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The Sixth Phase 1823 to 1829
[The Grail of Catholic
EmancipationCopyright
© 2002 by Desmond Keenan
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(April 1823
to June 1825) .......................................
Aftermath of the
‘Algerine Act’
(June to
December 1825) .......................................
The Campaigns of
1826 and 1827
(January
1826 to March 1827) ...............................
(March to
December 1827) ....................................
(January to
December 1828) ..................................
The Passing of the
Emancipation Act (1829)
(January to
March 1829) .........................................
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This
phase lasted from the founding of the Catholic Association in March 1823 until
the formation of a strong Tory government under the Duke of Wellington in
April1829, influential enough to persuade the House of Lords and the reluctant
king to pass the Emancipation Act. Unlike the period from 1793 until 1815,
external factors had little influence on the campaign. The great disturbing
factor, the sudden succession of four prime ministers came in the final two
years.
The famous Catholic Association was
short-lived, lasting but two years. Those involved in the agitation kept
together and maintained their unity after its suppression. Those who favoured
emancipation, seeing that many Catholics strongly objected to a veto suggested
that instead the Government should be given two other securities, the payment
of the clergy and the raising the qualification for voting in parliamentary
elections.
Agitation continued with
ever-greater intensity, and various tactics were invented to circumvent the
suppression of the Catholic Association. Agitation against Emancipation also
developed strongly.
The Catholic Association (April 1823 to June 1825)
This association had a comparatively
short life, but the spirit that inspired the movement could not be suppressed,
and those involved carried on the campaign through various expedients.
Early in 1823 a meeting was held in Glencullen in Co. Wicklow at the house of a gentleman named
O’Mara who was a friend of both O’Connell and Sheil to explore if there were
grounds on which they could co-operate. This did not mean that they had to like
or trust each other, but to see if there was any formula of words that could
bridge the now quite narrow gap between the vetoists
and anti-vetoists. However desirable to some of an Emancipation
Act entirely without securities, it seemed obvious to most people that a Bill
without some nod in the direction of royal control would never be adopted by
their parliamentary representatives, and would never pass the Commons, let
alone the Lords. On the other hand, O’Connell had come to recognise that the
securities were so watered down as to be no more than a recognition of existing
practice. It was totally pointless striving for an Act without official
securities when the first thing the Pope would do in practice regarding an
appointment was to consult the British Government. The main problem for
O’Connell was to bring his followers around to this position. The
re-establishment of the Catholic Board does not seem to have been an issue.
What was necessary was co-operation before and during Aggregate Meetings. But
under the restless O’Connell it became more than that.
[April 1823] According to Purcell O’Gorman the first meeting of the
Catholic Association was held on the
The first real meeting (what the Post called a preliminary meeting) of
the Catholic Association took place on 25 April 1823 with Lord Killeen, Fingall’s eldest son in the chair. Fingall retired into
private life, and henceforth his son took his place. (There is a deed in the
Fingall Papers dated 24 Jan 1822 by which the earl, in return for an annuity,
handed over his estate to his son who undertook to pay his father’s debts.)
Both sides were represented. It was proposed to hold an Aggregate Meeting, and
O’Connell proposed reviving the Catholic Board on the grounds that the
Orangemen were organised. (The Orange Order was still in existence, but largely
inactive, and those who were loosely called Orangemen in Dublin, despite
suspicions, do not seem to have taken any steps to co-ordinate their
activities. Joseph Hume, the Whig leader, was particularly suspicious of them
and strongly suspected the Orange magistrates of protecting members of the
Order.) The date for the Aggregate Meeting was fixed for the 10 May. The
gentlemen met again on 30 April under Sir Edward Bellew
to prepare the resolutions for the Aggregate Meeting. O’Connell said,
‘He
thought it the duty of the Aggregate Meeting to pass, on behalf of Mr Plunket, a resolution declaratory of gratitude and
confidence, and couched in as ardent an unqualified terms as the language could
afford (loud applause). He looked upon Mr Plunket as
a perfect martyr to his public duty. He was now actually standing the brunt of
a persecution more audacious, persevering, and malignant than any other being,
even in this country of persecution, had ever before to encounter’ (DEP 3 May 1823).
Stripped
of its hyperbolic rhetoric, the speech meant that O’Connell was prepared to
back Plunket’s Bill with its innocuous securities.
Presumably this was the substance of the agreement with Sheil. O’Connell stuck
to his bargain. The reference to the persecution of Plunket
apparently is to an attempt by the Ascendancy faction to get Plunket dismissed. Resolutions to address the king and to
support Plunket were agreed. Not all were anxious to
see the Association or Board revived, but O’Connell pressed hard for it.
[May
1823] The Aggregate Meeting was held on Saturday 10 May 1823 in Townsend
Street chapel, with Lord Killeen in the chair. It was resolved to address the
king, and motions of confidence in Plunket and Donoughmore were passed. It was proposed by Nicholas Mahon
and Sheil to form an Association, and it was agreed at O’Connell’s insistence
to meet to form such the following Monday 12 May. Aggregate Meetings still
continued as they always had been, public meetings open to all who chose to
attend, Catholic or Protestant, whether belonging to the Association or not.
From their nature large public meetings are not useful for discussing matters
in detail and so were normally called to assent to a resolution or petition
already agreed in private. Those proposing the resolution could therefore claim
wider public support.
On the following day, Sunday 11 May
1823, Archbishop Troy died at his home in Rutland Square, Dublin, aged 84. He
had been a bishop for 47 years and archbishop for 39 Years. He was born in
1739, and became archbishop of Dublin in 1784 having previously been bishop of
Ossory since 1776. His co-adjutor, Archbishop Murray,
automatically succeeded as archbishop of Dublin. He had only to apply to Rome
for the pallium of an archbishop.
On Monday 12 May 1823 the gentlemen
met in Dempsey’s tavern in Sackville Street with Lord Killeen in the chair. It
was agreed that the name should be the Catholic Association, that it should
consist of such members who annually subscribe one guinea (about fifty pounds
nowadays), and that Nicholas Mahon should act as treasurer. Purcell O’Gorman,
already confirmed as Catholic Secretary, acted as secretary to the Association.
Forty five gentlemen subscribed before leaving the room (SNL 13 May 1823).Reynolds noted that the original membership
consisted of one viscount, the younger son of a baron, two baronets, a knight,
a Carmelite friar, nineteen barristers, twelve attorneys, three editors of
newspapers, one surgeon, eleven merchants, and ten landed gentlemen. That it
was intended that the Association should be an exclusive one of gentlemen is
clear from the annual subscription. The Association had the drawback that it
was largely a Dublin one, and so could not claim to be a representative one. No
doubt many of its members saw this as an advantage, for it was clearly outside
the scope of the Convention Act.
On 13 May a committee consisting of
Sir Edward Bellew, O’Connell, Sheil, E. MacDonnell,
N. Mahon, H. O’Connor, Ronan, Hayes, Scanlan, Lonergan and Calanan was
appointed to draw up rules. Goulburn reported to Peel,
Although
Lord Fingall, Sir Edward Bellew and others stated
privately their disapprobation of the Association, they did not conceal that
they dared not set themselves against it (Reynolds).
Distrust
might be a better word than disapprobation. Another reason for objecting to a
Catholic Association, shared by the Marquis Wellesley, was that if the
Catholics organised themselves into an association the more extreme Protestants
would do the same. And so it proved. Wellesley wished to suppress it but Parliament
would not vote the necessary powers (Brynn). Whether
Emancipation would have come sooner without O’Connell and the Association is a
point that will never be settled. No doubt it would have come eventually, and
without the divisiveness caused by O’Connell’s Association. During the first
year of its existence there was little enthusiasm for it. On more than one
occasion it lacked a quorum. On one famous occasion O’Connell persuaded two
students from Maynooth who were buying books to stand in for a few moments, as
all clergymen were ipso facto
members, to get a resolution passed. As the others feared, O’Connell used it as
a vehicle to pursue objectives other than petitioning Parliament for
Emancipation. One of his first points was to attack the Dublin Grand Jury for
appointing a Catholic chaplain to Newgate gaol not
approved by the Catholic archbishop. O’Connell itched to attack those he
considered ‘Orangemen’ on every possible pretext while the others did not. On
this particular occasion he had to be told by Nicholas Mahon that the Catholic
Association was not yet in existence (DEP
23 May 1823).
In May 1823 Lord Nugent with the
support of Peel introduced Bills to give to English Catholics the same rights
as Irish Catholics. Both passed the Commons but were lost in the Lords. Peel
noted that English Catholics could not vote,
could not become magistrates, and were excluded from more offices than
Irish Catholics. The reason for this was that the Irish Catholic Relief Act
(1793) went further than the earlier English Relief Act. But a Bill was
eventually passed to allow anyone to take a post connected with the Revenue
with only the obligation to take the oath of allegiance. Another Bill was also
passed to allow the Duke of Norfolk, now a Catholic, to exercise his functions
as Earl Marshal of England (Ward III). The Unlawful Oaths Act (1823) was passed
against secret societies. It had the effect of forcing the Loyal Orange Order
to drop their oath. Though this Act was directed against secret oath-bound
societies, whether agrarian terrorists or violent trade unions, the effect on
the Orange Order was just to place it on the same legal footing as the Catholic
Association. The Orange Order met on the 4 August 1823 and dropped all oaths
and secrets except the password (SNL
2 Dec 1823). Earlier in the year, in the course of a debate, Peel said he never
had any contact with any Orange lodge, not even to receive an address. This did
not save him from being called ‘Orange Peel’ by O’Connell.
