Top 16 Quotes & Sayings by Daniel O'Connell

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish politician Daniel O'Connell.

Last updated on November 20, 2024.

Daniel O'Connell, hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Ireland through to the poorest class of tenant farmer helped secure Catholic emancipation in 1829 and allowed him to take a seat in the United Kingdom Parliament to which he had twice been elected. At Westminster O'Connell championed liberal and reform causes but failed in his declared objective for Ireland. This was to restore a separate Irish Parliament through repeal of the 1800 Act of Union. Against the background of a growing agrarian crisis and, in his final years, of the Great Irish Famine, O'Connell contended with dissension at home. Criticism of his political compromises and system of patronage led to a split in the national movement he had singularly led.

Irish - Politician | August 6, 1775 - May 15, 1847

Source: Wikipedia

There is nothing politically right that is morally wrong.

Daniel O'Connell

Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong.

Daniel O'Connell

No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation's heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.

Daniel O'Connell

I want to make all Europe and America know it - I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require - the restoration of our domestic parliament.

Daniel O'Connell

Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language.

Daniel O'Connell

The principle of my political life ... is that all amelioration and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

Daniel O'Connell

No man was ever a good soldier but the man who goes into the battle determined to conquer, or not to come back from the battle field (cheers). No other principle makes a good soldier.

Daniel O'Connell

My days – the blossom of my youth and the flower of my manhood – have been darkened by the dreariness of servitude. In this my native land – in the land of my sires – I am degraded without fault as an alien and an outcast.

Daniel O'Connell

The poor old Duke [of Wellington]! What shall I say of him? To be sure he was born in Ireland, but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.

Daniel O'Connell

Every religion is good—every religion is true to him who in his good caution and conscience believes it.

Daniel O'Connell

There is an utter ignorance of, and indifference to, our sufferings and privations....What care they for us, provided we be submissive, pay the taxes, furnish recruits for the Army and Navy and bless the masters who either despise or oppress or combine both? The apathy that exists respecting Ireland is worse than the national antipathy they bear us.

Daniel O'Connell