Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

===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>