[June 1823] The English Catholic
Association was now formed on the same principles as the Irish one on 2 June
1823 (Ward III). The English Association made
Catholic priests ipso facto
members of the Association, and O’Connell quickly copied this on 14 June. Sheil
proposed that they should not have a vote but was over-ruled. Sheil also with
some foresight proposed that the Association be called the National
Association, implying that Protestants should be admitted equally, and that it
was unwise to depict the campaign as one of Catholics against Protestants, but
his suggestion was not adopted. An early proposal that Protestant members
should not have the vote was not adopted either. The aim of the English Association was to
involve the clergy in any action from the very start, and so to prevent
unseemly rows like those between Milner and Butler. Milner failed to get Rome
to condemn Butler, so he decided in his own diocese to treat him ‘as a rebel to
ecclesiastical authority and a public sinner’ (ibid.). In Ireland the effect
was to draw the Catholic clergy into secular politics, and there they remained
for the next hundred years. The bulk of the rural clergy came from those groups
who backed O’Connell most fervently, and these priests were to become his most
devoted and uncritical lieutenants. It was never O’Connell’s intention to
exclude Protestants, but he certainly believed in an Ireland with a certain
Catholic ‘ascendancy’ with the highest offices in the state going automatically
to Catholics. This was a view which most Irish Catholic priests could support.
O’Connell emphatically did not believe in a secular state. (Indeed his views of
the relationship of the Irish State to the Pope were curiously like those of
Henry VIII.)
The
earliest meetings of the Catholic Association were devoted to combating the
Orangemen. There can be little doubt that this was what O’Connell had in mind
when he so enthusiastically promoted the New Association. Mr O’Connor of Mountjoy Square said the chief problem was not with Peel,
who was straightforward in his opposition, nor with the judges, but with the
Grand Juries (DEP 13 May 1823). At
one meeting Sheil proposed to return to an old medieval custom in Ireland where
juries were selected de medietate linguae, six
Irish-speakers and six English-speakers, but now with six Catholics and six
Protestants on each jury. Purcell O’Gorman said that every Catholic gentleman
entitled to bear arms should get a sword and defend himself, another
inappropriate piece of medievalism. In explanation he said that every Catholic
gentleman had a right to defend his
family if attacked by Orangemen. But the fat was in the fire. Goulburn was
suspicious of the Association from the start, but now Plunket
the attorney general would have to take notice. The fatal shadow of Wolfe Tone
still lay over the Catholics regardless of the fact that he was a Protestant.
Only
Eneas MacDonnell maintained that the main issue was
being lost sight of, the need to petition Parliament for Emancipation, and he
objected to petitions against Orangemen. Sir John Burke said he favoured
continuing to petition, but admitted that O’Connell was against him. He added
that he was glad O’Connell was not present for he feared the lash of that
gentleman’s superior talent (DEP 12
June 1823). Burdett’s intervention seems to have revived O’Connell’s desire not
to seek Emancipation from an unreformed Parliament. Purcell O’Gorman, the
following February, reported that the Association in its first eleven months
had held 34 regular weekly meetings, and 10 meetings of committees. In view of
the number of times it was inquorate, we can suppose
that few members attended regularly.
In
June 1823 the Association drew up a petition to be presented by Henry Brougham
protesting against the evils of the ‘Orange’ administration. This, whether or
not it was intended, included Wellesley and Plunket.
In the ensuing debate the Whigs, faced by Peel who had an encyclopaedic
knowledge of Ireland, found themselves long on grievance and rhetoric but short
of actual facts. They requested that in future they should be supplied with the
facts. The Association undertook to find the facts, at least such facts as
favoured their cause. The grievances were still the same as in 1794, that
Catholics were excluded from trade guilds and corporations of towns, from Grand
Juries, and the magistracy to which they were legally entitled to belong. Yet
the Catholics themselves from 1805 onwards had made admission to Parliament
their principal object. O’Connell was preparing petitions on twelve different
subjects when Parliament rose on 22 July 1823.
[September 1823]
Pius VII died after being Pope for 24 years. There were only two Popes since
Pius VII became Pope in 1775, and there were only two Popes between 1831 and
1878. But there were two short-lived Popes between 1823 and 1831 Leo XII 1823
to 1829 and Pius VIII 1829-30.Consalvi ceased to be Secretary of State, being
replaced by Cardinal Somaglia. Consalvi
was made Prefect of Propaganda but died a few weeks later. Consalvi’s
aim in life was to adapt the Church to the modern political scene. Cardinal Somaglia was expected to be elected, but the obscure and
reactionary Cardinal della Genga
was elected. The British Government was glad that none of the cardinals being
promoted by the various Catholic powers was elected (SNL 11 Nov 1823). The new Pope was elected to reverse such advances
towards liberalism as his predecessor had allowed. But papal policy regarding
Ireland remained unchanged. Also, as no matter was referred to Rome by any
party during these brief pontificates, there were no repercussions in Ireland A
funeral service for the late Pope was held in the Catholic chapel of Moorfields just outside the old walls of London. There was
a large crowd of foreign ambassadors, eminent Catholic clergy, and Catholic and
Protestant gentlemen. No Catholic church had survived in the traditional square
mile of the city of London, but a chapel had been built in the ‘fields’ just
outside the walls in 1710. The northern fields were called the ‘moor fields’.
The chapel in Lincoln Inn’s Field was built in 1687. That in Warwick Street in
Soho, the ‘Bavarian chapel’ attached to the Bavarian embassy dated from 1730.
Mass was always said in the chapels attached to the Spanish, Portuguese, and
French embassies.
In
Dublin, Archbishop Magee was again at the centre of a row, when the sexton on
his orders forbade a Catholic priest, the redoubtable Dr Michael Blake, to say
prayers at a Catholic funeral in a Protestant cemetery. The Catholic
Association involved itself in this affair also. The row proved to have been based on a
misunderstanding. The archbishop, correctly in canon law, had stated that no
clergyman was to conduct any rite in any Church property, unless that rite and
that clergyman was approved by the bishop. This was just part of the general
tightening up of discipline in the Church of Ireland. A local vicar would no
longer be able to invite a passing clergyman of note to preach. The Catholic
priest in question was aware of this and was merely leading the mourners in
private prayer, which was not forbidden. A law was then passed allowing
Catholics to establish their own cemeteries, but many of them for nearly a
hundred years more insisted on using the family plot in the traditional
cemetery.
The Catholic Association continued to meet but
was often inquorate.
[January 1824] Lord
Lansdowne became leader of the Whig Party. This party which had drifted in a
rather rudderless fashion under ineffective leaders for twenty years after the
death of Fox began to pull itself together. The effect was to be seen some
years later when Lord Liverpool died and Lansdowne found it possible to bring
his group of supporters to back Canning. Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Lord
Lansdowne, was Irish by parentage and title but lived in England for his entire
life.
As
the Catholic Association appeared to be dying O’Connell proposed the collection
of a ‘Catholic Rent’ from every parish in Ireland to generate adequate funds,
and also to give every parish in Ireland a direct interest in the struggle. A
committee was formed to see if this plan could be put into execution. O’Connell
busied himself with drawing up petitions with regard to various topics like
tithes and vestry cesses.
