Daniel O'Connell Quotes

I have finished [William] Godwin. His work [Enquiry Concerning Political Justice] cannot be too highly praised. All mankind are indebted to the author. The cause of despotism never met a more formidable adversary. He goes to the root of every evil that now plagues man and degrades him almost beneath the savage beast. He shows the source whence all the misfortunes of mankind flow. That source he demonstrates to be political government.

England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity

Your enemies say—and let them say it—that I wish for a separation between England and Ireland. The charge is false; it is, to use a modern quotation, as "false as hell!" And the men who originated, and those who seek to inculcate it, know it to be a falsehood. There lives not a man less desirous of a separation between the two countries—there lives not a man more deeply convinced, that the connection between them, established upon the basis of one king and separate parliaments, would be of the utmost value to the peace and happiness of both countries, and to the liberties of the civilized world.

The oath at present required by law is, "That the sacrifice of the mass, and the invocation of the blessed Virgin Mary, and other saints, as now practised in the Church of Rome, are impious and idolatrous." Of course I will never stain my soul with such an oath: I leave that to my honourable opponent, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. He has often taken that horrible oath; he is ready to take it again, and asks your votes, to enable him so to swear. I would rather be torn limb from limb than take it... Return me to parliament, and it is probable that such blasphemous oath will be abolished for ever.

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

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.

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.

Electors of the County Clare! choose between me and Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald; choose between him who has so long cultivated his own interests, and one who seeks only to advance yours; choose between the sworn libeller of the Catholic faith, and one who has devoted his early life to your cause; who has consumed his manhood in a struggle for your liberties, and who has ever lived, and is ready to die for, the integrity, the honour, the purity, of the Catholic faith, and the promotion of Irish freedom and happiness.

Ireland lay in torpor till roused by the call for religious liberty. She would, I fear and I am convinced, have relapsed into apathy if liberty of conscience had been speedily conceded. Let them delay Emancipation but yet a little while, and they will find that they have roused the sleeping lion of Ireland to awaking activity, which will not permit our further slumber till Ireland is herself again. (Loud applause.)

My days – the blossom of my youth and the flower of my manhood – have been darkened by the dreariness of servitude. In this my native land – in the land of my sires – I am degraded without fault as an alien and an outcast.

I was maddened when I heard the bells of St. Patrick's ringing out a joyful peal for Ireland's degradation, as if it was a glorious national festival. My blood boiled, and I vowed, on that morning, that the foul dishonour should not last, if I could ever put an end to it.

Let us show to Ireland that we have nothing in view but her good; nothing in our hearts but the desire of mutual forgiveness, mutual toleration, and mutual affection; in fine, let every man who feels with me proclaim that if the alternative were offered him of union, or the re-enactment of the penal code in all its pristine horrors, that he would prefer without hesitation the latter, as the lesser and more sufferable evil; that he would rather confide in the justice of his brethren, the Protestants of Ireland, who have already liberated him, than lay his country at the feet of foreigners.

I entirely agree with you on the principle of freedom of conscience, and no man can admit that sacred principle without extending it equally to the Jew as to the Christian. To my mind it is an eternal and universal truth that we are responsible to God alone for our religious belief—and that human laws are impious when they attempt to control the exercise of those acts of individual and general devotion which such belief requires. I think not lightly of the awful responsibility of rejecting true belief—but that responsibility is entirely between man and his Creator, and any fellow-being who usurps dominion over belief is to my mind a blasphemer against the Deity, as he certainly is a tyrant over his fellow-creatures. With these sentiments you will find me the constant and active friend to every measure which tends to give the Jews an equality of civil rights with all other the King's subjects—a perfect unconditional equality. I think every day a day of injustice until that civil equality is attained by the Jews.

There is an utter ignorance of, and indifference to, our sufferings and privations… What care they for us, provided we be submissive, pay the taxes, furnish recruits for the Army and Navy and bless the masters who either despise or oppress or combine both? The apathy that exists respecting Ireland is worse than the national antipathy they bear us.

How cruel the Penal Laws are which exclude me from a fair trial with men whom I look upon as so much my inferiors...