Bits of Blarney

by R. Shelton Mackenzie

Two things, through life, O'Connell strenuously affirmed and inculcated. First, that the man who committed outrage supplied the enemy with a weapon to be used against the country. Second, that Ireland would never be prosperous until the Union was repealed.

He did not join the United Irishmen in 1798,—not because he, like them, had not an aspiration for the political independence of his country, but because he disapproved of their mode of striving for it, by force. From first to last he was opposed to violence. The "Young Ireland" schism, at Conciliation Hall, which so much annoyed him, during the last eighteen months of his career, was caused by his resistance to the doctrine of "physical force."

As to the Union—it is only just to say, that O'Connell's first public effort was against that measure. His maiden speech, delivered on January 13th, 1800, at a Catholic meeting, in Dublin, unequivocally condemned the Union. The Resolutions adopted by the meeting, drawn up by O'Connell, declared the proposed incorporate Union to be, "in fact, an extinction of the liberty of Ireland, which would be reduced to the abject condition of a province, surrendered to the mercy of the Minister and Legislature of another country, to be bound by their absolute will, and taxed at their pleasure by laws, in the making of which Ireland would have no efficient participation whatever!" During the struggle for Emancipation, as well as from that era until his death, O'Connell always declared that he would not be satisfied with less than "the Repeal." He never cushioned, never concealed that such was his object. I mention this, because it has been said that, "having got Emancipation, he ought not to have gone for Repeal." As a matter of policy, perhaps, Ireland would now be better off if the Repeal agitation had not taken place; but it is indisputable that from 1800 to 1846, O'Connell declared that he would not be satisfied with less than "the Repeal."

Here it may be well to notice the questio vexata of the famous "O'Connell Rent." The amount has not been exactly ascertained, but it is believed to have varied from 10,000l. to 20,000.l a year. It commenced after Emancipation was granted, and was continued until 1846, when, from the pressing wants of the Irish, it was announced that Mr. O'Connell wished it to be discontinued until they could better afford to pay it. Here it may be best to give Mr. O'Connell's own apology, in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury, in 1842. He said, "I will not consent that my claim to 'the Rent' should be mi sunderstood. That claim may be rejected, but it is understood in Ireland. My claim is this:—For more than twenty years before Emancipation, the burthen of the cause was thrown upon me. I had to arrange the meetings—to prepare the resolutions—to furnish replies to the correspondence—to examine the case of each person complaining of practical grievances—to rouse the torpid—to animate the lukewarm—to control the violent and inflammatory—to avoid the shoals and breakers of the law—to guard against multiplied treachery—and at all times to oppose, at every peril, the powerful and multitudinous enemies of the cause. To descend to particulars: At a period when my minutes counted by the guinea—when my emoluments were limited only by the extent of my physical and waking powers—when my meals were shortened to the narrowest space, and my sleep restricted to the earliest hours before dawn; at that period, and for more than twenty years, there was no day that I did not devote from one to two hours (often more) to the working out of the Catholic cause; and that without receiving, or allowing the offer of any remuneration, even for the personal expenditure incurred in the agitation of the cause itself. For years I bore the entire expenses of a Catholic agitation, without receiving the contributions of others to a greater amount than seventy-four pounds in the whole. Who shall repay me for the years of my buoyant youth and cheerful manhood? Who shall repay me for the lost opportunities of acquiring professional celebrity; or for the wealth which such distinction would ensure?"

There is considerable force in this. But O'Connell's character, out of Ireland, would have stood higher, had he not received "the Rent." It was often alleged, by his adherents, as a set-off, that Grattan had also been remunerated by his countrymen. But the cases were not parallel. In 1782, Grattan, almost single-handed, had achieved the Indepe ndence of Ireland, by obtaining the recognition of the principle that "the Crown of England is an Imperial Crown, but that Ireland is a distinct Kingdom, with a Parliament of her own, the sole Legislature thereof." He had accomplished a bloodless Revolution. He had thrown himself into political life, abandoning the profession on which rested nearly his whole worldly dependence. A grant of £100,000 was proposed to him in the Irish Parliament, "to purchase an estate, and build a suitable mansion, as the reward of gratitude by the Irish nation, for his eminent services to his country." It was intended as a mark of national gratitude to a nation's Liberator. So unanimous was the feeling that, on the part of the Viceroy, a member of the Government offered "as part of the intended grant to Mr. Grattan, the Viceregal Palace in the Phœnix Park [Dublin], to be settled on Mr. Grattan and his heirs for ever, as a suitable residence for so meritorious a person." Grattan's own impulse was to refuse the grant. His services had been rendered without expectation or desire of reward. But his private fortune was so inadequate to his public position that he must retire from politics or become a placeman under the Crown. The grant would give him an independent position. He consented to accept half of the proffered amount (£50,000), and determined under no circumstances to take office. He was, ever after, the retained servant of the nation. Yet, high as he stood, he did not escape contumely. Even Henry Flood, his rival, publicly said, in a Parliamentary controversy, "I am not a mendicant patriot, who was bought by my country for a sum of money, and then sold my country to the Minister for prompt payment."

