No Irishmen are they.
The same doubters have contended that the independence realized by Morgan O'Connell was gained, not by farming nor by shop-keeping, but by extensive smuggling. But it was gained in some manner, and with it was purchased a small estate at Carhen, within a mile of Cahirciveen, where his years of industry had been passed, and not far from Derrynane. It was at Carhen that Daniel O'Connell was born, on the 6th August, 1775—the very day (he used to say) on which were commenced hostilities between Great Britain and her American colonies.
Daniel O'Connell's grandfather was the third son of twenty-two children. He died in 1770, leaving as his successor his second son, Maurice (John, the eldest, having predeceased him). This gentleman was never married, and it was on his death, in 1825, that the "Agitator" succeeded him as owner of the Derrynane estate. Morgan O'Connell (father to the "Liberator") died in 1809, and left two other sons, who are also handsomely provided for—John, as owner of Grena, and James of Lakeview, both places near Killarney.
I trust that I have not travelled out of my way to give this sketch of the descent of the family connexions of O'Connell. It shows that, at any rate, he is not the novus homo—the mere upstart, without the advantages of birth and fortune, which he was often represented to be. At the same time, no O'Connell need be ashamed of what honest industry accomplished—that much of the landed property which O'Connell's father inherited, held by John O'Connell of Grena, was purchased from the profits of his business as a farmer and general shop-keeper.
From the first, Maurice O'Connell, of Derrynane, attached himself to his nephew Daniel, whom he educated. The earliest instructions in any branch of learning which the future "Liberator" received, were communicated to him by a poor hedge-schoolmaster, of a class ever abounding in Kerry, where every man is said to speak Latin. David Mahony happened to call at Carhen when little Daniel was only four years old, took him in his lap, and taught him the alphabet in an hour and a half. Some years later, he was regularly taught by Mr. Harrington—one of the first priests who set up a school after the repeal of the laws which made it penal for a Roman Catholic clergyman even to live in Ireland. At the age of fourteen he went abroad with his brother Maurice to obtain a good education.
Seventy years ago, the policy, or rather the impolicy of English domination actually prohibited the education of the Catholics within Great Britain and Ireland. They were, therefore, either compelled to put up with very limited education, or forced to go abroad for instruction,—rather a curious mode of predisposing their minds in favour of the English laws. Mr. O'Connell was originally intended for the priesthood, and was educated at the Catholic seminary of Louvain, next at St. Omer, and, finally, at the English college of Douay, in France. But, at that time, there were fully as many lay as clerical pupils at that college.
At St. Omer, Daniel O'Connell rose to the first place in all the classes, and the President of the College wrote to his uncle, in Ireland—"I have but one sentence to write about him, and that is, that I never was so mistaken in all my life as I shall be, unless he be destined to make a remarkable figure in society."
The two brothers commenced their homeward journey on the 21st of December, 1793—the very day on which Louis XVI. was guillotined at Paris. During their journey from Douay to Calais, they were obliged to wear the revolutionary cockade, for safety. But, as good Catholics, they were bound to abhor the atrocities perpetrated, at that time, by the Jacobins, in the sacred name of liberty, and when they stood on the deck of the English packet-boat, indignantly tore the tri-colour from their hats, and flung them, with all contempt, into the water. Some French fishermen, who saw the act, rescued the cockades, and flung imprecations against the "aristocrats" who had rejected them. At the same time, when an enthusiastic Irish republican, who had "assisted" at the execution of Louis, exhibited a handkerchief stained with his blood, the young students turned away and shunned him, in disgust and abhorrence. Not then, nor at any period of his career, was O'Connell an anti-monarchist. It is said that, during the trial of Thomas Hardy, at London, (October, 1794,) for high treason, he was so much shocked at the unfair means used by the Crown lawyers to convict the accused—means foiled by eloquent Erskine and an honest jury—that he resolved to place himself as a champion of Right against Might, and identify himself with the cause of the people. While he was on the Continent, that relaxation of the Penal laws took place which allowed the Catholic to become a barrister. It is probable that this was the immediate cause of his becoming a lawyer. A young man of his sanguine temperament was likely to prefer the bar, with its temporal advantages,—its scope for ambition,—its excitement,—its fame, to the more secluded life of an ecclesiastic. Accordingly, I find that he entered as a law-student at Lincoln's Inn, in January, 1794—eat the requisite number of term-dinners there, for two years—pursued the same qualifying course of "study" at King's Inn, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar, in Easter term, 1798, in the 23d year of his age.
The Rebellion was in full fling at the time, and (in order, no doubt, to show his "loyalty" as a Catholic) he joined what was called "the lawyers' corps," associated to assist the Government in putting down revolt.
The period of his admission was singularly favourable. Catholics had just been admitted to the Irish bar—to the minor honours of the profession; although it was hoped, and not extravagantly, that, in time, all its privileges would be thrown open to them. It was impossible to say what was Mr. O'Connell's ambition at the time; however high, he could not have had a dream of the elevation which he subsequently reached. He must have felt, however, that he had a wide field for the exercise of his abilities. His ostensible ambition, for many years, was to become a good lawyer. During what is called "the long vacation," and at other periods when he could spare time, he resided a good deal with his uncle in Kerry, where he pursued the athletic sports in which, almost to the close of his career, he delighted to participate. On one occasion, while out upon a hunting expedition, he put up at a peasant's cabin, sat for some hours in his wet clothes, and contracted a typhus fever. In his delirium he often repeated the lines from Home's tragedy of Douglas: