Dinner date and court brought Daniel O’Connell to Downpatrick

Dinner date and court brought Daniel O’Connell to Downpatrick

30 July 2025

NEXT month marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell, the 19th century Irish leader famously remembered as ‘The Liberator’. 

A State commemoration attended by Taoiseach Micheál Martin will be held at O’Connell’s ancestral home at Derrynane House in Co Kerry on August 6.

The event will be the highlight of an extensive programme of cultural events taking place across the Republic of Ireland to mark the anniversary of the man, who led the ultimately successful campaign for Catholic Emancipation.

Closer to home, Daniel O’Connell’s legacy lives on in Downpatrick where he was involved in a trial at the town’s courthouse.

The Catholic Association had been founded by O’Connell in 1823 with the aim of establishing the right of Catholics to sit in the House of Commons at Westminster.

This had been an objective of the United Irishmen and the Catholic Committee back in the 1790s but by the time of O’Connell’s campaign only Protestants could sit as Irish MPs.

O’Connell’s large rallies helped to force the issue of reform, as did his fundraising for the Catholic Association and the support from the Catholic Church.

O’Connell’s victory in an election for a county seat in Clare in 1828 was a spectacular victory for the Catholic Association and threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis in Ireland. 

The campaign for Catholic Emancipation intensified. Locally, William Sharman Crawford, who had inherited his father-in-law’s estates in Crawfordsburn and Rademon, near Crossgar, in 1827, came out in support of the measure.

In a speech in Newry in February 1829, Sharman Crawford declared: “As a Protestant, I now stand forward to assist by all constitutional means my Catholic countrymen in claiming for them a full participation in the benefits of the Constitution.”

Fearing a revolution on their doorstep, the British Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, and his Chief Secretary for Ireland, Robert Peel, advocated for Catholic Emancipation,  which became law two months later, despite the opposition of King George IV and the House of Lords.

While O’Connell was precluded from sitting in Parliament as the legislation was debated, he was arguably at the peak of his powers, revelling in his reputation as ‘The Liberator’.

As all this was happening, O’Connell, a barrister by trade, arrived in Downpatrick to represent the plaintiffs in a civil court case during the Spring Assizes in front of Honourable Justice Vandeleur.

On his way to the town his carriage was surrounded by an ecstatic crowd in Dundalk and he was cheered as he departed for Newry after the horses were changed at a local inn. 

O’Connell was welcomed to Downpatrick by the parish priest, Father Cornelius Denvir. Meanwhile, the Downpatrick diarist Aynsworth Pilson noted that he was one of twenty gentlemen who attended a dinner in O’Connell’s honour, costing fifteen shillings per head, held in Denvir’s Hotel.

The record of O’Connell’s role in the court case is limited to a few snippets in the Belfast Newsletter. The famous barrister began reading out a series of letters relating to the case of the disputed will: “The reading of these letters was commenced by Counsellor O’Connell; but after reading one or two, counsel for the Defendant disputed to the manner in which they were read – that Mr O’Connell “laid too much emphasis on particular parts of them.” 

In a stinging political jibe, Counsellor Holmes “observed that Mr O’Connell was too proud of his newly-acquired English accent – indeed, said he, it is quite irresistible.” As a result of this rebuke, the letters were handed to be read by the sub-sheriff Wiliam Caldbeck. As the case continued, the newspaper noted that O’Connell delivered a “very eloquent, animated and impressive speech” on behalf of the plaintiffs.

O’Connell’s brief stay in Downpatrick meant that he was unable to attend a dinner in Haye’s Tavern in Dublin to raise money for the St Bridget’s Orphan School of Lyons, on Lord Cloncurry’s Kildare estate.

Dinner was delayed in the hope that O’Connell would appear, but in the end his son, Maurice, presided over the occasion, which became a celebration of the political changes of the day.

O’Connell’s achievements were not universally celebrated. After he published a letter on April 14, 1829, sub-headed ‘The First Full Day of Liberation’, which described Catholic Emancipation as “one of the greatest triumphs recorded in history” and hinting at the continuation of popular demonstrations in pursuit of broader goals, the Newsletter opined: “We have all along believed, and we have repeatedly said, and warned our Protestant readers that mere political equality was but part of the scheme of agitation.”

The political and religious battle lines had been drawn.