The Times Great Irish Lives: Obituaries of Ireland’s Finest

HENRY GRATTAN

6 JUNE 1820

WITH UNFEIGNED CONCERN we announce … the much-to-belamented death of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. The dissolution of this intrepid patriot would have been a subject of deep regret to the empire at large, had not the decline of his intellectual as well as vital powers been more recently observed. To his own immediate countrymen it is a source of profound and even filial sorrow …

Mr Grattan came into Parliament about the year 1773. Towards the close of the American war he carried against both the English and Irish Government the repeal of those statutes which had given the British Parliament, and in some respects the Privy Council of England, an absolute control over the legislature of his native country. He has been since the year 1790 the strenuous, persevering, and powerful advocate for an entire abolition of the penal laws against the Catholics. This measure, in the separate Parliament of Ireland, he repeatedly declared to be essential to the complete deliverance of that country from the yoke of the British ministers, as, since the Union, he has, in the language of Mr Pitt, described Catholic emancipation to be a necessary step towards giving both countries the full benefit of that important measure. Mr Grattan has long laboured under dropsy of the chest. It is well known that he was conscious of his approaching dissolution; and that, when he devoted “his last breath to his country,” he was sensible that his appearance in Parliament, for the pious purpose of recommending to the House of Commons the cause so near his heart, must tend to accelerate that mournful sacrifice. His enfeebled frame did not second the aspirings of his bold and fervent spirit: he was doomed to bequeath emancipation as a legacy – not to bestow it as a gift.

Mr Grattan’s eloquence was peculiar and original. It resembled that of no speaker that we have ever heard. His voice was naturally feeble, but practice made it audible; and laborious effort, combined with a careful and studied articulation, rendered his high tones so piercing that none of them were lost. Mr Grattan had no wit, or rather, in Parliament, he did not exhibit any. He seldom discussed the details of any question, but fastened on a few of the leading principles, which he developed and illustrated with singular strength of language, and copious felicity of imagination. His sentences were full of antithesis; and, rather than lose that favourite structure of expression, he would build it up occasionally of common-place or even puerile matter. His arguments were frequently a string of epigrams. His retorts and personal invectives were distinguished by a keen and pithy sarcasm, which told upon every nerve of his ill-starred opponent. There was, nevertheless, an earnestness and solemnity, an innate and manifest consciousness of his own rectitude, about the man, which taught his hearers to respect and admire him when he most failed to convert them to the opinions of which he was the advocate. Mr Grattan, in society, was playful and simple as a child: irritable, perhaps, in a public assembly, he was elsewhere the very soul of courtesy, complacency, and cheerfulness.

Mr Grattan’s property consisted for the most part of the sum of 50,000l, which had been tendered to him by his country, and it was honourably earned. He died at his house in Baker-street, Portman-square.