[February
1824] It seems to have been at a mid-week meeting of the Association in
mid-February when the Association was meeting in a room over Coyne’s bookshop
that O’Connell made up the quorum by persuading two students looking at books
in the bookshop to make it up. His scheme for the Rent was now complete. If one
million Catholics paid a farthing a week or a penny a month or a shilling a
year, the annual sum raised would be £50,000. (Four farthings equal one penny;
twelve pennies equal one shilling. The farthing was the smallest coin, but by
adopting it even sums could be paid for the month and the year.) This
calculation was to mesmerise the Catholic Ultras for many years, and O’Connell
maintained the collection of the Rent until the day he died. In practice the
problem was how to sustain public interest. In times of great excitement the
Rent soared, but then fell rapidly away. To arouse public interest O’Connell
set out the following objectives to be achieved by means of the Rent. Petitions
could be presented from every parish on all sorts of subjects. A London agent
could be maintained to transact their business with Parliament. The liberal
press could be supported by buying advertising space in liberal papers in
Dublin and London. Money could be set aside to pay the fees for Catholics being
tried by Orange magistrates. Then £5,000 could be set aside for Catholic education, £5,000 to educate
priests to go to America, and £5,000 for building schools and chapels. (To get
the modern equivalent multiply the sums by about forty.) He said if the nabob
of Arcot could maintain members in Parliament so too
could the Catholics. He was not saying that seats could be bought, but if they
had money they could be represented (SNL
5 Feb 1824).(O’Connell was the first president of a Catholic Orphan Society
formed by Dr Michael Blake which was supported largely by penny-a-week
subscriptions, Ronan)
Organisationally,
by basing the collection on the Catholic parishes it would be comparatively
easy to get from the various bishops the names of the parish priests in their
respective dioceses, and the post towns from which they collected their mail (SNL 10 May 1824). At this period
everyone collected and paid for their letters in the post offices in the post
towns. The Catholic priests would also recommend honest and trustworthy men to
act as local collectors in their parishes.
Parliament
opened on 3 February 1824. On 18 February, at a meeting of the Catholic
Association, Mr Frederick Conway was asked to take the chair. The level of
attendance had not improved, but there was much activity among those who did
attend. O’Connell defended the use of abusive language like ‘haughty and
erratic neighbours’ when referring to the English.
‘Was
it not notorious that the Catholic cause never presented so dreary and
unpromising an aspect – an appearance so destitute of hope? This should be met
by some corresponding, some powerful excitement; something which would show
that every vein through which circulates the lifeblood of Irishmen throbs with
anxiety for the removal of Catholic disabilities (hear, hear) and the
attainment of Emancipation’ (SNL 19
Feb 1824).
An Aggregate Meeting was held in Townsend
Street chapel on 27 February 1824 with Sir Thomas Esmonde
in the chair. In a speech, one of those present, Stephen Coppinger
referred to Napoleon ‘that bravest and greatest of the sons of men’. ‘Loud and
deafening shouts of applause which lasted a considerable time followed the
mention of this name’. As members of the police as well as reporters from the
press attended these meetings this outburst would have been speedily reported
to the Government. This was apparently before O’Connell and Sheil arrived.
O’Connell, in his speech referred pointedly to the part his family played in
the struggle against Napoleon, and how his relative and friend of his youth was
killed at the siege of San Sebastien fighting under
Wellington. Sixteen resolutions were proposed and adopted (SNL 28 Feb, 2 Mar, DEP 28
Feb 1824).
[March 1824]
Various county meetings were held in different parts of the country as the
barristers from Dublin attended the assizes. Plunket
as a Member of Parliament refused to recognise the Association and communicated
with O’Connell as with a single gentleman. Only corporations with charters
could petition as bodies (SNL 21
February 1825). It was claimed that the first petition from any body which was
distinct from a group of parliamentary electors came from the Dublin Trades
Union in the time of Earl Grey’s ministry 1830-32 (Speech of Marcus Costello, SNL 17 February 1832). Donoughmore had no objection to receiving petitions from
the Catholic Association. However the words ‘Catholic Association’ were not
mentioned in the petition. Grey and Brougham advised the Catholics to omit from
their petition any reference to the Established Church, or the need to exclude
Orangemen from the magistracy or from juries, for such references would only
injure their cause. Herein lay the difficulty of trying to get seats in
Parliament, and to remedy lesser abuses at the same time. To get biased
Orangemen removed from the bench or from juries, or to attack the iniquity of
tithes and church cesses, one had to be specific in one’s charge as the Whigs
had pointed out. But pointing them out risked alienating those Protestants
whose support in Parliament was essential. There was the other problem with
O’Connell’s approach and that was that if he and others were to rouse the
masses to enthusiasm in support of the cause it was necessary to use high-flown
and abusive rhetoric. Sir Thomas Wyse later commented that it became necessary
to hold separate meetings of Catholics and Protestants (Wyse). Later still, the
nationalists of Young Ireland deplored the division of Ireland into Catholic
and Protestant. But that was the way O’Connell was. Conway noted that the
Orangemen had never been so numerous or so well organised. Whatever O’Connell
did the Orangemen always strove to surpass him. As the Protestants in most
parts of Ireland were a richer and more cohesive group feeling themselves under
attack they always succeeded in rivalling and surpassing O’Connell’s
activities. But all his life O’Connell preferred rabble-rousing and
Orange-bashing to working with the moderate Protestants. His language had been
noticed by the king also, who in November wrote to Peel saying he was
considering acting like his father and not
allowing the ‘open principle’ in the cabinet. In other words, as under
Spencer Perceval, only those who opposed Emancipation would be allowed into the
cabinet (Ward III). According to Luby, after
Emancipation was finally gained, Stephen Coppinger
told O’Connell, half in jest and half in earnest, that notwithstanding
O’Connell’s efforts to the contrary, they had finally got Emancipation.
The
Irish Catholic bishops were at this time petitioning for a better way of
educating Irish children other than by giving money to a Protestant Society,
which many Catholics feared was of a proselytising character. Hence the bait in
the scheme for the Catholic Rent to allocate some of it to Catholic schools.
Much activity of the Association at this time was taken up with refuting a remark
of an MP named North that the Catholic clergy neglected education, and that the
education of Catholic schoolchildren was largely left to hedgeschools
where the Life of Feeney the Robber
and Moll Flanders were used as
textbooks. The charge was not without substance, as the Catholic bishops were
aware, but they also knew that without Government help they could not maintain
any schools, let alone Catholic schools in rural areas (Keenan II). Much effort
too was strangely put into opposing Plunket’s Bill
for cemeteries not under the control of the clergy of any Church. Apparently
the point was that if a Catholic parish provided itself with a new cemetery a
Dissenting clergyman could claim the right to officiate in it. But the
Government did not want to have a multitude of cemeteries in each parish, one
for every denomination.
[May 1824] Frederick Conway acted
as secretary to various Catholic meetings in the absence of O’Gorman.
[June 1824] O’Connell refused to abate the language of
the Address, so Grey, when presenting it said there was much in it he did not
agree with. Plunket too, in presenting the petition
in the Commons expressed reservation (SNL
3 June 1824). It had been decided in Parliament not to move on the petition
that year, and as Grey pointed out, the Catholics would have plenty of time to
remove the more objectionable phrases. Parliament rose early that year on 25
June.
About
this time, O’Connell proposed in the Accounts Committee of the Catholic
Association that an ‘efficient secretary’ should be appointed and paid £160 a
year to relieve Purcell O’Gorman of routine business. One member called Kirwin asked at a meeting of the Association why an
efficient secretary was required at £160 a year when a suitable clerk could be
found for half that money. He referred to the old debts and moved that they be
paid, including the considerable sum due to Edward Hay. His motion was not
seconded. Dwyer was however elected by the Association. The fact was that
O’Connell wanted to employ Dwyer a friend of his whom had to be persuaded to
return from Liverpool in England. O’Connell said that the debts arose under the
Catholic Board, so money from the Catholic Association could not be used to pay
them off. To which Kirwin replied that they were
behaving like litigants, not honourable men (DEP 22, 29 June 1824). Conway in the Post considered that the old debts should be paid, and shortly
afterwards resigned from the office of pro-secretary, but declined to give
reasons.
[July 1824] The Association, having
met regularly for 10 months adjourned until October. The Rent was beginning to
come in, and it was no longer a sickly child. Several of the aristocratic party
had written to Dr Curtis warning him not to get too involved with O’Connell as
anything he did would be viewed with suspicion by the Government. He supported
O’Connell in this matter but wished to preserve peace with the aristocratic
faction (Curtis to Dr. Plunket 21 May 1824, Cogan).
Later in the year, with regard to a proposed mission of O’Connell, Sheil, and
Woulfe to London, Curtis wrote to Poynter saying that
O’Connell was the only one of the three he was acquainted with and he had no
hesitation in pronouncing him one of the most sincere and most practical
Catholics I ever knew (Ward III). The Finance Committee of the Catholic
Association, often with Frederick Conway in the chair, continued to meet
weekly.
