Daniel, a celebrated political agitator, was born at Carhen, in the neighbourhood of Cahirciveen, in the county of Kerry, on the 6th of August 1775. He was descended from an old Roman Catholic family in his native county, who could boast more of the antiquity of their descent than of the influence of their circumstances. His father, Morgan O'Connell, if not a rich man, possessed at least a tolerable competence, the fruits of his own industry and prudence; and enjoyed the advantage, during those stirring times, of comparative seclusion amid the romantic wilds of Kerry. Daniel received his first lesson from a poor old hedge-schoolmaster, who being engaged on a begging expedition, took a fancy for the child, and is said to have taught him his alphabet at a single sitting. At the age of thirteen O'Connell was sent to a school at Redington, Long Island, near Cove, conducted by a Catholic priest named Harrington. After spending a year at this institution without, according to Fagan, giving much indication of superior talent, young O'Connell and his brother were removed by their uncle Maurice, who had adopted the lads, with the design of being sent to some suitable place of learning on the Continent. They accordingly entered the Jesuit's college of St Omer's in France in 1791, and after remaining a year there, they removed to the English college of Douai. At the former institution Daniel seems to have carried all before him, and the principal, Dr Stapylton, wrote of him when leaving, "I never was so much mistaken in my life as I shall be, unless he be destined to make a remarkable figure in society." The outbreak of the French revolution brought their studies to a close, and the two young Irishmen turned their faces towards England the same day the unfortunate Louis lost his head at Paris. The atrocities of the Reign of Terror produced a strong impression on the mind of O'Connell; O'Connell, and he had no sooner got on board the English packet-boat at Calais than he plucked the tricolor cockade from his cap, trampled it under his feet, and flung it into the sea. He returned to Ireland, he said, almost a "Tory at heart." During his absence the rigour of the penal laws against Roman Catholics had become somewhat relaxed; and the profession of law was now thrown open to the Catholic as well as the Protestant. O'Connell resolved to prepare himself for the Irish bar, and became a student at one of the Inns of Court in London in 1794. He was called to the bar in 1798, and commenced a most brilliant career as a legal pleader. Politics do not seem to have occupied much of his public attention at this period, and he even held aloof from the wild and unscrupulous revolutionists of his time. The policy which subsequently guided his public life had already taken hold of his mind. "He would accept of no social amelioration at the cost of a single drop of blood."

O'Connell made his first public appearance at a political meeting held by the Catholics of Dublin in the Royal Exchange Hall, on the 13th of January 1800, to petition against the proposed union of the English and Irish legislatures. In this short speech are to be found in germ the fundamental ideas of his public life. There is a certain stiffness and formality about it, doubtless incidental to youth and inexperience; but it is pervaded by a sturdy energy and clear-headed determination which gives solidity to his patriotic indignation, and commands instant respect. From this period O'Connell gradually assumes a leading place among the political agitators of the day. In 1802 he was privately married to his cousin Mary, daughter of Dr O'Connell of Tralee. The disastrous insurrection of 1803, known as "Emmett's rebellion," found O'Connell enrolled among the "lawyer's infantry" in the general arming which then took place. The calamitous results of that unhappy movement, and the temporary cruelties which it entailed, served more and more to inflame the passions of the disaffected, and gave an increasing prominence to the "Catholic question." The "Catholic Board," having incurred the displeasure of the government, was dissolved by proclamation in 1804; but the zeal and activity of its adherents succeeded in reviving it soon after under the title of the "Catholic Committee." Regular reports of the debates of this body are to be found in the Dublin newspapers from 1808. O'Connell, who was now in good practice, and who seems to have been regarded as the most promising barrister of the day, directed his surprising energies more systematically and continuously to the cause of the Roman Catholics; and became the acknowledged leader of political reform in Ireland. It is to this period of his life that O'Connell alludes in his pamphlet written in reply to the attack of Lord Shrewsbury in 1842, when he rebuts the taunt of receiving "the rent," as it was called, in the following words:—For more than twenty years before emancipation, the burden of the cause was thrown upon me. I had to arrange the meetings, to prepare the resolutions, to furnish replies to the correspondence, to examine the case of each person complaining of practical grievances, to rouse the torpid, to animate the lukewarm, to control the violent and the inflammatory, to avoid the shoals and breakers of the law, to guard against multiplied treachery, and at all times to oppose, at every peril, the powerful and multitudinous enemies of the cause. . . . At that period, and for more than twenty years, there was no day that I did not devote from one to two hours, often much more, to the working out of the Catholic cause, and that without receiving or allowing the offer of any remuneration, even for the personal expenditure incurred in the agitation of the cause itself." The most painful occurrence, of a personal kind, of O'Connell's entire career took place O'Connell, in 1815. Having applied the term "beggarly" in one of his speeches to the Dublin corporation, one of the members of that body, Mr D'Estere, came forth in defence of its injured dignity, and demanded satisfaction from the agitator. A duel followed, which ultimately proved fatal to D'Estere. O'Connell never ceased to express the most painful regret at the issue of this melancholy affair. Beyond the general indication just given of the services rendered by him to the cherished cause, nothing of very special importance in O'Connell's career demands attention until the summer of 1828, when the decisive struggle for Roman Catholic emancipation had reached its crisis. A vacancy having occurred in the representation of the county of