DANIEL O’CONNELL

24 MAY 1847

WE BELIEVE THERE is no doubt that Mr O’Connell expired on Saturday, the 15th of this month, at Genoa. He yielded up his latest breath at the distance of many hundred miles from the remains of the humble dwelling which became remarkable as his birthplace. In a remote part of the county of Kerry is a village called Cahirciveen, and within one mile of that obscure locality may be found a place bearing the name of Carhen. The latter was for many years the residence of Morgan O’Connell, father of the extraordinary man to an account of whose life and character these columns are assigned. In that most desolate region was Daniel O’Connell born, on the 6th of August, 1775 – a date which he was accustomed to notice with no small complacency, for he took much pleasure in reminding the world that he was born in the year during which our American colonies began to assert their independence, and he sometimes succeeded in persuading his admirers that that incident, taken in connexion with others, shadowed forth his destiny as a champion of freedom. Antecedently to his thirteenth year he received little instruction beyond what pedagogues of the humblest order are capable of imparting; but that class in Kerry are considerably superior to their brethren in other parts of Ireland, and upon the whole it could not be said that even his early education was by any means neglected. About this time his father’s pecuniary circumstances began evidently to improve; his uncle, the owner of Darrynane, though long married, had no issue; he declared Daniel O’Connell to be his favourite nephew, and therefore the friends of “the fortunate youth” thought that no expense should be spared upon the intellectual culture of one whose acknowledged talents and brightening prospects rendered him what is called “the hope of the family.” In those days the Irish members of the Church of Rome were just beginning to exercise a few of the privileges which they now most amply enjoy; and at a place called Redington, in Long Island, one of their priests, a Mr Harrington, had opened a school. Thither young Daniel O’Connell was sent in the year 1788, and there he remained for about 12 months, when he and his brother Maurice took leave of Mr Harrington, with the view of proceeding to one of the Roman Catholic seminaries on the continent. Their first destination was Louvain, but immediately on their reaching that place it was found that Daniel had passed the admissible age; he, however, attended the classes as a volunteer, till fresh instructions could arrive from Kerry. At the end of six weeks the O’Connells proceeded from Louvain to St Omer, and finally to the English College at Douay, where the subject of this memoir pursued his studies with much distinction. Before he quitted St Omer the President of that College, in a letter still preserved, ventured to foretell that his pupil was “destined to make a remarkable figure in society.” On the 21st of December, 1793, Mr O’Connell, being then in the 18th year of his age, quitted Douay, and reached England, without encountering any adventures, save those which sprang from the insults that the revolutionary party were accustomed to inflict upon every one whom they supposed to be an Englishman, or an ecclesiastic, or even a student of divinity. The scenes which he witnessed in France caused Mr O’Connell frequently to declare that in those days he was almost a Tory. He certainly was not then a revolutionist, for the moment he reached the English packet-boat he and his brother tore the tricolour cockades from their hats, and trampled them on the deck. Those sentiments, however, he did not long continue to cherish, for a year had not quite passed away when he exchanged them for doctrines which strongly savoured of Liberalism. It is understood that at a very early age he was intended for the priesthood. Those Irish Roman Catholics who evinced any aptitude for a learned profession found none other open to them in the days of O’Connell’s boyhood. But it is difficult to imagine any one more incapable than he was of maintaining even those outward signs of holiness which are generally observed by the ecclesiastics of his persuasion. An overflow of animal spirits rendered him, not merely a gay, but an obstreperous member of society, and his riotous jocularity acknowledged no limits. All idea, therefore, of his becoming a priest, if ever seriously entertained, must have been abandoned before he reached the age of 19, for he was then devoted to anything rather than the service of the altar. Hare hunting and fishing were amongst his darling pastimes; and these means of relaxation continued to fill his leisure hours, even when his years had approximated to three score and ten. From 17 to 70 the energy of his intellect and the ardour of his passions seemed to suffer no abatement. A large and well used law library, numerous liaisons, a pack of beagles, and a good collection of fishing tackle, attested the variety of his tastes and the vigour of his constitution. Before he had completed his 20th year he became a student of Lincoln’s-inn, into which society he was received on the 30th of January, 1794. Previous to the year 1793 Roman Catholics were not admitted to the bar, and Mr O’Connell was amongst the earliest members of that Church who became candidates for legal advancement. His entrance upon the profession of the law, as a barrister, took place on the 19th of May, 1798, and it must be acknowledged that he spared no pains to qualify himself for that arduous pursuit. Though of a joyous temperament, self-indulgent, and in some respects sensual, he still was not indisposed to hard labour, so that he became almost learned in the law before he ever held a brief. Conformably with the custom of the Irish bar, Mr O’Connell prepared himself for any sort of business that might come within his reach, whether civil or criminal – whether at common law or in equity. There are men in the Temple who would laugh to scorn the best specimens of his special pleading; and conveyancers in Lincoln’s-inn who hold very cheap his skill in their branch of the profession; but in 1798 there was no man of the same standing on the Munster circuit, or at the Irish bar, who knew more of his profession than young Mr O’Connell; and in a short time he became a very efficient lawyer of all-work. The sanguinary rebellion of that period was then at its height, and he probably cherished in his heart as much of the jacobinical principle as was consistent with the character of a thorough Roman Catholic. But he was a lawyer, and being also a shrewd politician, he foresaw that of those United Irishmen who escaped from the field many would be likely to perish on the scaffold; with great prudence, therefore, and most loyal valour, he joined the yeomanry and supported the Government. Again, when it became necessary to reorganize a yeomanry force in 1803, he once more took his place in “the Lawyers’ Corps.” Many anecdotes have been at various times retailed, showing the pains which he took to mitigate the atrocities of that period; and, however indifferent he might be as to the remote tendency of his political proceedings, he certainly manifested throughout his life a strong aversion to actual deeds of blood.