[October 1824] Dr Plunkett of Meath, one
of the bishops involved in the veto controversy in 1799 recommended to his
clergy to collect the Rent. The Dublin
Evening Post noted that the Association now had about 1,000 members and an
income of about £1,000 a month. Dr Curtis and Dr Doyle expressed their
approbation. Archbishop Murray and Dr MacMahon the
co-adjutor of Killaloe joined. Lord Gormanston, Lord Netterville, and
the Earl of Kenmare and his brothers either joined or expressed support. The
third series of full meetings of the Catholic Association commenced on 16
October after the summer break, and meetings were by now quite crowded. It was
proposed to have a new petition ready for the first day of the Parliamentary
session.
The
Association moved its regular place of meeting to rooms in the Corn Exchange
which were larger. They leased the upper floor of the Exchange from the Corn
Exchange Committee. (The Corn Exchange was built to allow corn merchants to buy
and sell corn for export on the basis of samples. This avoided the need to pay
the toll to bring the goods into Dublin and to bring them out again.) Here it
was protected from attacks by students from Trinity College, for there were
many Catholic coal porters nearby on the quays, who could be summoned if any
attack were made. The Association had first met in rooms in Capel
Street, and then moved to Home’s Hotel where students from Trinity College were
liable to interrupt. On 27 October 1824 the students tried to raid the new
premises but were driven off by the coal porters. (Some Protestants considered
these porters excessively officious and inclined to get rough with any
strangers who approached O’Connell.)
[November 1824] The
first meeting in the Corn Exchange was held on 15 November 1824. On 3 November
1824 Wellington wrote to Peel to say that if they could not get rid of the
Catholic Association civil war in Ireland was inevitable (Ward III).
[December 1824] A
Parliamentary Agent living in London was appointed. The person chosen was Eneas MacDonnell, whose chief interest now was in opposing
proselytisers. Luby states that he was appointed
because he was not on friendly terms with O’Connell. The great series of
theological debates between the Catholics and the so-called ‘biblicals’, those who belonged to Protestant Bible
Societies spread over Ireland and proved very popular. The bishops at first
gave their consent, but finding that they were generating more heat than light
tried to stop them. This proved easier said than done for the sport was very
popular. Some Catholics then took to attending Protestant religious meetings
and reading out speeches of Sheil and other Catholics.
An
Aggregate Meeting was held in Clarendon Street chapel on 2 December 1824 with
Sir Thomas Esmonde in the chair. O’Gorman reported
that the membership was now 3,000. It was resolved to petition Parliament. It
was also decided to send a mission consisting of O’Connell, Sheil, and Woulfe to
England, with Mr Bric as secretary. In the event they
did not go. It was decided to entrust their petition to Sir Francis Burdett.
The attorney general, Plunket, endeavoured to get
O’Connell tried for seditious speech but the Grand Jury did not find a true
bill. His own rhetoric carried O’Connell away when speaking of his own hero
Bolivar. He never in his life advocated the use of arms, but had he ever done
so an armed mob would have instantly rushed to his side. Later his own
supporters in Young Ireland would deplore the way he spoke as if he intended
leading an army but always backed down.
[February 1825] Though
the Catholic Association was flourishing, the Government was considering how to
suppress both it, the Orange Order and the Ribbon Societies. Some of the
supporters of the Catholics in Parliament considered that their Bill would have
a better chance of success if the Catholic Association were dissolved.
Parliament opened on 3 February 1825 and in the King’s Speech, reference was
made to dangerous associations in Ireland and left it Parliament to devise ways
of dealing with them. The associations were those ‘which have adopted
proceedings irreconcilable with the spirit of the Constitution, and calculated,
by exciting alarm, and by exasperating animosities to endanger the peace of
society’ (DEP 8 Feb 1825). (These
were certainly things O’Connell excelled at, and are the reason why most of the
associations he founded were suppressed.) The cabinet had of course already
decided what it was going to do, and Goulburn gave notice of a Suppression
Bill. Wellesley sent to the cabinet proposals for a Catholic Relief Bill to
accompany the suppression of the Association but this was rejected by the
Cabinet (SNL 2 March 1829). Plunket also envisioned the Suppression Bill as an adjunct
to the Relief Bill, and in this spirit he supported Goulburn’s
Suppression Bill.
The
members of the Catholic Association were well aware of their danger, and Lord
Killeen took the chair on the 9 February before the greatest gathering yet of
the Association. The next meeting took place on 10 February, with Lord Gormanston in chair. It was resolved to send a large
deputation to London. It was decided to call an Aggregate Meeting and it met on
15 February 1825 in Townsend Street chapel with Lord Killeen in the chair.
Killeen advised caution but Jack Lawless, standing on the altar called on the
meeting to return blow for blow. Living as he did in Belfast Lawless prided
himself on knowing the mind of ordinary Protestants, but as later events were
to show he had no more idea of the mentality of most Ulster Protestants than
O’Connell himself who never went to the North. On the same day O’Connell,
Sheil, Lord Killeen, the Hon. Mr Preston (of the Gormanston
family) and other Catholic gentlemen sailed for England.
The
problem facing the Government was how to frame a law which respected freedom of
speech and freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom to criticise
the Government which was the pride of
the British Constitution, without allowing Ireland to degenerate into two armed
hostile camps. Robust criticism of the crown and the Government was permitted
and widespread, and mobs could express their opinions by breaking the windows
of unpopular politicians. Wellington was to have his windows broken over
Emancipation. But there was no danger in England that two sides would arm
themselves to fight a civil war. (Whether orators could rouse up the people of
Ireland to take up arms to a sufficient extent to cause a civil war was never
put to the test.)
Goulburn
introduced the Unlawful Societies (Irish) Suppression Act (1825) in the Commons
on 10 February which was intended to, among other things, emend the Convention
Act (1793). He claimed that the Catholic Association was virtually a representative
body, and shielded from the law only by the ingenuity of its promoters. It
could not be denied that O’Connell was seeking to represent every Catholic
parish in Ireland, and to collect a ‘voluntary’ tax from them, which could be
used to attempt the redress of grievances, and he did not confine his
activities to petitioning Parliament for redress (SNL 14 February 1825). Plunket supported
the Bill, saying it was not aimed solely at the Catholic Association, and the
cause of Catholic Emancipation would not be harmed by its suppression. He felt
that the system of collecting the rent, though not illegal, was
unconstitutional.
In the
Lords on the same day, Lord Liverpool moved for the setting up of a select
committee to enquire into the state of Ireland. A similar committee was set up
in the Commons. Primate Curtis, Archbishop Murray, Dr Doyle, Lord Killeen,
O’Connell, Sheil, and Anthony Blake were among those called to give evidence on
the state of Ireland before each of the Houses. The English Catholic Association
and the leading Whigs made the Irish delegates welcome. Poynter
organised a welcome for the Irish Catholic ecclesiastics summoned to London for
the Enquiry Committees.
[March 1825] On 1 March 1825,
Burdett moved for a committee of the whole House to examine the Catholic
claims. He was supported by Canning, Plunket and
Brougham amongst others. The motion was passed by a majority of thirteen. A
committee of Parliament was appointed to draw up the Bill and included those
just mentioned. O’Connell wrote (7 March) that he was permitted to draw up the
rough draft of the Bill, which would contain no securities. The Government
would pay the clergy, and the threshold for the franchise would be raised from
forty shillings to ten pounds. These additions came to be known as the ‘wings’
for they would help the Bill to fly. O’Connell made no objection. In fact
O’Connell believed that the Ten Pound freeholders were likely to be more
independent of their landlords and less likely to vote as directed by them than
the Forty Shilling freeholders. Not everyone shared O’Connell’s belief, and
considered that the proportion of
Protestants with the franchise would rise with respect to the number of
Catholics. Conway of the Post agreed
with raising the franchise but considered £5 sufficient.
The
Unlawful Societies (Irish) Suppression Act (1825) always referred to as the ‘Algerine Act’ received the royal assent on 9 March 1825 to
come into force on Saturday 20 March. On the nickname see Keenan III.) It was
to last two years, and then until the end of the next session of Parliament (SNL 12 July 1827).
O’Connell’s
letter was read out at the next meeting of the Catholic Association on 9 March,
though it surprised many, produced no particular reaction. At a meeting on
Wednesday 16 March with Major George Bryan of Jenkinstown
in the chair, Sheil who had returned from London, gave an account of events
there. They first went to Burdett who warmly welcomed them, and he recommended Plunket as the proper sponsor of the Bill. The delegates
said they had no discretion in this matter but allowed Burdett to use his own.