Clare in the month of June of that year, O'Connell was proposed as a candidate, despite his adherence to the Roman Catholic faith, and was returned to Parliament by a great majority. On reaching Westminster, he refused to take the oath, which had been framed with the express design of excluding Roman Catholics. The attitude which he assumed had the effect of bringing the civil disabilities of his party prominently before the nation. A year passed away full of keen and noisy debate, both in and out of Parliament, without any decisive result; yet the influence of intelligent public opinion, even among Protestants, was waxing so strong in favour of Catholic emancipation, that the following year witnessed the repeal of the last of those civil disabilities to which Roman Catholics had been so long and so unjustly subjected. O'Connell took his seat as a member of Parliament in May 1829. Here he seems to have been both feared and disliked, and was received by the House with the most icy coldness. The day came, however, when his matchless oratorical powers were recognised, and he ultimately became perhaps the most attractive debater in the House of Commons. (See an excellent sketch of the public speakers of that period in the New Monthly Magazine for 1832.) The career of O'Connell is of necessity so much interwoven with the public history of the time, from his entry upon his parliamentary duties, that the reader will find his subsequent history placed in the most intelligible light by referring to the articles BRITAIN, and IRELAND. At the general election in 1830 he was returned for his native Kerry. He represented Dublin from 1832 to 1835, when he was unseated. The following year he sat for Kilkenny; in 1837 he was once more returned for the capital; and in 1841 he was chosen representative of the county of Cork. The Conservatives came into power in 1841, and the great Irish agitation in behalf of the repeal of the Union began to assume a formidable character. "Monster meetings" were held all over the country. The "rent," or annual subscription for the support of the "Liberator" and the cause of repeal, poured in in the most cheering manner; and O'Connell strove to unite all Irishmen in the struggle. He announced in the Repeal Association—"1843 is, and shall be, the great repeal year." Spots rendered sacred by tradition and song were chosen as rallying-points for the indignant display of popular independence; and the royal hill of Tara, the curragh of Kildare, and the rath of Mullaghmast, shook with the noisy patriotism of thousands upon thousands of wild ignorant Irishmen. The chief laid aside for a time the dignified eloquence of the senator, and adopted a style better adapted to captivate the hearts of his admiring fellow-countrymen. Like Nestor of old in the camp of the Greeks, "the words distilled from his lips like honey;" but it is to be feared there was more "blarney" than wisdom in them. No man knew better than O'Connell what to say, and when to say it; and if he treated the House of Commons to splendid displays of fiery logic, impassioned invective, and brilliant retort, he knew well where a slight touch of swagger gave a man a kingly air, where a rare joke went farther than a good argument, where big words passed for wisdom, and loud ones for courage. "The great Irish people" who believed in repeal were down on their knees before the "Liberator;" his heart was cheered within him; and out of the abundance of his generosity he made the most liberal promises. "I hope," he said, "to be able to give you, as a New Year's gift, a Parliament in College Green." Other cheer awaited that festive season, however. Another "monster meeting" was projected at Clontarf, three miles from Dublin, at which the choice of those swaggering patriots were to appear on horseback, and parade before the idle and applauding multitude as the glorious "Repeal Cavalry." But the Irish government failed to sympathize with this grand conception; and the iron hand of power was lifted menacingly in the face of repeal. The prohibitory proclamation of government was followed up by a peaceful recommendation from the "Liberator," who always strove to steer clear of a physical collision. This proclamation was issued on the 7th of October 1843, and ere seven days had passed, the Chief and a number of the leading repealers were arrested on a charge of conspiracy and sedition. O'Connell had, throughout his entire career as a political agitator, manifested the most consummate skill and self-command in constantly treading on the very verge of constitutionalism, and yet always keeping within the bounds of strict legal activity. Attempts had previously been made to convict him of sedition, but to no purpose. But the flush of success of "the great repeal year" apparently threw him off his guard, and the "Liberator" was now within the clutches of the law. After a trial of twenty-four days, the Irish judges sentenced O'Connell to imprisonment for twelve months, with a fine of L2000, and bound him over to keep the peace for seven years. The judgment was carried before the House of Lords, and the decision of the Irish judges was reversed. This trial had the effect of dissolving the charm exercised by the "Liberator" in Ireland: it well nigh beggared the Repeal Association, and indeed gave the death-blow to the entire movement. O'Connell's doctrine of the absolute renunciation of physical force in seeking political amelioration met with no favour at the hands of the "Young Ireland" party; and in 1846 they seceded from a leader who had been the champion of the cause for forty years. The Irish famine was only needed to break the spirit of the indomitable O'Connell. With failing health and a heavy heart, he set out on a devotional pilgrimage to Rome in 1847, but he had only reached Genoa, when he was suddenly called to lay down his load on the 15th of May of the same year. At his own request, his heart was embalmed and borne to Rome, and his body was carried back to the land which he had loved so well. He left three daughters and four sons to lament his loss. His eldest son Maurice, for many years the representative of Tralee, died in 1853. The Memoir on Ireland written by O'Connell never got beyond the first volume.

(See the Life and Speeches of Daniel O'Connell, M.P., by his son, John O'Connell, M.P., 2 vols., 1846; The Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell, by William Fagan, M.P., 2 vols., 1847; Personal Recollections of Daniel O'Connell, by Daunt, 2 vols., 1848; Last Days of Daniel O'Connell, by MacCabe, 1847.)