Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

===The renewal of the campaign===
In April 1840, when it became clear that the Whigs would lose office, O'Connell relaunched the [[Repeal Association]], and published a series of addresses criticising government policy and attacking the Union.

The "people", the great numbers of tenant farmers, small-town traders and journeymen, whom O'Connell had rallied to the cause of [[Catholic Emancipation|Emancipation]], did not similarly respond to his lead on the more abstract proposition of Repeal;<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Thomas N|date=1953|title=Nationalism and the Irish Peasant: 1800–1848|journal=Review of Politics|volume=XV|pages=435–439}}</ref> neither did the Catholic [[gentry]] or middle classes. Many appeared content to explore the avenues for advancement emancipation had opened. The suspicion, in any case, was that O'Connell's purpose in returning to the constitutional question was merely to disconcert the incoming [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]] (under his old enemy Sir [[Robert Peel]]) and to hasten the Whigs return<ref name="Moody2">{{cite journal |last1=Moody |first1=T. W. |date=Autumn 1966 |title=Thomas Davis and the Irish nation |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23039825 |url-status=live |journal=Hermathena |issue=103 |pages=11–12 |jstor=23039825 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922231610/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23039825?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A5672e823f379bee9e2566b59f8bae282&seq=7#page_scan_tab_contents |archive-date=22 September 2021 |access-date=3 September 2020}}</ref> (entirely the view of [[Friedrich Engels]]: the only purpose of Repeal for the "old fox" was "embarrass the Tory Ministers" and to put his friends back into office).<ref>Friedrich Engels (1843) "Letter from London", ''Schweizerischer Republikaner'' No. 51, June 27, reprinted in [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/ireland/ireland.pdf Marx and Engels (1971)], pp. 43, 45.</ref>

Meanwhile, as a body, Protestants remained opposed to a restoration of a parliament the prerogatives of which they had once championed. The Presbyterians in the north were persuaded that the Union was both the occasion for their relative prosperity and a guarantee of their liberty.<ref>{{cite book |last=Connolly |first=S.J. |editor-last=Connolly |editor-first=S.J. |title=Belfast 400: People, Place and History |publisher=Liverpool University Press |date=2012 |chapter=Chapter 5: Improving Town, 1750–1820 |isbn=978-1-84631-635-7}}</ref>

In the [[1841 United Kingdom general election|June–July 1841 Westminster elections]], Repeal candidates lost half their seats. In a contest marked by the boycott of Guinness as "Protestant porter", O'Connell's son John, a brewer of O'Connell's Ale,<ref name="sim">{{Cite web|url=http://www.simtec.us/dublinbrewing/history.html|title=History of Brewing in Dublin|publisher=Dublin Brewing Co.|via=simtec.us|access-date=25 March 2010|archive-date=24 March 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100324225423/http://simtec.us/dublinbrewing/history.html|url-status=live}}</ref> failed to hold his father's Dublin seat.

'''The "Repeal election" 1841''' 
(Source: [[1841 United Kingdom general election|''1841 United Kingdom general election--Ireland'']])
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! colspan=2 |Party 
! Candidates
! Unopposed
! Seats
! Seats change
! Votes
! %
! % change
|-
| {{Party name with colour|Whigs (British political party)}}
| align=right| 55
| align=right| 30
| align=right| 42
| align=right| 
| align=right| 17,128
| align=right| 35.1
| align=right| 
|-
| {{Party name with colour|Irish Conservative Party}}
| align=right| 59
| align=right| 27
| align=right| 41
| align=right| 
| align=right| 19,664
| align=right| 40.1
| align=right| 
|-
| {{Party name with colour|Repeal Association}}
| align=right| 22
| align=right| 12
| align=right| 20
| align=right| 
| align=right| 12,537
| align=right| 24.8
| align=right| 
|- class="sortbottom" style="font-weight: bold; text-align: right; background: #f2f2f2;"
! colspan="2" style="padding-left: 1.5em; text-align: left;" | Total
| align=right| 136
| align=right| 69
| align=right| 103
| align=right| 
| align=right| 49,329
| align=right| 100
| align=right|
|} ''Population of Ireland, [[Irish population analysis|1841 Census]]: 8.18 million.''

Against a background of growing economic distress, O'Connell was nonetheless buoyed by [[John MacHale|Archbishop John McHale's]] endorsement of legislative independence.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/DFI632Y7XRL2ETRTA66XK7SNKRXR2MC28HMD7S2SVP9ACSGT8Y-00080?func=full-set-set&set_number=000371&set_entry=000001&format=999 |title=British Library Catalogue entry |access-date=4 August 2020 |archive-date=22 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922231621/http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=BLVU1 |url-status=live }}</ref> Opinion among all classes was also influenced from October 1842 by [[Charles Gavan Duffy|Gavan Duffy]]'s new weekly [[The Nation (Irish newspaper)|''The Nation'']]. Read in Repeal Reading Rooms and passed from hand to hand, its mix of vigorous editorials, historical articles and verse, may have reached as many as a quarter of a million readers.<ref name=":12" />{{rp|311}}

Breaking out of the very narrow basis for electoral politics (the vote was not restored to the forty-shilling freeholder until 1885), O'Connell initiated a new series of "monster meetings". These were damaging to the prestige of the government, not only at home but abroad. O'Connell was becoming a figure of international renown, with large and sympathetic audiences in the United States, France and Germany.<ref name=":10" /> The [[Second Peel ministry|Conservative government of Robert Peel]] considered repression, but hesitated, unwilling to tackle the [[Anti-Corn Law League]] which was copying O'Connell's methods in England.<ref name="Foster" />{{rp|325–326}} Assuring his supporters that Britain must soon surrender, O'Connell declared 1843 "the repeal year".