Daniel O'Connell Quotes

You must, I repeat, force your question on the Parliament. You ought not to confide in English liberality. It is a plant not genial to the British soil. It must be forced. It requires a hot-bed. The English were always persecutors. Before the so-styled Reformation the English tortured the Jews and strung up in scores the Lollards. After that Reformation they still roasted the Jews and hung the Papists. In Mary's days the English with their usual cruelty retaliated the tortures on the Protestants. After her short reign there were near two centuries of the most barbarous and unrelenting cruelty exercised towards the Catholics, a cruelty the more emaciating because it was sought to be justified by imputing to them tenets and opinions which they always rejected and abhorred. The Jews too suffered in the same way. I once more repeat, Do not confide in any liberality but that which you will yourself rouse into action and compel into operation.

And now I make this declaration—that if the Repeal of the Union depended upon my change of opinion, or the suppression of my sentiments with respect to the slavery of the negro, I would neither change the one nor suppress the other. I am not bound to look to consequences in a matter of principle like this, and this, therefore, I do say, that, come what may, I shall never cease to pour out my entire heart and soul in reprobating and in calling down the curses of mankind upon that vile system.

England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity

The principle of my political life … is, that all ameliorations and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

What care I for the vagabonds if they were twice as powerful? I would rather have one Irish landed proprietor of weight than all their slave-breeders. It is ourselves alone must work out Repeal.

Allow me, I pray you, to use the familiarity of a brother-Repealer in addressing you as if we were long acquainted, for, indeed, who ever joins in the struggle to make our beloved fatherland a nation again is dear to me.

We talked some pure, because moderate, democracy. Hail, Liberty! How cheering is thy name! How happy should mankind be if thou wast universally diffused! Strange it might appear that thou shouldst be hateful to any. But thou art calumniated, as thou art disgraced by the nominal advocates. The interested, those who grow fat on the miseries of mankind, the tyrant, and the demagogue condemn thee. The one raises his voice aloud and is heard in the public places to declaim against thee; the other more effectually damns thee by his support.

What I now say I wish to reach England, and I ask, What is to be done with Ireland? What is to be done with the Catholics? One of two things. They must either crush us or conciliate us. There is no going on as we are; there is nothing so dangerous as going on as we are.

I believe that religion ought to be the basis of education; and I came over from Ireland for no other purpose than humbly to represent the necessity of making religion the basis of education, to establish it not only as a part, but an essential part of it.

At Taunton this miscreant had the audacity to style me an incendiary! Why, I was a greater incendiary in 1831 than I am at present, if I ever were one; and if I am, he is doubly so, for having employed me. Then he calls me a traitor. My answer to that is, he is a liar. He is a liar in action and in words. His life is a living lie. He is a disgrace to his species. What taste of society must that be that could tolerate such a creature, having the audacity to come forward with one set of principles at one time, and obtain political assistance by reason of those principles, and at another to profess diametrically the reverse? His life, I say again, is a living lie. He is the most degraded of his species and kind, and England is degraded in tolerating, or having upon the face of her society a miscreant of his abominable, foul, and atrocious nature. My language is harsh, and I owe an apology for it; but I will tell you why I owe that apology: it is for this reason, that if there be harsher terms in the British language I should use them, because it is the harshest of all terms that would be descriptive of a wretch of his species. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the cross, whose name, I verily believe, must have been D'Israeli. For aught I know, the present D'Israeli is descended from him, and with the impression that he is, I now forgive the heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief who died upon the cross.

So soon as Protestants of all sects combine to obtain our legislative independence the utmost cordiality will prevail, as in 1782, between all Irishmen, and we will be able to make the mighty change with perfect safety to person and property, and to the continuance of the connection between the two countries.

The people of England will not sanction this scheme of godless education, and you must introduce religion into your system, or it will not be received by the people of Ireland. The Irish are essentially a religious people. Infidelity is unknown in Ireland. Act manfully, therefore—make religion the basis of your proceedings, and fear not. By so doing you will have a better prospect before you—you will have the protection of a higher Power if you adopt proper principles as the foundation of your scheme; but do not flatter yourselves with the idea that you are doing anything conciliating to Ireland if, in a matter of this kind, you exclude religion from your consideration. Let there be Presbyterianism for the Presbyterian, Protestantism for the Protestant, and Catholicism for the Catholic. I want nothing for the Catholic which I am not ready to assert for others. Let there be fair play and justice to all.

Moderation is the character of genuine patriotism, of that patriotism which seeks for the happiness of mankind. There is another species which is caused by hatred of oppression. This is a passion. The other is a principle.

I am most thoroughly convinced that the Repeal alone can keep secure the religion and the liberties of the Irish people.

Good God! what a brute man becomes when ignorant and oppressed! Oh, Liberty, what horrors are perpetrated in thy name! May every virtuous revolutionist remember the horrors of Wexford!