Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1916-03-17
He Fought the Catholic Cause in
All Places and in All
Seasons.
Was Over Catholic Emancipation
That He Achieved His
Greatest Triumph.
FROM FIRST HELD HEAD HIGH.

One of the chief characteristics
of Daniel O'ConnelPs early life was
courage. 1t needed no small cour-
age for a young man, and a Cath
Ollie, to lift up his voice eloquently
against the Union at a meeting
well-nigh overawed by the pres
ence of armed soldiery, under the
command of the detested Major
SIR. Abiding to the Irish Par
lament which had voted away the
liberty of Ireland, O'ConDell said:
THE representative we had
elected for the short space of eight
years had no authority to dispose
of their country forever. They
were the servants of the nation, not
its masters. l deny that the nation
Itself has a right to barter its in
dependence or to commit political
suicide. But when our servants
destroyed our existence as a nation
they added to the baseness of as
sassination all the guilt of high
treason"
1t needed no small courage for
such man to take upon himself,
as he did a little later, the part of
the champion of the Catholics of
Ireland. At the time when O'Con-
nell was rapidly making his way
into the front rank of the legal
profession, the Irish Catholics were
reduced by oppression, by privation
and tie renal laws to a condition
of almost despairing apathy. They
had no ambitions which they could
hope to crafty; they had no priv
ileges as citizens; they had almost
no rights as human beings 1t was
for this class that a young man of
their own faith now dared to come
forward. not merely as their de-
fender but as their vindicator and
justifier. From the first he held
his head high and cared for no
man. From the first he adopted
an attitude of defiance and a tone
of even aggressive scorn of his
opponents. He fought the Catholic
cause in all places and in all sea-
sons, on the public platform and in
the crowded court room, with an
eloquence which was not less re-
markable for its power than for
its passion, for it's beauty than for
its bitterness, for its admirable
arguments in favor of its cause
than for its merciless attacks upon
his powerful adversaries.
1t was a new thing for the
Catholics to see a man of their own
creed rising up from their midst
to assail the, Ascendancy with all
the weapons of wit, scorn, satire
and invective of which O'Connell
was then and always so complete a
master. Fearless and serene he
assailed the dominant class after a
fashion to which they were indeed
unaccustomed, and the surprise of
the Catholics on discovering such
a defender can scarcely have been
greater than that of the Accordance
in finding that the despised Cath
olics had found at last a tongue
that was more terrible to them than
the sword.
In 1912 he made a speech in
Limerick which is one of the finest
specimens of his surprising elo-
Quence. After reminding his hear
ers of the valor of their ancestors,
he said: Eyes. if Ireland is fairly
reused to the battle of the country
and Of freedom, all is safe. Britain
has often been conquered. The
Romans conquered her. The Saxons
conquered her. The Normans con-
quered her. In short, whenever she
was invaded she was consuered.
But our country was never sub
dued; we never lost our liberties
n hQff1n ma /.
to armed conquerors. 1t is true the
old inhabitants lost their country
by piece-meal, by fraud and treach-
cry. They relied upon the faith of
men who never, never observed a
treaty with them, until a new race
has sprung up in dissension and
discord. But the Irish heart and
soul still predominant and pervade
the sons of the oppressors them
selves"
The coarsese vituperation was
daily poured upon O'Connell, but
this had little or no effect. Those
who assailed him he could assail
again; those who abused him he
could abuse yet more roundly. He
could meet the ferocity of his OPP
pOnents with a ferocity of his own,
far more acrid and far more gall
ing. His marvellous eloquence made
him more than match for the
ablest of his opponents. This was
no mere eloquence of the Senate or
of the school; it was as much at
home on the hillside as in the coun-
ell chamber, upon the hastings as in
the hall. 1t did not need for its
audience q chosen group of cul-
tivated, educated men. 1t stirred
the blood and fired the mind of
the humblest with the same national
pulsations and aspirations that 1t
gave to the statesman and to the
scholar.
Such was the man who had now