Mr O’Connell had been four years at the bar, and had entered upon the 28th year of his age, before he contracted matrimony. His father and his uncle pointed out more than one young lady of good fortune whose alliance with him in marriage they earnestly desired; but he felt bound in honour not to violate the vows which he had interchanged with his cousin, Mary, the daughter of Dr O’Connell of Tralee. Her father was esteemed in his profession, but her marriage portion was next to nothing; and great therefore was the displeasure which this union occasioned. It took place privately on the 23d of June, 1802, at the lodgings of Mr James Connor, the brother-in-law of the bride, in Dame-street, Dublin. This occurrence for some months remained a secret, but eventually all parties became reconciled. Mrs O’Connell was deservedly esteemed by her family and friends, while she enjoyed a large share of her husband’s affection.

Having now reached that period when Mr O’Connell embarked in a profession and assumed the responsibilities of domestic life, we may arrest for a moment the current of his biography, in order to advert briefly to his family and connexions. Nothing is more frequent in society than a demand for “the real history of these O’Connells.” It is often asked have they been “jobbers, hucksters, pedlars, smugglers, and everything base and beggarly? or are they the lineal descendants of the Sovereign Lords of Iveragh, and have they, through successive generations, preserved the purity of gentle blood and the reputation of honourable men?” Alas! who can tell? If there be one thing in this world less worthy of credence than another it is an Irish pedigree. In England the “visitations” are carefully preserved; the records of the Herald’s College in this country, and the business of that office, are conducted quite in the manner of other public departments. Here all proceedings are so much according to law, that every family which preserves its land can prove its pedigree. But, amidst confiscations, burnings, rebellions, and massacres, the regularity of official records can never be maintained, and the evidences of succession degenerate into oral tradition. The ancient Greek, who happened to distinguish himself, usually traced his origin to a deified ancestor; the modern Irishman who makes a noise in the world, always avers that he is descended from a Sovereign Prince; while the world looks on, and with contemptuous impartiality pronounces both genealogies to be equally fabulous. Dismissing, therefore, all idle speculation respecting the early history of the O’Connells, it may be shortly stated that this family originally established itself in Limerick; that about the beginning of the seventeenth century they transferred their residence to the barony of Iveragh, in the western extremity of Kerry; but, being deeply implicated in the rebellion of 1641, they found it convenient to seek shelter in Clare. To this migration Daniel O’Connell, of Aghgore, formed an exception, and he contrived to keep his little modicum of land by not yielding to that appetite for insurrection. His son, John O’Connell of Aghgore and Darrynane, took the field in 1689 at the head of a company of Foot, which he raised for the service of James II., and having served at the siege of Derry, as well as at the battles of the Boyne and Aughrim, was included in the capitulation of Limerick. His eldest son died without issue, but his second son, Daniel, having married a Miss Donoghue, became the father of 22 children. The second of this gentleman’s sons was Morgan, who married Catherine, the daughter of Mr John O’Mullane, of Whitechurch, in the county of Cork; and the eldest son of this Morgan was the extraordinary individual whose death we have now to record. Although nothing can be more absurd than to claim for him an illustrious descent, yet several of his relatives and connexions were respectable, and some of the number have served with distinction in the French and Austrian armies. But, sooth to say, his father was a most undignified person:- a very painstaking, industrious man, whose thoughts never wandered from the main chance; who held a good farm and kept a large shop, or rather a sort of miscellaneous store, which ministered to the limited wants of Cahirciveen and its rude neighbourhood; who is said to have been most adroit in the arts by which money may be acquired, not only in those of the fair dealer, but in those of the free trader. Almost every one who lived on the western coast of Ireland was, in those days, more or less of a smuggler; therefore Maurice of Darrynane and Morgan of Carhen were not much worse than their neighbours in carrying on the contraband or the wrecking trade; and thus did the elder brother keep his acres free from incumbrance, while the younger scraped together pence and pounds, till he was able to acquire a few additional acres at low rents and under long leases, by which means he ascended into that detested class known by the designation of Irish middlemen. He lived to see his son a prosperous barrister, and the acknowledged heir to Maurice of Darrynane; old Morgan therefore left at his death, which took place in 1809, a very considerable portion, if not the greater part, of all that he possessed to his second son, Mr John O’Connell, of Grena.

