*The Daniel O’Connell Monument in Ennis. Photograph: Fiona McNamara.
A SERIES of events are to be held next month celebrating 250 years since the birth of Daniel O’Connell.
Born in Cahirciveen, Co Kerry on August 6th 1775, Daniel O’Connell who became known as The Liberator is one of the many colourful political figures to have strong ties to Co Clare.
It was the Clare election of 1828 which was a turning point in his career but also in the history of the Catholic Church. In 1823, O’Connell founded the Catholic Association. The aim of the organisation was to use all the legal means available to secure emancipation. It turned into a mass crusade with the support of the Catholic clergy. All members of the association paid a membership of a penny a month (the Catholic rent). This helped to raise a large fund.
With the support of the forty-shilling freeholders, O’Connell in the 1828 election managed a huge victory against the government candidate. He was well supported by the clergy whose influence on the poor uneducated peasant class was enormous. The polling took place in Ennis at the old courthouse where the O’Connell monument now stands. At the final count, he was elected by a majority of about eleven hundred votes. The ascendancy party had suffered its first big knock since 1798.
At the King’s insistence, O’Connell was not allowed to take his seat until he had been re-elected for Clare. In February 1830, O’Connell became the first Catholic in modern history to sit in the House of Commons.
After his great goal, the Repeal Movement failed, The Liberator left Ireland for the last time in January 1847. He made a touching speech in the House of Commons in which he appealed for aid for his country. In March, acting on the advice of his doctor, he set out to Italy. Following his death in Genoa on 15 May 1847, his body was returned to Ireland and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Senior engineer with Clare County Council, Seán Lenihan confirmed a calendar of events had been planned to mark 250th years since O’Connell’s birth. An exhibition of O’Connell memorabilia from the private collection of historian Declan Barron will be on display in the County Museum on Wednesday August 6th.
Saturday August 9th according to Lenihan “will be the key day”. Plenary sessions will hear from Professor Patrick Geoghegan and Professor Maurice Bric. “They are two experts, their reflections will be welcome”. Videos of the life and times of O’Connell will be displayed at the Súil Gallery in glór and the de Valera library. “It will be another opportunity to show what the library has to offer”.
Glór will host a musical event on the Saturday night which will feature Diarmuid de Faoite and Seán Lyons among others.
Commemorative wreaths will be laid on Sunday August 10th by the Mayor of the Ennis MD, Cllr Mary Howard (FG) and Mayor of Clare, Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) at the O’Connell Monument.
A time capsule will be buried at O’Connell Square with students from Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Cíosóg and Ennis CBS working on the material to place in this capsule. “Maybe we will dig it up in fifty years time,” Lenihan remarked. A walking tour of Ennis will also take place on the Sunday, he outlined.
In November, Cllr Howard proposed that the O’Connell milestone be celebrated in the county town. “Daniel O’Connell was the man who made peaceful protests common and raised Irish Catholics off their knees, it was the first time since Reformation that an openly Catholic MP was elected even though he was unable to take his seat, he actually embraced women being involved in politics, up till then women weren’t involved and that is the way it was done”.
People of Ennis and Clare need to be made aware of O’Connell’s connections to the county, Cllr Murphy maintained. “We have O’Connell Street, the street acknowledges the man’s presence, the monument is there, we don’t have a festival like Mary eludes to and it is a trick we are missing out on”.
Promoting Ennis on a wider scale must be considered, Cllr Tommy Guilfoyle (SF) believed. “Ennis as the gateway to the Wild Atlantic Way as the capital town of Clare, if we are to become a Killarney, Kilkenny or Galway then we need to have festivals, this is a man who carries history, people will debate what he did or didn’t do so let that become part of it”.
