As O’Connell focused all his energies of the impossible
struggle to obtain a political settlement of the repeal debate, younger members
of the Repeal Association urged more dramatic measures. Their title Young
Ireland was both a derogatory statement from the older and more established
members of the organization to dismiss them and a connection to the Italian
inspired movement of revolutionary, republican, nationalists Giuseppe Mazzini’s
Young Italy movement. The movement formed in March 1839, with John Blake
Dillon, Thomas MacNevin, William Eliot Hudson, and Thomas Davis. The group
questioned O’Connell’s ability and tone, his close alliance with the Whig party
in Great Britain, and overbearing attitude. As members of the organization, the
young dissenters could recruit additional supporters within the repeal
Association, especially the author of Felon’s Track Michael Doheny and Charles
Gavan Duffy. Looking for a leader, the movement looked to William Smith
O’Brien, who reluctantly took up the scepter of the movement. Fearful,
O’Connell reacted against this vocal group of revolutionary minded individuals.
In the summer of 1846, O’Connell forced a vote on the Repeal Association to
abhor violence. In the debate, the young Thomas Francis Meagher rose up and challenged
the Liberator, claiming that violence was necessary as a last resort measure.
He argued in the speech, that gave him his nom de guerre Meagher of the Sword,
that the Irish might need to use force in the future and therefore should not
deny themselves this option. The dissenting members organized the Irish
Confederation to voice their views for repeal, if necessary with violence.
Image: Doheny, Michael. The Felon's Track: Or, History of the Late Attempted Outbreak in Ireland. New York: W.H. Holbrooke, 1849.