They then went to the House of Common where the question was heard whether
counsel should be heard at the bar of the House with regard to the Suppression
Bill. Sheil praised Plunket for his advocacy on this
point. Next they went to meet the Duke of Norfolk and were warmly welcomed, and
any former suspicions they had of the English Catholics evaporated. Next they
had a meeting with their parliamentary representatives on the best manner to
proceed. These latter wished to defer the Relief Bill until after Easter so
that it should not seem to be connected
with the Government’s Suppression Bill, but O’Connell was for immediate
action. Regarding the ‘wings’ Sheil was of the opinion that if they are
absolutely necessary they should be conceded, especially as the other side had
given up the veto. With regard to payment of the clergy, he had told Peel at
the Select Committee, that Emancipation should precede State Provision, that
the Government should have no part in the appointment of the clergy, and that
the money should be paid out of taxes, not as a Government grant. (The point
seems to have been that it would be an ordinary law of the land, not a special
Government favour.) He and others said it was better to leave matters until the
last meeting of the Association that would be on Friday 18 March.
At this
point Jack Lawless entered the fray, claiming, despite what O’Connell claimed,
the Bill differed little from Plunket’s previous Bill.
There was still to be a commission to exclude foreigners and to examine the
credentials of those elected bishops. But what really annoyed him was the
sacrifice of the Forty Shilling freeholders. Here Lawless, the democrat,
differed sharply from O’Connell. O’Connell considered them unreliable because
they were often in debt or in arrears with the rent, they could not afford to
register themselves, and were registered by their landlords if and when needed,
and most landlords expected that those to whom they gave tenancies would vote
as directed by them. Lawless on the other hand valued what was at the time a
quite wide franchise. In theory, a tenant with a lease of four acres for three
lives who could swear that he could sublet an acre at two pounds (forty shillings)
an acre and could swear he was a Forty Shilling freeholder. He did not actually
have to sub-let the land or receive any rent, or get an independent valuation,
but only to swear when registering his vote that he was in a position to do so.
In his evidence to the House of Lords O’Connell considered that by raising the
threshold to £10 much perjury would be avoided. Later, Dr Doyle had to issue
stern warnings against perjury directed at those who wished to register as
freeholders. (The respective theories of Lawless and O’Connell were never
tested, for in the 1828 election, it was only at the end of the first day of
voting when O’Connell was ahead did a landslide in his favour occur. Had he
been behind at the end of the first day a landslide for his opponent was highly
likely.)
The
person behind the attack on O’Connell was William Cobbett,
a strongly self-opinionated journalist, whose writings were widely read and
admired at the time despite the fact that he was usually out of touch with
economic reality. Cobbett claimed that O’Connell had
been tricked by the Government, and had sold out the Catholics to get
advancement in his profession. According to Cobbett,
O’Connell had arrived in England on 18 February, and saw Cobbett
on 20th, who then warned him that the Government would try to trick
him. (Cobbett refused to recognise that Lord
Liverpool, the Lord Chancellor, and the Home Secretary were opposed to the
Bill, which was a private measure). On 27 February O’Connell had dined at Mr
Brougham’s with the Duke of Leinster on one side of him, and the king’s brother
the Duke of Sussex on the other. On 2 March O’Connell saw Mr Plunket, and on the following day, visited him again along
with Lord Killeen. Following the first visit O’Connell had visited Cobbett and spoke highly of Plunket.
Cobbett said that this alarmed him for he felt that the blandishments were
having their effect. On 5 March Lawless, who had added himself to the
delegation, complained to Cobbett about the ‘wings’. Cobbett supported Lawless. Further proof of the alleged
sell out could be seen in the fact that Sheil was questioned by one of the
Select Committees regarding a patent of precedence in the courts to be given to
O’Connell (Letter of Cobbett to the People of Ireland
19 July 1825 in SNL 27 July 1825). (Plunket later explained that the proposed patent of
precedence would merely allow precedence in the courts over barristers junior
to him who had been promoted because they were Protestants. It was in
recognition of his outstanding legal talents not his political opinions. When
cases were called in the courts, those involving king’s counsel were called
first.) A letter from Lawless on the alleged sell out was printed in Saunders Newsletter on 18 March 1825.
O’Connell was caught in the same trap he had
set for others. In the eyes of Cobbett and Lawless
the evidence was damning. He had sold out to a minister for personal gain. But
O’Connell claimed that State Provision would have brought annually £600.000
into Ireland and the Government would have gained nothing from their
expenditure. Also that the Forty Shilling franchise in actual fact was
worthless. Those in the delegation were split on the matter. There was a
question of taking away a valued right of the poorer classes (i.e. the status it
conferred) for the benefit of a few rich Catholics. Lord Killeen disliked the
wings but probably would not have opposed them.
Burdett’s
Bill did in fact provide for a veto and exequatur,
but the commissioners were to be Irish Catholic bishops. Milner opposed this,
but all the others regarded the provisions as harmless (Ward III).
The
Catholic Association met for the last time on Friday 18 Mar 1825 with Col.
Butler in the chair and Frederick Conway acting as Secretary. A letter from
O’Connell, unaware of his danger, dated 16 March was read out. He said Lawless
was not a delegate and that the delegates had made no contracts with anyone. He
regarded State Provision as a natural consequence of Emancipation. There was no
intention to alter the franchise where it was held, as in England, in fee
simple, a lease forever with no rent. (The was the original meaning
freeholders, but in Ireland over the centuries, it had been watered down to
mean a tenant subject to rent for an indefinite period like three lives, i.e. until
the death of one of three persons named in the lease, regarded as equivalent to
a lease of 31 years. A lease of 31 years, being a definite period of time,
could not confer the ‘freehold’.) It was not retrospective, so existing
freeholders could continue to exercise their vote, and thirdly, the value would
not exceed £10. (In line with what was said above, this would include all those
who could swear that they had an extra five acres they could let at £2 per
acre. This would have included most tenants with above eight or ten acres.) The
way of computing the forty shilling surplus after all charges on the land was
not clarified at the time. Some farmers considered that if, through their own
labour, the land produced two pounds a year, it counted (DEP 30 April 1825). O’Connell later made plain that his own
preference was for universal suffrage, but this was not on offer. The draft of
the Freeholder Bill made it clear, that
the Irish freehold must consist of ‘lives renewable forever’ (SNL 27 April 1825)
Some of
those present wished to discuss the questions raised by Lawless, but a majority
preferred not to mar their last meeting with rows. An Address to the People of
Ireland prepared by Conway was adopted and ordered to be printed. Conway said
it was left to him to propose the last Resolution. He had been an active member
of the Association since the beginning. He proposed that the Association should
adjourn sine die, and this was
adopted. The funds of the Association were to be placed in the hands of Lord
Killeen who would ensure all its debts were paid. In practice, the banker
Nicholas Mahon continued with the administration of the money. A vote of
confidence in O’Connell was passed. Thanks were voted all round. The
Association then dispersed. The Orange Order followed suit.
O’Connell
was still in London, being examined by the select committees. He was examined
at length, and his sober and informed replies on all aspects of Irish society
gave great satisfaction to all. He was on his best behaviour, and careful not
to give offence. Many of the leading Whigs were anxious to meet him, and he was
anxious to dispel any fears that he was a wild or erratic person. With regard
to State Provision he said he had consulted certain bishops and priests on the
matter and they were satisfied. The person who was examined a greatest length
by the parliamentary committees regarding the teaching and practice of the
Catholic Church in Ireland was Dr. Doyle. Doyle’s replies are to this day an
excellent source of information on the contemporary practice of the Irish
Church, and by extension of the American Catholic Church where Irish-born and
educated priests were becoming increasingly influential. Burdett’s Bill on
Emancipation was given its first reading on 23 March 1825. There were to be two
other bills, one on the Forty Shilling freeholders and another on State
Provision for the clergy, which were to be introduced separately.
[April 1825] Before the Second
Reading was introduced, an Aggregate Meeting of the Catholics was called, and
met on 14 April 1825 in Clarendon Street chapel, with Viscount Gormanston in the chair. Mr Conway read the requisition for
the meeting that was called to address the king, and asked all speakers to keep strictly to the purpose of the
meeting. O’Connell attended the meeting but did not speak until called for by
the crowd. A resolution to address the king was taken and a delegation was
chosen.
[May 1825] On 21 April 1825 the
Bill passed its Second Reading as expected by 268 votes to 241, and was carried
on to the Committee Stage on 6 May. It passed the Third Reading on 10 May and
was carried to the Lords. The other two Bills successfully passed the initial
stages. There was great indignation when the
king’s brother, the heir presumptive to the throne, Frederick Augustus,
Duke of York and Albany, spoke out strongly against the Catholics. George III
had fifteen children, but very few
legitimate grandchildren. His eldest son had only one child, who died before
him. The succession to the throne then passed in succession to his next
brothers who had no legitimate issue between them. The next son, the Duke of
Kent was hastily told to marry, and produced the Princess Victoria who became
third in succession after the death of her father. The prospect of the Duke of
York becoming king was far from pleasing. Predictably the Bill was rejected in
the Lords at the Second Reading. It would have been impolite to the Commons to
reject it at its First Reading. The other two Bills were not proceeded with.