In the year 1802 Mr O’Connell found himself under the displeasure of his relatives, and obliged to contend with the difficulties which are inseparable from a growing family and a narrow income. The legislative union had then been only just consummated; his first popular harangue, however, was delivered at a meeting of the citizens of Dublin, assembled on the 13th of January, 1800, to petition against the proposed incorporation of the Irish with the British Parliament. The public have long been familiar with the grounds upon which Mr O’Connell was accustomed to urge the claims of his native country to the possession of an independent legislature. It is believed that he never urged those claims with more effect than in his earlier speeches; the very first of which has been extolled as a model of eloquence. It is a generally received opinion that, from the very starting point of his career, he displayed every quality, good and evil, of a perfect demagogue; and, those pernicious accomplishments being once known to the public of Ireland, his success at the bar ceased to be problematical. The great body of the Roman Catholics were only too happy to patronize an aspiring barrister of their own persuasion; the attorneys on the Munster circuit found that his pleadings were much more worthy of being relied on than those of almost any other junior member of the bar; and soon this description of business poured into his hands so abundantly, that he employed first one, and then a second amanuensis. At nisi prius his manner alone was enough to persuade an Irish jury that his client must be right. His anticipation of victory always seemed so unfeigned that, aided by that and other arts, he seldom failed to create in the minds of every jury a prejudice in favour of whichever party had the good fortune to have hired his services. His astonishing skill in cross-examination; the caution, dexterity, and judgment which he displayed in conducting a cause; the clearness and precision with which he disentangled the most intricate mass of evidence, especially in matters of account, procured for him the entire confidence of all those who had legal patronage to dispense. But his not being a Protestant excluded him from much valuable business. A Roman Catholic in those days was never heard in the courts of justice with that gracious approbation which encourages a youthful advocate; before a common jury, however, no man could be more successful than the subject of the present memoir, for this, among other reasons, that a large fund of the broadest humour usually enabled him to have the laugh on his side. In the Rolls Court also, where Mr Curran at that time presided, Mr O’Connell was in the highest favour.

