After his success with Catholic Emancipation in the 1830s,
Daniel O’Connell focused his political agitations on the repeal of the Act of
Union of 1800/01, which had abolished the parliament in Dublin. In 1823, the
Catholic Association promoted the new identity of repeal and Catholic
assistants both for tenants and religious rights. O’Connell embraces both a
national-political agenda and a social reform policy. As member of the House of
Commons after 1830, O’Connell could use his political influence to bring Irish
demands to the attention of British politicians. Catholic emancipation did not
end the oppressive role of the established United Church of England and Ireland,
which caused a conflict over non-payment of tithes to the Church. For five
years, the countryside suffered from unrest as people refused to pay tithes and
lost their land. As he fought against the established Church, O’Connell worked
to accomplish more than just a religious break with Great Britain. To
illustrate to the British political establishment the desire for change among
the Irish people, he held a series of Monster Meetings with some 100,000 people
in attendance for each. O’Connell had used the locations of his meetings
carefully, with one of the largest at Tara, the location where the High Kings
of Ireland had meet in pre-Norman conquest times. The authorities prohibited
the 1843 meeting at Clontarf, a historic battlefield site, and O’Connell told his
followers to stay away. He was nevertheless charged with conspiracy and
convicted, which the House of Lords overturned. By the mid-1840s, O’Connell’s
power within the Irish movement faded.
Image: The Humble Candidate, http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/clare_election_1828.htm