Sir John Coxe Hippisley
died on 3 May 1825.
[June 1825] Another Aggregate
Meeting was held in Anne Street chapel
on 8 June when the delegates had returned from London. Lord Gormanston took the chair. It was estimated that several
thousand people packed into the chapel and Gormanston,
Sir Edward Bellew, and O'Connell had the greatest
difficulty in getting in. It was resolved to petition again for Emancipation.
Lawless was hissed until O’Connell asked that he be allowed to speak. But his
efforts to get amendments to the Freeholders and State Provision Bills got no
support. Sir Edward Bellew proposed the establishment
of a new Association. Nothing can be read into this as the Resolutions and proposers were agreed in advance. After the meeting, the
crowd drew O’Connell’s carriage to his home in Merrion
Square.
[Top]
Aftermath of the ‘Algerine
Act’ (June to December 1825)
Counsellor Bellew
gave it as his opinion that no new association could be formed for the
following reasons. No meeting could assemble for longer than fourteen days, no
delegation could be given even for the purposes of petitioning Parliament, and
no money could be collected except to cover the costs of petitioning (DEP 28 June 1825). If O’Connell had no
reason to found a new association before this he now had one - to prove Bellew
wrong. The reason which he had used two years earlier to prove the necessity of
a Catholic Association, namely that the Protestants had an Orange Association,
was no longer valid, for it too had been suppressed. The Orangemen, in fact,
being the better organised, and more woven into the fabric of society, had lost
more than he had. All that was required now was to follow the lead of Lord Fingall’s party, hold Aggregate Meetings to petition. If
necessary these could assemble for up to fourteen days to arrange resolutions
and petitions and collect money to pay costs. To try to start a new association
would stimulate the Orange faction to organise a better and more effective one.
In the event both Catholics and Protestants started ostensibly charitable
associations neither of which generated much enthusiasm. In both cases they
were probably a waste of time and money. But we suspect the aim for O’Connell
was primarily to prove Bellew, and later Plunket, wrong.
As usual with O’Connell his motives
are rarely clear. In the present instance, merely to accept the ‘Algerine Act’ and work within its restrictions would have
played into the hands of Lord Fingall’s faction.
There is no indication at this time that he wished to seize social and
political leadership from the aristocracy, or that he wished to embrace a new
career as a parliamentarian rather than as a judge. But he seems to have been
fascinated with the Rent, and with all he personally expected to be able to
accomplish with it.
A private meeting was held on Friday
10 June 1825, following a resolution at the Aggregate Meeting to decide how an
association could be set up which would not fall under the Act. The new
Association met in the Corn Exchange on Wednesday 22 June 1825 and a ballot was
held for a committee of 21. Five lists were circulated and balloting continued from 12 o’clock to 4 p.m. Purcell
O’Gorman, the Secretary said that 321 had balloted and asked for an adjournment
until the morrow to allow him to make the calculation. Mr Sheil secured most
votes namely 317, closely followed by Lord Killeen and Sir John Burke with 313,
Captain Bryan and Nicholas Mahon with 312, Daniel O’Connell with 311 and Sir
Thomas Esmonde
with 309. In the list of 21 the success of the aristocratic party was
noticeable, but then they were always stronger in Dublin. That O’Connell’s
popularity was slightly damaged by the ‘wings’ controversy is shown by the fact
that one of his strongest critics Nicholas Mahon was preferred to him. Neither
Lawless nor Sir Edward Bellew were elected. O’Connell
announced that the new Association would be started after the end of the
parliamentary session and not before, for two reasons. The first was in case
the two Associations would be confused. The other was in case the Government
would rush through new legislation to suppress the new one.
The general legal idea behind the
new association was that there were all kinds of associations in existence for
legal purposes. In these gentlemen could combine to attain an end, raise funds,
have regular meetings, and correspond with similar societies, and even form a
national alliance of associations for a similar purpose. These were
associations for the promotion of education, agriculture, science, art, recreation,
and so on. The exceptions were associations for illegal purposes, or for
political purposes. The aim of the latter was to prevent attempts to emulate
the Volunteers National Convention of 1782 or the French National Convention of
1792.
[July
1825] Parliament was prorogued on 6 July 1825. On 12 July 1825 a Catholic
meeting was held in the rooms in the Corn Exchange the 21 members presented
their Report, but there was a difficulty because O'Connell had taken home the
draft copy to have a fair copy made out. The committee of 21, having completed
its task dissolved and a committee of 31 was chosen to prepare an Aggregate
Meeting.
This
was held in Clarendon Street chapel on 13 July with Lord Gormanston
in the chair and Purcell O’Gorman as secretary. The proposals for the new
association were set out. It must be open to everybody; there must be no oath;
it would have no power of instituting prosecutions in the courts; it would have
no secretary or delegate, or correspond with any other society, or in any way contravene
6 George IV (‘Algerine Act'); nor would it petition
Parliament to remedy any grievances. It could promote peace and concord among
His Majesty’s subjects; encourage education; ascertain the population of
Ireland and the respective numbers of Catholics and Protestants; help to
construct Catholic churches; establish Catholic burial grounds; promote
manufactures, agriculture, and commerce; encourage a liberal press; and rebut
charges made against Catholics. Every person paying one pound could become a
member. Petitions to Parliament would be adopted at one-day Aggregate Meetings
that could adjourn daily for up to
fourteen days, and would have no connection with the New Catholic Association.
The collection of the Rent would continue, but not by the new Association.
O’Connell personally, as a sole person, would be responsible for its collection
and management (SNL 14 July
1825).Sheil made a powerful speech against the Duke of York which gave great
offence, not only to the king his elder brother, but to his younger brother,
William, Duke of Clarence (William IV) neither of whom ever forgave him (Luby).
It
is not clear what exactly this association was intended for, except perhaps as
an act of defiance to the Government, and to allow O’Connell to collect and
keep the Rent centrally. Probably, it was envisaged that the Dublin newspapers
would report the meetings, and so provide valuable publicity. The Catholics
later adopted local meetings very successfully, and the Fourteen Day Aggregate
meetings to petition Parliament were more to the point and more effective. But
there seems to have been no objection to its establishment by any party. Sheil
came to the fore at this time and stressed that the Catholics, far from falling
into a moody silence, should step up their campaign of agitation (McCullough).
Predictably, the disbanded Orange Order set up a similar association to promote
the welfare of Orangemen, ‘The Loyal and Benevolent Orange Institution’.
The
New Catholic Association met for the first time on 16 July with Mr Redmond in
the chair and Mr Bric secretary for the day. It never
gained the popularity or esteem of the old Association. Moderate Catholics
would have preferred to pursue aims like the promotion of farming or industry
through broader based non-sectarian organisations. The clergy of all
denominations regarded even secular education like the teaching of arithmetic
as falling within their exclusive sphere. While, for Catholic hard-liners, it
was a toothless and ineffective body. Still, it continued to meet until the
expiration of the ‘Algerine Act’ when it changed back
into the Catholic Association. O’Connell noted that the Association could not
correspond with another Association, like the English Catholic Association, but
could correspond with individual members of that body. A rules committee could
be set up to ensure that all their activities remained within the existing law.
Frederick Conway was among those chosen for the committee (SNL 18 July).
Cobbett disapproved of the new
Association and kept up his attack on O’Connell, by writing a Letter to the
People of Ireland. He alleged that
before he came to London he was threatened with prosecution for a criminal and
seditious libel. But after he had come to London he sought out Plunket in the House of Commons, allegedly for private
business. But Cobbett believed that O’Connell had
been offered a patent of precedence in the courts to take effect after the
Emancipation Bill was passed. This information he had from Sheil who regarded
it as a proof of the Government’s benevolence. For Cobbett,
this was clear evidence of a sell-out. Whether there was anything in Cobbett’s suspicions is hard to tell. Cobbett
was a man with deeply felt convictions; O’Connell on the other hand usually
gives the impression of being a lawyer using legal tactics which are abandoned
if they are not yielding results. But most of those involved in Ireland just
wished to put the matter into the past. As might have been expected O’Connell
retaliated in kind and abused Cobbett. The two were
well matched when it came to invective. O’Connell said Cobbett
was only funny when he intended being serious. (The Times of London, no friend of Cobbett,
printed an unflattering comment about him referring to ‘ his still incorrigible
habits of lying and swearing and swaggering and libelling and praising without
the slightest regard for truth, propriety, subsequent detection or
self-contradiction’ 6 Jan 1820. The notice on Cobbett
in the DNB does not contradict this
evaluation.)
