Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

===The meaning of Repeal===
O'Connell's call for a [[Repeal (Ireland)|repeal]] of the [[Acts of Union 1800|1800 Act of Union]], and for a restoration of the [[Kingdom of Ireland]] under the [[Constitution of 1782]], which he linked (as he had with emancipation) to a multitude of popular grievances, may have been less a considered constitutional proposal than "an invitation to treat".<ref name=":12" />{{rp|309}}

The legislative independence won by [[Grattan's Parliament]] in 1782 had left executive power in the hands of the London-appointed Dublin Castle administration. In declining to stand as a Repeal candidate, [[Thomas Moore]] (Ireland's [[national bard]])<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Love |first1=Timothy |title=Gender and the Nationalistic Ballad: Thomas Davis, Thomas Moore, and Their Songs |journal=New Hibernia Review |date=Spring 2017 |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=76 |doi=10.1353/nhr.2017.0005 |publisher=Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas |s2cid=149071105 |language=en |issn=1534-5815 |id=660979}}</ref> objected that with a Catholic Parliament in Dublin, "which they would be sure to have out and out", this would be an arrangement impossible to sustain. Separation from Great Britain was its "certain consequence", so that Repeal was a practical policy only if (in the spirit of the United Irishmen) Catholics were again "joined by the dissenters"{{snd}}the Presbyterians of the North.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings">{{cite book|last1=Moore|first1=Thomas|title=Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford|date=1993|publisher=Athol Books|isbn=0850340675|location=Belfast|pages=243–244}}</ref>{{rp|243–244}}

But for O'Connell, the historian R.F. Foster suggests that "the trick was never to define what the Repeal meant{{snd}}or did not mean". It was an "emotional claim", an "ideal", with which "to force the British into offering ''something''".<ref name=":12">{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=R.F. |title=Modern Ireland 1600–1972 |date=1988 |publisher=Allen Lane |isbn=0713990104 |location=London |page=}}</ref>{{rp|308}}