During the few years which elapsed between 1800 and the death of Mr Pitt, two or three demonstrations were made in Dublin against the legislative union, in all of which Mr O’Connell continued to gain reputation as a popular leader; but he had not yet been recognized as the great agent of what was called “Catholic Emancipation.” For some time after the extinction of the Irish Parliament it was believed that the expectations excited by Mr Pitt respecting a repeal of the penal laws would be realized. But three successive Ministries occupied the Cabinet without possessing ability, or perhaps inclination, to effect that object when at length Mr Perceval was annnounced as the head of the Government amidst all the triumph of a grand No Popery agitation. Antecedently to this period, feeble efforts were occasionally made by the Roman Catholics, in which Mr O’Connell more or less participated, but it was not until the year 1809 that the struggles of that party became consolidated into a system and raised to the importance of a popular movement. The Orange party, of course, became alarmed; the measures of Government began to assume a definite and forcible character, obsolete statutes were called into activity, and fresh powers obtained from the Legislature. Some Roman Catholics of high rank, and others of good station, were prosecuted in the Court of King’s Bench. Numerous ex officio informations were filed; and the Irish Attorney-General made war upon the newspapers of Dublin with unexampled vigour and pertinacity. It happened, however, that during the prosecutions of that period Mr O’Connell appeared more frequently as an advocate than in any other capacity. Amongst the most remarkable of his speeches, and probably the ablest that he ever delivered at the bar, was his defence of Mr Magee, the proprietor and publisher of the Dublin Evening Post, a gentleman whom Mr Saurin, the Attorney-General of that day, conceived it to be his duty to prosecute for a libel on the Government. It need scarcely be stated that in almost all the political trials which took place in Ireland during the early part of the present century, Mr O’Connell was counsel for the accused; and, although proceedings of that nature in Dublin are usually marked by extreme intemperance on both sides, yet this characteristic of Irish litigation was never carried beyond the height which it attained while Mr Saurin was first law officer of the Crown. His mode of conducting prosecutions betrayed feelings of such bitter animosity, that Mr O’Connell could never hope to attain the objects of his ambition if he allowed any opportunity to escape of vituperating the Attorney-General; and the public of the present age will readily believe that his modes of attack were such as would, in England, excite universal disapprobation. Almost every one recollects that these proceedings on the part of the Irish Government proved wholly unsuccessful. Roman Catholic delegates might be dispersed under the Convention Act, a committee of the Roman Catholics might be suppressed under some other statute, a new bill might be introduced to declare a certain mode of associating illegal; but Mr O’Connell made it his boast that “so long as the right of petition existed he should be able to manufacture some device” by means of which the war of agitation could still be successfully waged. Whether his followers were called Pacificators in Conciliation-hall, or Repealers on Mullaghmast; whether they went by the name of delegates or committee-men, associators or liberators; patriots or precursors; no matter what the name or the pretence might be, the purpose never was anything else than to carry on in Dublin a sort of sham Parliament, which in the first place was used to obtain a repeal of the penal laws; in the second, to collect and administer that annual tribute called “the rent;” and in the third, to cajole and amuse the ignorant portion of the Irish people with that pestilent dream – an independent legislature. Of this machinery Mr O’Connell was at all times the moving agent. Whoever could consent to become a puppet and permit the chief showman to pull the wires, might assure himself of occupation for all his leisure time, and flattery enough to satiate the grossest appetite; but woe be unto him that dared to have an opinion of his own; for the colossal agitator in ascending his “bad eminence” seemed to derive especial pleasure from trampling under foot his rash and luckless rivals. The history of the years which elapsed between the development of Roman Catholic agitation in 1809 and its signal victory in 1829 discloses just this much respecting Daniel O’Connell; that he was sometimes the mere mouthpiece, and occasionally the ruler, guide, and champion of the Romish priesthood; that he maintained a “pressure from without,” which caused not only the Irish but the Imperial Government to betray apprehension as well as to breathe vengeance; and that he found or created opportunities, during this period of his life, to display in his own person every attribute of a democratic idol; and few readers require to be reminded that the history of all the men who form this class but too plainly shows in what a high degree the vices of their character predominate over the virtues. To sustain himself in the position which O’Connell held throughout the meridian of his career required great animal energy and unwearied activity of mind. He possessed both. Long before he reached middle life he had become the most industrious man in Ireland. As early as 5 o’clock in the morning his matins were concluded, his toilet finished, his morning meal discussed, and his amanuensis at full work; by 11 he was in court; at three or half-past attending a board or a committee; later in the evening presiding at a dinner, but generally retiring to rest at an early hour, and not only abstaining from the free use of wine, but to some extent denying himself the national beverage of his country.