Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

== Political beliefs==
[[File:Daniel O'Connell by Sir George Hayter.jpg|thumb|left| 1834 portrait of O'Connell by [[George Hayter]]]]

===Church and state===
O'Connell's personal principles reflected the influences of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] and of radical and democratic thinkers some of whom he had encountered in London and in [[Freemasonry|masonic lodges]]. He was greatly influenced by [[William Godwin]]'s ''[[Enquiry Concerning Political Justice]]'' (public opinion the root of all power, civil liberty and equality the bedrock of social stability),<ref>{{cite book |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=The Emancipist: Daniel O'Connell, 1830–1847 |date=1989 |publisher=St Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=9780297796374 |page=19}}</ref> and was, for a period, converted to [[Deism]] by his reading of [[Thomas Paine]]'s ''[[The Age of Reason]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hachey |first1=Thomas |last2=McCaffrey |first2=Lawrence |title=Perspectives on Irish Nationalism |date=1989 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |location=Lexington |isbn=9780813101880 |page=105}}</ref>

By 1809, he had returned to the Church, "becoming thereafter more devout by the year".<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Hoppen |first=K Theodore |date=1999 |title=Riding of Tiger: Daniel O'Connell, Reform and Popular Politics in Ireland 1800–1847 |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/3837/100p121.pdf |journal=Proceedings of the British Academy |issue=100 |pages=121–143}}</ref>{{rp|123}} Yet in 1820s, he was still regarded by some as an "English rationalist [[utilitarianism|utilitarian]]",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clifford |first1=Brendan |title=Spotlights on Irish History |date=1997 |publisher=Aubane Historical Society |location=Millstreet, Cork |isbn=0952108151 |page=90}}</ref> a "Benthamite".<ref>{{cite book |last1=McCaffrey |first1=Lawrence J. |title=The Irish Question 1800–1920 |date=1968 |publisher=University of Kentucky |location=Lexingtson |isbn=9780813108551 |page=37 |url=https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/3/ |access-date=16 September 2020 |archive-date=16 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200916194415/https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/3/ |url-status=live }}</ref> For a time [[Jeremy Bentham]] and O'Connell did become personal friends as well as political allies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Crimmins |first1=James E. |year=1997 |title=Jeremy Bentham and Daniel O'Connell: Their Correspondence and Radical Alliance, 1828–1831 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2640071 |url-status=live |journal=The Historical Journal |volume=40 |issue=2 |page=361 |doi= |jstor= |s2cid= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=16 September 2020}}</ref>

At Westminster O'Connell played a major part in the passage of the [[Reform Act 1832]] and in the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]] (an international cause in which he continued to campaign).<ref name="Kinealy">{{cite journal |last1=Kinealy |first1=Christine |title=The Liberator: Daniel O'Connell and Anti-Slavery |journal=History Today |date=12 December 2007 |volume=57 |issue=12}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kinealy |first=Christine |url= |title=Daniel O'Connell and the Anti-Slavery Movement: 'The Saddest People the Sun Sees' |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-31609-1 |location=London |pages= |language=en}}</ref> He spoke in defence of the [[Tolpuddle Martyrs]], censured flogging in the army and opposed the [[Death penalty in the United States|death penalty]] for all but murder.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|138}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McGowen |first=Randall |date=2003 |title=History, Culture and the Death Penalty: The British Debates, 1840-70 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299271 |journal=Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=(229–249) 237 |issn=0315-7997}}</ref> He welcomed the [[revolutions of 1830]] in [[Belgium]] and France,<ref name="Kinealy" /> and advocated "a complete severance of the Church from the State".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=O'Farrell|first=Fegus|title=Daniel O'Connell and Henry Cooke: The Conflict of Civil and Religious Liberty in Modern Ireland|journal=Irish Review|number=1|year=1986|pages=20–27 [24–25]|doi=10.2307/29735245|jstor=29735245}}</ref> Such liberalism (as "thorough", [[William Ewart Gladstone]] suggested, as that of an English liberal with "no Ireland to think of")<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthew |first=H. C. G. |title=National questions: Reflection on Daniel O'Connell and Contemporary Ireland |publisher=Wolfhound Press |isbn=0863278132 |editor-last=Comerford |editor-first=R. V. |location=Dublin |publication-date=2000 |page=25  |chapter=Gladstone, O'Connell and Home Rule}}</ref> made all the more intolerable to O'Connell the charge that as "Papists" he and his co-religionists could not be trusted with the defence of constitutional liberties.

O'Connell protested that, while "sincerely Catholic", he did not "receive" his politics "from Rome".<ref name="Luby 1870 418">{{Cite book |title=The life and times of Daniel O'Connell |last=Luby |first=Thomas Clarke |publisher=Cameron, Ferguson & Company |year=1870 |location=Glasgow |pages=418 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sKTIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA418 |access-date=22 August 2020 |archive-date=31 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731120651/https://books.google.com/books?id=sKTIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA418 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the same time, he insisted on the political independence of the Church. In 1808 "friends of emancipation", [[Henry Grattan]] among them, proposed that fears of [[Popery]] might be allayed if the Crown were accorded the same right exercised by continental monarchs, a [[Royal veto of the appointment of bishops|veto on the confirmation of Catholic bishops]]. Even when, in 1814, the [[Roman Curia|Curia]] itself (then in a silent alliance with Britain against [[Napoleon]]) proposed that bishops be "personally acceptable to the king", O'Connell was unyielding in his opposition. Refusing any instruction from Rome as to "the manner of their emancipation", O'Connell declared that Irish Catholics should be content to "remain forever without emancipation" rather than allow the king and his ministers "to interfere" with the Pope's appointment of their senior clergy.<ref name="Luby 1870 418" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=The Politicization of the Irish Catholic Bishops, 1800–1850 |journal=The Historical Journal |year=1975 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=40 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00008669 |jstor=2638467|s2cid=159877081 }}</ref>

===Church and nation===
In his travels in Ireland in 1835, [[Alexis de Tocqueville]] remarked on the "unbelievable unity between the Irish clergy and the Catholic population". The people looked to the clergy, and the clergy "rebuffed" by the "upper classes" ("Protestants and enemies"), had "turned all its attention to the lower classes; it has the same instincts, the same interests and the same passions as the people; [a] state of affairs altogether peculiar to Ireland".<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=de Tocqueville |first=Alexis. |title=Journeys to England and Ireland [1833–35] |publisher=Anchor Books |year=1968 |location=New York |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|127–128}} Such was the unity, O'Connell argued, the bishops would have sacrificed had they agreed to Rome submitting their appointments for Crown approval. Licensed by the government they and their priests would have been as little regarded as the [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] clergy of the [[Church of Ireland|Established Church]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Two Centuries of Irish History: 1691–1870|last=O'Brien |first=R. Barry |publisher=Routledge |year=2014 |location=New York|isbn=9781315796994|pages=241–243|orig-year=1907 }}</ref>

In most districts of the country, the priest was the sole figure, standing independent of the Protestant landlords and magistrates, around whom a national movement could be reliably built.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=James A |title=The Catholic Emancipation Crisis in Ireland, 1823–1829. |date=1970 |publisher=Praeger |location=New York |isbn=9780837131412 |pages=14–30}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kerr |first1=Donal |title=Peel, Priests and Politics: Sir Robert Peel's Administration and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1841–46 |date=1984 |publisher=Clarendon Press – Oxford University Press |location=Wotton-under-Edge, England |isbn=0198229321}}</ref> But for O'Connell a weakening of the bond between priests and their people would have represented more than a strategic loss. In "the heat of combat", he would let slip his repeated emphasis on the inclusiveness of the Irish nation to suggest Catholicism itself as the nation's defining loyalty.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|125}} He declared not only that the Catholic Church in Ireland "is a national Church", but "if the people rally to me they will have a nation for that Church",<ref>Quoted in {{Cite book |title=Nationalism in Ireland|last=Boyce |first=D. George. |publisher=Routledge |year=1995 |isbn=9780415127769|location=London|pages=146|edition=3rd }}</ref> and indeed that Catholics in Ireland are "the people, emphatically the people" and "a nation".<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Fergus |first=O'Farrrell |title=Catholic emancipation: Daniel O'Connell and the birth of Irish democracy, 1820–1830. |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |year=1985 |isbn=9780717115174 |location=Dublin |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|123}} For O'Connell's newspaper, the ''Pilot'', "the distinction created by religion" was the one "positive and unmistakable" mark of separating the Irish from the English.<ref name="Foster" />{{rp|332}}

In 1837, O'Connell clashed with [[William Smith O'Brien]] over the [[County Limerick (UK Parliament constituency)|Limerick]] MP's support for granting state payments to [[Catholic Church in Ireland#Between emancipation and the revolution|Catholic clergy]].<ref name=Times2>"It appears from our Irish correspondence that Mr. WILLIAM SMITH O'BRIEN, member for Limerick", The Times, Saturday 14 January 1837</ref> The Catholic Bishops came out in support of O'Connell's stance, resolving "most energetically to oppose any such arrangement, and that they look upon those that labour to effect it as the worst enemies of the Catholic religion".<ref>''Ireland.'' The Times, Tuesday 17 January 1837</ref>