A
meeting of the New Catholic Association held on 30 July with Counsellor O’Brien
in the chair and Frederick Conway as secretary for the day. It was reported
that 151 gentlemen had subscribed as members, and these included Sir Edward Bellew, Sir Thomas Esmonde, and
Nicholas Mahon. A proposal was made to ask for two persons in each parish in
Ireland who would collect the Rent and furnish information. Sir Edward Bellew asked if any uniform had been decided on for the new
Association for he had seen some gentlemen wearing buttons with the inscription
‘New Catholic Association’. He was told that it had been decided that there
would be no common uniform, that the buttons were a private speculation, and
that Mr O’Connell would probably soon cease to wear the uniform he had devised
for the Association. This uniform consisted of a blue frock coat with covered
moulds, an inscribed button under the collar, a buff vest, and white
pantaloons. Mr O’Connell and some other gentlemen had worn it at the last
meeting (SNL 1 August 1825).
O’Connell loved dressing up in uniforms. Any club or society could prescribe a
form of dress to be worn at their meetings or on public occasions like parades.
(It is not clear what exactly the word ‘moulds’ refers to, whether buttons or
piping OED.)
[August 1825]
Several meetings were held in August,
but as most of those connected with the bar had dispersed to the various legal
circuits to which they were attached to attend the assizes. (Barristers were
assigned to one of the six circuits, and formed the bar of that Circuit.
O’Connell belonged to the Munster bar, and his appearances in courts outside
Dublin were normally within the Munster circuit. He was best known and received
his greatest support in the counties in Munster that comprised the Munster
circuit. He had little personal contact with gentlemen in the counties
comprising the other circuits.) The Catholic barristers, especially O’Connell
and Sheil, attended and spoke at numerous Catholic meetings in various places.
Sheil never trusted himself to speak extempore, so all his speeches were
carefully prepared. Also, unlike O’Connell, he disliked repeating himself, so
the speech for each meeting required long and careful preparation (DNB).
There
was a well-attended meeting on Saturday 20 August in the Corn Exchange where
Lord Gormanston took the chair. When the campaign for
emancipation was over various people claimed to be the originators of the
various strategies adopted. But at this point it would seem to have been Sheil
who suggested plans for a systematic organisation, and for the systematic
co-option of the Catholic clergy in Ireland in the campaign for better
education which was one of the avowed objects of the Association . He began by
proposing to the meeting that the secretary should get the name of every parish
priest in write to him asking for his help.
‘Thus
an individual and personal intercourse will be kept up with every parish
priest, and we shall have an active and powerful agent in every parochial
sub-division of the country.
Hitherto
we have been desultory and irregular in our movements – one county petitioned
at one time, another at a different period. There was no accordance in time or
place, nor any simultaneous stirring of the nation’s mind. We must learn to
kneel down together – we must be instructed in this exercise of genuflection;
on the same day and at the same hour let there be a meeting held under the
direction of the parish priest in every closet in Ireland (loud cheers). Offer
to yourselves in anticipation the effect of such a proceeding. The cry for
liberty sent up from the altars of God will reach into the cabinet, make its
way to the throne, echo through the chambers of Westminster, and make even
Eldon start. [ Eldon the Lord Chancellor
of England was an inveterate opponent of the Catholic claims.]
But,
I may be asked, can the Association effect all this? Not all. We have no right to petition for the redress of our
grievances, but we are entitled by a specific clause to promote education. We shall array the
clergy for an end which is perfectly legal, and when they have been once
marshalled – when once the political apparatus has been prepared, it will be
the office of another Association which can sit for fourteen days (the period
allowed by law to an association for the redress of grievances to hold its
sittings) to make use of the instruments with which they will have been
previously provided’ (SNL 22 August
1825).
A
committee of 7 was appointed to choose members for an education committee as
education was the principal object of the new Association. Among those proposed
for the Education Committee were Primate Curtis, Archbishop Murray, Dr. Doyle,
Lord Killeen, Lord Gormanston, Sir Edward Bellew, O’Connell, Sheil, Nicholas Mahon, Frederick Conway
etc. (DEP 20 Aug 1825). Sheil then
proposed an adjournment of the Association until November, for the absence of
so many gentlemen from the city might show the Association in a poor light. But
an open Committee, which every member might attend, would be held every week.
The
potentially valuable work of the Education Committee was negatived
by the action of the Catholic bishops who preferred to treat education as a
private concern, and to negotiate directly with the Government. The Government
decided to negotiate with the bishops and not the Association and the National
Education Act (1831) was based on the negotiations of the Government with the
bishops. The result was that Catholic bishops, priests, brothers and nuns
controlled almost all aspects of Catholic education in the nineteenth century in
a manner inconceivable in the following century. It would seem that a great
opportunity was lost of preventing the decline of education into pure
sectarianism. There was also the fact that O’Connell was extremely reluctant to
spend the money collected for anything but political aims.
Activity
of the Committee virtually ceased during the autumn season, but many local
meetings were held throughout the country.
[October 1825]
A meeting to petition was held in Co. Louth to petition parliament. Sir Edward Bellew was in the chair. The question of the wings was
raised again, but there was no great feeling against O’Connell. It was pointed
out that Dr Doyle was prepared to concede them, though under protest.
A
rather surprising event occurred in October. The Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis
Wellesley, now a widower, married a Catholic woman. After the official wedding
according to the rite of the Established Church, Archbishop Murray performed
the Catholic rite in the vice-regal lodge in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, the official
residence of the Lords Lieutenant. His bride was a granddaughter of Mr Charles
Carroll of Carrollstown, Maryland, the only Catholic
to sign the American Declaration of Independence. Lord Liverpool took no action
against him. The long-standing champion of Catholic interests in the Lords, the
Earl of Donoughmore died and was succeeded in the
title by his brother Lord Hutchinson. Lord Farnham, a leading anti-Catholic,
succeeded him as an Irish representative peer. Lady Farnham was a leading
proponent of the ‘Second Reformation’ in Cavan.
A general election was due the following year, and already moves were
being made to select or oppose candidates. On 29 October 1825 a small meeting, the first since the
adjournment, met, and O’Connell called for a small Aggregate Meeting which
would discuss the procedures for petitioning Parliament.
[November 1825] The Little Aggregate
Meeting was held on 2 November in the Corn Exchange. Mr Bric
was called to the chair, and Conway acted as secretary. There was an entrance
fee of one shilling and one penny. (Presumably, though the Irish currency had
just been abolished, the sum was counted in Irish pennies of which 13 Irish
pence made an English shilling, against twelve English pence.) Presumably this
was necessary as the meeting was not to petition but to explain the procedures
for petitioning, and also to ensure it counted as a private not public meeting.
O’Connell proposed concomitant meetings each week, one of the New Catholic
Association, the other of successive meetings to petition. A committee of
eleven was appointed to prepare petitions, including as always now Frederick
Conway. The Little Aggregate Meetings were also called ‘Separate Meetings’.
Though minutes were taken they were not read out and approved at the next
meeting. These Separate Meetings were the most useful in the struggle for
Emancipation for they enabled an organisation to be kept continuously in being.
Any person who missed a meeting would have to ask someone who had attended what
had happened, or get the minutes privately from the secretary. The ‘efficient
secretary’ Ed Dwyer seems to have been retained, for O’Connell made him
responsible for handling cash sent in as Rent. Real public Aggregate Meetings
to adopt petitions, and Fourteen Day Meetings, could of their nature be held
only rarely.
[November, December 1825]
A second small Aggregate Meeting was held on 9 November, again in the Corn
Exchange, with Purcell O’Gorman in the chair and Mr FitzSimon
as secretary. The faction led by Nicholas Mahon who opposed the ‘wings’ in all
circumstances still wanted to make a major issue of it, but Sheil defended
O’Connell. The latter still maintained that the freeholder vote was an
illusion, as they were forced to vote for their Orange landlords. Some wanted to
proceed with large provincial meetings, and Fourteen Day Meetings, but
O’Connell said it was necessary for these latter to wait for six months after
the passing of the Act. Little Aggregate Meetings, and meetings of the New
Catholic Association continued alternately throughout November and December,
the one dealing with petitioning and the other with the other business. At a
Little Aggregate Meeting O’Connell had to warn the secretary not to read the
minutes of the previous meeting. Nicholas Mahon continued striving to get a
formal exclusion of the ‘wings’ and Sheil deplored, to loud cheers, the
perpetual raking over of who said what and when. Like Sheil, most gentlemen
seem to have deplored the ‘wings’ but realised
that if their backers in Parliament introduced them they would have to
accept them. It was a strict principle with all MPs and Lords that Parliament
legislated not negotiated. The meetings were usually held on different days,
but O’Connell sometimes called a Separate Meeting before or after an Association
meeting. Jack Lawless found it difficult to keep track of which was which.
