up to his

reputation. He said O'Connell rose and delivered his speech, about an hour and a quarter long,

it was a great speech, skilfully delivered, powerful in its logic and majestic in its rhetoric, biting

in its sarcasm, melting in its pathos and burning in its rebukes, those attributes could be

applied to so many of O'Connell’s great speeches in the law courts and without. Douglass

quoted O'Connell as saying

“I have been assailed for attacking the American Institution as it is called - negro slavery. I am not

ashamed of that attack. I do not shrink from it. I am the advocate of civil and religious liberty, all

over the globe, and wherever tyranny exists, I am the foe of the tyrant; Wherever oppression shows

itself I am the foe of the oppressor. Wherever slavery rears its head I am the enemy of the system or

the institution, call it by what name you will. I am the friend of liberty in every clime, class and

colour. My sympathy with distress is not confined within the narrow bounds of my own green island

– no, it extends itself to every corner of the Earth. My heart walks abroad and wherever the

miserable are to be succoured, or the slave to be set free, there my spirit is at home, and I do like to

dwell.

The magnificence of those words resonates with us today and articulates a sophisticated and

extremely developed understanding of human rights and of the dignity of human beings that

was almost a century ahead of its time. His stance on slavery reflected his stance on human

rights in general and he did not view human rights as merely a national issue. He condemned

the treatment of the Aborigines in Australia, of the Maoris in New Zealand and of slaves

throughout the world. He played an important role in ending slavery in the British Empire in

1833. He strongly believed in the dignity of the human person and the inalienable rights of that

dignity. Those were amazing achievements for the early part of the 19thcentury and the beliefs

expressed by him were truly revolutionary.

O'Connell’s opposition to slavery continued unabated despite the damage it did to the Repeal

movement. He did not hesitate to rebuke slaveholders even those who wished to support the

Repeal movement. Indeed O’Connell’s stance on slavery damaged support for Repeal in the

United States. Douglass recalled that a gentleman from America had been introduced to the

Liberator and was about to extend his hand when he suddenly stopped because O’Connell said

to him

“Pardon me, sir, but I make it a rule never to give my hand to an American without asking if he

is a slaveholder?”

The gentleman attempted to placate O’Connell by saying