Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

===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}}