It
was proposed to revive the Catholic Association for fourteen days in January,
for the purposes of petitioning on various subjects. It was also proposed that
numerous local petitions should be adopted in the various counties, towns and
parishes so that several of them could be presented every day that Parliament
sat. It is not clear who first devised this tactic. It was used on a wide scale
by the campaigners against slavery, and later in the decade by Protestant
groups opposed to Emancipation. The idea put forward by Sheil of getting the
addresses of each parish priest in Ireland made the scheme feasible. (A Catholic Directory covering all the
dioceses in Ireland would not be published for another ten years.) O’Connell
recommended that several different specimen copies of petitions for
Emancipation should be circulated. They should just petition for unqualified
Emancipation and avoid any other topic.
On
14 and 15 December 1825 the Leinster Provincial Meeting took place in the
Catholic chapel in Carlow with Lord Killeen in the chair to petition
Parliament. A committee met on the 14th to prepare the petitions. At
the meeting on 15th Dr. Doyle, whose lived in that town entered the
meeting to give his account regarding the ‘wings’. He stated that he had
reluctantly accepted the pensioning of the clergy, but if the Act had passed he
would have resigned rather than accept Government money. Doyle’s exact
reasoning is not very clear. O’Connell considered that the priests could take
the money and act independently of the Government as they always did. Nor was
there any objection to prison chaplains, or army chaplains in India taking
Government money. Nor was there later any objection by most of the clergy to
Catholic priests, Brothers, or nuns taking Government money for schools. Sheil
and O’Connell were present and spoke. It was not exclusively a Catholic
meeting. Sir Henry Parnell and Lord Cloncurry sent apologies (SNL 19. 20 December 1825)
On 19
December 1825, at a Separate Meeting, O’Connell stated that the law officers of
the crown were of the opinion that the Catholic Association itself could not
re-assemble even for fourteen days. There was no point in quarrelling with their friends in the present
administration over this point, so he proposed calling the Fourteen Day Meeting
in January, the ‘Catholic Association of 1826’. A requisition calling for such
a meeting was thereupon published in the newspapers under the names of Fingall,
Gormanston,
Killeen, Sir Edward Bellew, the brothers of
the Earl of Kenmare etc.
[Top]
The Campaigns of 1826 and 1827 (January 1826 to
March 1827)
[January
1826] The meetings of the New
Catholic Association and the Separate meetings continued regularly. Frederick
Conway was the secretary of the Education Committee of the New Catholic
Association, and kept in touch with some of the Catholic bishops who kept him
informed of the dealings between the bishops and Wellesley’s Education
Commissioners who were charged with implementing the Report of the Commission
of Enquiry into Irish Education. O’Connell still believed that the work of the
New Catholic Association with regard to education was essential, and that the
£50,000 that the Rent would provide would prove a powerful lure for the
Catholic clergy. (When in 1831 the National Board of Education was set up to
partially fund local primary schools, parish priests would have been delighted
to get assistance from the Rent. But by that time the Rent was being used for
other purposes.)
Preparations
were being made for the first of the Fourteen Day Meetings. Lawless proposed
that instead of a subscription of £1 to cover the fourteen days, separate
subscriptions for each day should be allowed. For he said that his experience
of Catholic politics enabled him to say that the most pure and honest were to
be found among those who were only able to pay a shilling for their admission.
When it was put to the vote Lawless was defeated by 44 votes to 4. There can be
little doubt that this means that the strongest opponents of the wings, and
supporters of Lawless, were to be found among the tradesmen of Dublin (SNL 12 Jan 1826).O’Connell claimed he
had purchased the first ticket for the new temporary association. The Connaught
Provincial Meeting met on 10 January 1826 in Ballinasloe with Lord Ffrench in
the chair. On the same day a Catholic meeting was held in Monaghan with the
local Catholic bishop in the chair.
On
16 January 1826 the ‘Roman Catholic Association for 1826’ met, and Lord Gormanston took the chair on the first day. Lord Fingall
sent his apologies from Cheltenham in England where he was taking the medicinal
waters. Killeen, seconded by O’Connell proposed the Resolutions establishing the
temporary association and they were quickly adopted. A governing committee
consisting of Sir Edward Bellew, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Sir John Burke, the Hon. Mr Preston, the Hon. Mr
Ffrench, and Messrs Sheil, Whyte, Russell, Grainger, Coppinger, and Lawless were appointed. The chair was taken on the second day by Lord
Ffrench, and on the third day by Lord Killeen, and so on. Each session was
occupied to the full. A Resolution calling for unqualified Emancipation without
the ‘wing’s was passed, though Sir Edward Bellew had
a hesitation regarding the clerical wing, for the bishops were divided on the
issue. It was decided to entrust the main petition to Lord Landsdowne
in the Lords and to Sir Francis Burdett in the Commons. Mr Corley said he would
prefer Mr Plunket which nearly made Lawless
speechless. (Lawless put forward a motion condemning Plunket
but it was not seconded.) O’Connell eulogised Plunket.
O’Connell brought forward an alternative petition on the grounds of the breach
of the Treaty of Limerick. (The alleged ‘broken treaty’ of Limerick, like
Cromwell, always had a prominent position in Irish national grievances. It was
not a treaty but a capitulation of a city and was signed by the respective generals and ratified by
William III after the siege of Limerick in 1692. It set out the terms on which
the Jacobite largely Catholic army and their
dependants, besieged in the city, could depart to France keeping their arms,
and fixing a date for their submission to William. On their arrival in France
the Catholic officers offered their services to the French king, as by the
terms of the capitulation they were perfectly free to do. But in doing this
they did not submit to William by the prescribed date.) After the 13th meeting on 29
January 1826, the Association adjourned sine
die. All the meetings were reported at length in the Dublin newspapers (SNL 17 to 30 January 1826). This, the
first of the Fourteen Day Meetings was the most successful. Friction and time
wasted were at a minimum. All were united with regard to the kind of petitions
to be put forward. The whole of the fourteen days were taken up with drafting
petitions, discussing and revising them, and agreeing on strategy. Despite the
efforts of Lawless, the ‘wings’ issue was largely ignored, for it was realised
that while the Catholics might express preferences the wording of the Bills
would be out of their hands.
The
Irish Catholic bishops were in Dublin at the same time to discuss their
response to the proposals of the Education Commissioners. O’Connell proposed
that Lord Killeen, Sir Edward Bellew, and the Hon. Mr
Preston should wait on the bishops. The bishops however did not discuss
educational matters with them, and merely furnished them with a copy of their
own resolutions on the subject. (These Resolutions of 1826 were to be a bone of
contention among the Irish bishops for half a century, for some bishops
regarded them as irreducible demands formally endorsed by all the bishops, while other regarded them as optimum
requirements some of which would not be conceded.)
The
only incident to mar the harmony arose when Mr Coppinger
wished for a formal reply from the meeting to be sent to a meeting in New York
which expressed sympathy with the ‘oppressed’ Irish Catholics, and suggested
‘separation’ from England as the remedy. This echo of the United Irishmen
displeased many including Killeen, Bellew, O’Connell,
and Sheil. The proposal was put to the vote and defeated ‘ amid a scene of
uproar and confusion which we are unable to describe. O’Connell and Sheil called
for a public repudiation of the word ‘separation’ used by Anthony Marmion of Co. Louth. This
was done by acclamation. Marmion was one of the leaders of those attacking
O’Connell over the wings. The very last thing most Catholics wanted was to have
their movement tainted by association with the United Irishmen (SNL 28 Jan 1826).
[February 1826]
Parliament resumed its sittings on 2 February 1826. A full Aggregate Meeting
was held in Clarendon Street chapel on 14 and 15 February 1826 with Lord
Killeen in the chair. The Hon. Mr Brown proposed that the petition be adopted,
and he was seconded by Mr Thomas Wyse. Wyse had had an interesting career after
parting with Ball and Woulfe in Rome in 1816. He travelled widely in the Near
East, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Sicily along with Charles
Barry, the architect of the House of Commons, sketching and measuring temples.
Re-visiting Rome he met Napoleon’s brother Lucien, and married his daughter. He
returned to Ireland in 1825. In a Resolution designed to undo the damage caused
by the unfortunate word ‘separation’ Sir Edward Bellew,
seconded by Mr John O’Brien, expressed the undivided loyalty of the Catholics.
Lawless proposed a motion against the ‘Algerine Act’
that was adopted. The Petition for Emancipation adopted by the Fourteen Day
Meeting was adopted. O’Connell called for a Twelve Day Board, and it was
approved. This was to attend to the forwarding of the petitions to London, and
so was legal (SNL 15, 16 February 1826).