Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

==Early and professional life==
===Kerry and France===
O'Connell was born at Carhan<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/buildings-database/carhan-house-cahersiveen | title=Carhan House CAHERSIVEEN }}</ref> near [[Cahersiveen]], [[County Kerry]], to the [[O'Connells of Derrynane]], a wealthy Roman Catholic family that, under the [[Penal Laws against Irish Catholics|Penal Laws]], had been able to retain land only through the medium of Protestant trustees and the forbearance of their Protestant neighbours.<ref name="McCarthy">{{cite book |last1=McCarthy |first1=John Huntly |title=Ireland since the Union |date=1887 |publisher=Chatto & Windus |location=London |page=86}}</ref> His parents were Morgan O'Connell and Catherine O'Mullane. The poet [[Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill]] was an aunt; and [[Daniel Charles, Count O'Connell]], an [[Irish Brigade (France)|Irish Brigade]] officer in the service of the [[Louis XVI|King of France]] (and twelve years a prisoner of [[Napoleon]]), an uncle. O'Connell grew up in [[Derrynane House]], the household of his bachelor uncle, [[Maurice O'Connell (Hunting Cap)|Maurice "Hunting Cap" O'Connell]] (landowner, smuggler and [[justice of the peace]]) who made the young O'Connell his heir presumptive.

In 1791, under his uncle's patronage, O'Connell and his elder brother Maurice were sent to continue their schooling in France at the [[Colleges of St Omer, Bruges and Liège|English Jesuit college]] of [[Saint-Omer]].<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11200c.htm Daniel O'Connell, ''Catholic Encyclopædia''] 2023.</ref> Revolutionary upheaval and their mob denunciation as "young priests" and "little aristocrats", persuaded them in January 1793 to flee their [[Benedictine]] college at [[Douai]]. They crossed the English Channel with the brothers [[Sheares brothers|John and Henry Sheares]] who displayed a handkerchief soaked, they claimed, in the blood of [[Louis XVI]], the late executed king.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Igoe |first1=Brian |title=Daniel O'Connell's Childhood |url=https://www.theirishstory.com/2013/02/03/daniel-oconnells-childhood/ |website=The Irish Story |access-date=31 July 2020 |archive-date=26 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200926012533/https://www.theirishstory.com/2013/02/03/daniel-oconnells-childhood/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The experience is said to have left O'Connell with a lifelong aversion to mob rule and violence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=O'Connell: The Life of Daniel O'Connell |date=1991 |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location=london |isbn=9780297820178 |page=26}}</ref>

===1798 and legal practice===
After further legal studies in London, including a [[pupillage]] at [[Lincoln's Inn]], O'Connell returned to Ireland in 1795. The [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793]], while maintaining the [[Oath of Supremacy]] that excluded Catholics from parliament, the judiciary and the higher offices of state, had granted them the vote on the same limited terms as Protestants and removed most of the remaining barriers to their professional advancement. O'Connell, nonetheless, remained of the opinion that in Ireland the whole policy of the [[Parliament of Ireland|Irish Parliament]] and the London-appointed [[Dublin Castle administration|Dublin Castle executive]], was to repress the people and to maintain the ascendancy of a privileged and corrupt minority.<ref>Gwynn, Denis (1929). ''Daniel O'Connell, the Irish Liberator''. Dublin: Hutchinson & Company. {{ISBN|9780598826008}}, pp. 138-145.</ref>

On 19 May 1798, O'Connell was called to the [[Irish Bar]]. Four days later, the [[Society of the United Irishmen|United Irishmen]] staged their ill-fated [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|rebellion]]. Toward the end of his life, O'Connell claimed, belatedly, to have been a United Irishman. Asked how that could be reconciled with his membership of the government's volunteer [[Yeomanry]] (the Lawyers Artillery Corps), he replied that in '98 "the popular party was so completely crushed that the only chance of doing any good for the people was by affecting ultra loyalty."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Woods |first1=C.J. |year=2006 |title=Historical Revision: Was O'Connell a United Irishman? |journal=Irish Historical Studies |volume=35 |issue=138 |page=179 |doi=10.1017/S0021121400004879 |jstor=20547427 |s2cid=163825007}}</ref> Whatever the case, O'Connell had little faith in the United Irish conspiracy or in their hopes of French intervention. He sat out the rebellion in his native Kerry. When in 1803, [[Robert Emmet]] faced execution for attempting to renew the insurrection against what was now a [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]] crown and parliament, O'Connell was scathing: as the cause of so much bloodshed Emmett had forfeited any claim to "compassion".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.irishmanuscripts.ie/product/the-correspondence-of-daniel-oconnell-vol-i-1792-1814-8-vols-1972-80/ |title=The Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell, vol. i, 1792–1814, (8 vols 1972–80),  Letter 97 |publisher=Irish University Press |year=1972}}</ref>

In the decades that followed, O'Connell practised private law and, although invariably in debt, reputedly had the largest income of any Irish [[barrister]]. In court, he sought to prevail by refusing deference, showing no compunction in studying and exploiting a judge's personal and intellectual weaknesses. He was long ranked below less accomplished [[Queen’s Counsel|Queen's Counsels]], a status not open to Catholics until late in his career. But when offered he refused the senior judicial position of [[Master of the Rolls in Ireland|Master of the Rolls]].<ref name="Bew and Maune">{{cite news |last1=Bew |first1=Paul |last2=Maune |first2=Patrick |title=The Great Advocate |journal=Dublin Review of Books |date=July 2020 |issue=124 |url=https://www.drb.ie/essays/the-great-advocate |access-date=7 August 2020 |archive-date=4 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804104421/http://www.drb.ie/essays/the-great-advocate |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Geohegan 2020">{{cite book |last1=Geoghegan |first1=Patrick |title=King Dan: the Rise of Daniel O'Connell, 1775–1829 |date=2008 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |location=Dublin |isbn=978-0717143931}}</ref>

===Family===
In 1802, O'Connell married his third cousin, [[Mary O'Connell (1778–1836)|Mary O'Connell]]. He did so in defiance of his benefactor, his uncle Maurice, who believed his nephew should have sought out an heiress.<ref name="Geohegan 2020" />{{rp|94–97}} They had four daughters (three surviving), [[Ellen Bridget O'Connell|Ellen]] (1805–1883), Catherine (1808–1891), Elizabeth (1810–1883), and Rickarda (1815–1817) and four sons, [[Maurice O'Connell (MP)|Maurice]] (1803–1853), [[Morgan O'Connell|Morgan]] (1804–1885), [[John O'Connell (MP)|John]] (1810–1858), and [[Daniel O'Connell Jnr|Daniel]] (1816–1897). In time, each of the boys was to join their father as [[Members of Parliament]]. Despite O'Connell's early infidelities,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Macdonald |first1=Henry |title=Duels, debts and love affairs – the real Daniel O'Connell |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/16/ireland-history |access-date=8 August 2020 |work=The Observer |date=16 November 2008 |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111191102/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/16/ireland-history |url-status=live }}</ref> the marriage was happy and Mary's death in 1837 was a blow from which her husband is said never to have recovered.<ref>Ó Faoláin, Seán (1938), ''King of the Beggars: A Life of Daniel O'Connell''. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons. p. 87</ref>