O'Connell's "Rent" was estimated as yielding from £10,000 to £20,000 a year—thrice the amount, probably, that he could have realized at the bar, had he not devoted his time to politics. It was duly paid for nearly twenty years. Thus O'Connell received, in this annuity from his party, about five times as much as the Irish Parliament had given to Grattan. Besides, since 1825, when Derrynane became his by the death of his uncle, O'Connell's landed property was not less than £4,000 a year. The most potent objection to "the Rent" was that, collected year after year, it rendered its recipient liable to the imputation of keeping up Agitation in order to collect the Rent.

When O'Connell's uncle died, in 1825, at a very advanced age, (he was several years past ninety,) the news reached O'Connell when he was on circuit, at Limerick. He hastened to Kerry, to attend the funeral, and did not again appear in court until the trials were proceeding in Cork. I had taken my seat, as a reporter, on the very day he made his appearance, attired in full mourning. Setting immediately under him, I heard one of the counsel congratulate him on his accession to his uncle's large estate. "I had to wait for it a long time," said O'Connell. "If this had happened twenty years ago, what would I now have been? A hard-living, sporting, country gentleman, content with my lot. As it is, I have had to struggle. I have succeeded; and look how bright are now the prospects of Ireland! I thank God that I had to struggle, since it has placed them as they are now."

To sum up the character of O'Connell's political, essentially different from his forensic, eloquence, I need not say more than that he put strong words into fitting places. No man had a greater or more felicitous command of language; no man cared less how his words were marshalled. Many of his speeches are models of the truest eloquence, and perhaps he was the first Irishman, of modern days, who made a decided hit in the Commons, as a sound and eloquent speaker, entering that House at the mature age of fifty. Powers such as his commanded attention;—but, in general, he spoke better in Ireland, among his own people, than in England. Yet who can forget his magnificent oration in favour of the Reform Bill? Who can forget the later, and briefer, but not less stirring speech, which he delivered, as a member of the Anti-Corn-law League, on his first visit to London, after the reversal of the Monster-Meetings' sentence of imprisonment.

In sarcasm O'Connell was unequalled. I shall give an instance of quiet sarcasm which I think inimitable. In his domestic relations O'Connell was peculiarly happy. His marriage with his cousin Mary, was one of pure affection on both sides, and their love continued to the last, as warm as it had commenced in their youthful days.[21] John O'Connell, in 1846, writing of his mother, who was not long dead, said, with as much beauty as truth, "We can say no more than that doubting, she confirmed him—desponding, she cheered him on—drooping, she sustained him—her pure spirit may have often trembled, indeed, as she beheld him exposed to a thousand assaults, and affronting a thousand dangers; but she quailed not, she called him not back. She rejoiced not more in his victories over them, than she would have heartily and devotedly shared with and soothed him in the sufferings, in the ruin, that might have come upon him had he failed and been overthrown." On the other hand, the Marquis of Anglesey, in 1831, as Viceroy of Ireland, had O'Connell prosecuted for an imputed breach of the law. The Marquis had seduced the first wife of the late Lord Cowley, and married her after he was divorced from his wife, and Lady Cowley (then Mrs. Henry Wellesley) from her husband. O'Connell, commenting, at a public meeting in Dublin, on Lord Anglesey's conduct to him said, "This prosecution has cost my wife what none of my transactions ever cost her—a tear for me. Does Lord Anglesey know the value of a virtuous woman's tear?"

O'Connell's attempts at authorship were not very successful. His letters to the "Hereditary bondsmen" were diffuse and declamatory. They were full of repetitions, putting the points of a case in a variety of phases, but they were by no means equal to the force, power, and nervous eloquence of his speeches. He was eminently an extemporaneous speaker, and, like Fox, appeared to more advantage as an orator than a writer. Yet many of his letters contain true eloquence. He hit hard, and could be terse when he pleased. Who can forget the alliterative satire of the three words "base, bloody, and brutal," as applied to the Whigs?