Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847) was one of the most remarkable people in the nineteenth century. Famous in his day as the most feared lawyer in Ireland, O’ Connell tormented judges, terrorised opposing barristers, and won a reputation for saving the lives of so many men who would otherwise have been hanged. He became ‘The Counsellor’, the fearless defender of the people. And he secured that reputation through his campaign for Catholic emancipation, when he founded the first successful mass democratic movement in European history, and became ‘The Liberator’.
Patrick Geoghegan’s new interpretative biography concentrates on O’Connell’s glory period, culminating in 1829. The book provides a radical new interpretation of O’Connell’s reckless youth, his career as a lawyer, and his titanic struggle to win Catholic emancipation over a quarter of a century. Recognising his flaws as well as his greatness, it shows the forces that drove him to create and lead an entirely new movement in Irish politics. Perhaps it was no wonder that in 1829, following the concession of Catholic emancipation, George IV lamented that O’Connell was now ‘the king of Ireland’.
Dr Patrick M. Geoghegan is a lecturer in the Department of History at Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of The Irish Act of Union and Robert Emmet: A Life and is the presenter of the award-winning radio programme, Talking History, on Newstalk.
