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316 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
Government, O’Connell never once supported any measure or thought which advocated even a hint of Irishmen rising in violence to fight for Ireland’s freedom. The celebrated mantra attributed to him, albeit falsely, but one which rested easy on his shoulders said ‘freedom was not worth the shedding of a single drop of blood.’
Though he publicly spoke against the Union when that act was before Parliament, O’Connell did not come into prominence as a politician, nor was he looked upon by Irish Catholics as leader material until 1810, when he was elected Chairman of the Catholic Committee, the body responsible for agitating for Catholic relief. Previous to O’Connell’s election, the Catholic Committee was dominated by weak and unenthusiastic artistocrats like Lords Fingall and Trimelstown, individuals whose purported method of obtaining Catholic redress was to practically beg the British for it. Up to this they had relied on timid, unconvincing petitions to the British Parliament and when these were declined, as they nearly always were, they adopted the useless and naieve policy of “dignified silence.” When O’ Connell, a man of boundless energy and a born fighter for reform was elected, he quick- ly did away with the heretofore methods of ‘tipping the forelock to the British’ and instead, advised the people to ‘stop begging for Catholic Emancipation as a favour, but to demand it as a right.’ And to achieve this, he urged and cajoled the people to agitate, harass and ham- per the British Government in Ireland. It should be mentioned that O’Connell’s method of agitating was always “constitutional,” in other words, keep within the law.
About this time the vast majority of the Catholic population of Ireland was mostly poor and nearly all dispirited, added to which, they were also divided on something called the ‘veto question.’ Apparently, many of the British statesmen were willing to give Emancipa- tion to the Irish Catholics, if they, in turn, would allow the Crown a veto on the appointment of their bishops. In essence, this meant that if the Government, for whatever reason, took a dislike to a particular Catholic clergyman who was in line to be nominated as Bishop, they would then have the right of vetoing and preventing his appointment.
All the aristocratic Catholic leaders and it must be said, some of the Bishops, were in favour of giving the veto to the Government in exchange for Emancipation, but that said, on the other hand, ninety-five per cent of the laity, most of the Bishops, and nearly all the priests were vehement in their opposition to giving the British any influence whatsoever in the appointment of their Bishops. O’Connell found the veto process totally unacceptable
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