===Disavowal of violence===
Consistent with the position he had taken publicly in relation to the rebellions of 1798 and 1803, O'Connell focused on parliamentary representation and popular, but peaceful, demonstration to induce change. "No political change", he offered, "is worth the shedding of a single drop of human blood".<ref name="Boylan1998">{{cite book | last = Boylan | first = Henry | year = 1998 | title = A Dictionary of Irish Biography | edition = 3rd | page = 306 | location = Dublin | publisher = Gill and Macmillan | isbn = 0-7171-2945-4 }}</ref> His critics, however, were to see in his ability to mobilise the Irish masses an intimation of violence. It was a standing theme with O'Connell that if the British establishment did not reform the governance of Ireland, Irishmen would start to listen to the "counsels of violent men".<ref name="Boylan1998" />

O'Connell insisted on his loyalty, presenting [[George IV]] on his visit to Ireland in 1821 with a laurel crown on bended knee.<ref name="Luby 1870 418" />{{rp|459}}  In contrast to his later successor [[Charles Stewart Parnell]] (although like O'Connell, himself a landlord), O'Connell was also consistent in his defence of property.<ref name="Bew and Maune" /> Yet he was willing to defend those accused of political crimes and of agrarian outrages. In his last notable court appearance, the [[Doneraile conspiracy]] trials of 1829, O'Connell saved several tenant [[Whiteboys]] from the gallows.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gallagher |first=Paul |date=2017 |title=O'Connell – the Barrister |url=https://www.ijsj.ie/assets/uploads/Gallagher.pdf |journal=Irish Judicial Studies Journal |volume=1 |issue=17 |pages=(70–89) 84–87}}</ref>

===Abandonment of the Irish language===
[[Irish language|Irish]] was O'Connell's [[mother tongue]] and that of the vast majority of the rural population. Yet he insisted on addressing his (typically open-air) meetings in English, sending interpreters out among the crowd to translate his words. At a time when "as a cultural or political concept 'Gaelic Ireland' found few advocates", O'Connell declared: <blockquote>I am sufficiently utilitarian not to regret [the] gradual abandonment [of Irish]...  Although the language is associated with many recollections that twine round the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication is so great, that I can witness, without a sigh, the gradual disuse of Irish.<ref name="Ó Tuathaigh">{{cite journal |last1=Ó Tuathaigh |first1=Gearóid |title=Gaelic Ireland, Popular Politics and Daniel O'Connell |journal=Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society |year=1975 |volume=34 |pages=21–34 |jstor=25535454 }}</ref></blockquote>

O'Connell's "indifference to the fate of the language", a decade before the Famine, was consistent with the policies of the Catholic Church (which under [[Paul Cullen (cardinal)|Paul Cardinal Cullen]] was to develop a mission to the English-speaking world)<ref>{{cite journal |first=Colin |last=Barr |year=2008 |title="Imperium in imperio": Irish episcopal imperialism in the nineteenth century |journal=English Historical Review |volume=cxxiii |issue=502 |pages=611–650|doi=10.1093/ehr/cen161 }}</ref> and of the government-funded [[National school (Ireland)|National Schools]]. Together, these were to combine in the course of the century to accelerate the near-complete conversion to English.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ní Anluain |first1=Éilís |title=Daniel O'Connell's Irish legacy |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/daniel-o-connell-s-irish-legacy-1.3995431 |access-date=2 August 2020 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=26 August 2019 |archive-date=2 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202234137/https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/daniel-o-connell-s-irish-legacy-1.3995431 |url-status=live }}</ref>

There is no evidence to suggest that O'Connell saw "the preservation or revival or any other aspect of 'native culture' (in the widest sense of the term) as essential to his political demands".<ref name="Ó Tuathaigh" /> On the other hand, it may have been that "O'Connell's anchorage in Gaelic society was so firm and obvious . . . that there was simply no need for him to take up issues of cultural nationalism". As an "Irish chieftain", he attracted an "uniquely large amount" of attention in ballads and the Gaelic oral tradition generally.<ref name=":16">{{Cite journal |last=K. Theodore |first=Hoppen |date=1999 |title=Riding a Tiger: Daniel O'Connell, Reform and Popular Politics in Ireland |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/3837/100p121.pdf |journal=Proceedings of the British Academy |issue=100 |pages=121-143}}</ref>{{rp|126-127}}