Page 314 - Demo

314 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
Daniel O’Connell, Esqr. M.P. shown seated with a scroll in his right hand. Drawn by John. Stewart (1828- 1865) c.. 1830; Engraved by H. Robinson.
“Though nature may have given me subordinate talents, I never will be satisfied with a subordinate situation in my profession. No man is able, I am aware, to supply the total deficiency of ability; but everybody is capable of improving and enlarging a stock, however small, and, in its beginning, contemptible. It is this reflection that affords me consolation.”
(Daniel O’Connell)
Daniel O’Connell was born into a well-to-do Catholic family at Carhen, near Cahir- ceiveen, county Kerry, in 1775. It is known that despite the fact that the O’Connell family, like so many others, suffered under the Penal Laws and could only hold their property by having it registered in the name of a friendly Protestant neighbour, they were always in- clined, it is said, ‘toward loyalty to the British Crown’. Yet, it should also be mentioned that some of the O’Connells bucked that trend and during previous generations many had gone to Europe as ‘Wild Geese,’ several of whom followed a career in the French military. His uncle, Daniel Charles O’ Connell for example, who became Count O’ Connell, was the last Colonel of the Irish Brigade, before its dissolution in 1792.
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