“Union has been imposed on Ireland by a combination of terror, torture, force, fraud and corruption.
The instigators of the Union revived the fire of a dying rebellion. They set Protestant against Catholic and Catholic against Protestant. They stirred up internal discord, always with the object in mind of realising their plan of enslavement. While the Union was being made, Habeas Corpus was suspended, all constitutional liberty was abolished in Ireland. Martial Law was proclaimed; the use of torture was frequent; liberty, life and property were without protection; public opinion was stifled; courts martial were the order of the day; meetings legally called by magistrates were dispersed by force of arms; the voice of Ireland was stifled. The people found itself without protection. Aside from the places that were given out as bribes, the Union cost England 75 million francs!
The Union was neither a treaty nor a pact; it was carried out by violence,fraud, terror, torture and corruption. It has no power to bind, because it is the result of superior force. It is nothing but a word. The two countries are not united.
Thus was extinguished the independence of Ireland; thus was consummated the greatest crime ever committed against Ireland by the British government!”
– Daniel O’Connell, as quoted by Jules Gondon in a biography published in Paris in 1847, the year of O’Connell’s death.
Cathy Winch of The Aubane History society has translated the biography from the French and it is being published in instalments in” CHURCH AND STATE – An Irish History Magazine and Cultural Review of Ireland and the World” published quarterly by Athol Books.
The extract quoted is from the magazine’ s First Quarter 2017.
I bought that book in French as a teenager in Newry market 50 odd years ago. The part that struck me most was that O’Connell made a racist joke about Disraeli, to the effect that D. could not help being a Jew but that he (O’Connell) was certain that when Christ was crucified the thief on his left side was probably called Disraeli. I am sorry to say I was not as offended by this joke as I would be now. Incidentally Dónal have you any idea how much 75 million francs would have equated to in pounds sterling at that time. It would be interesting to compare that sum with the amount of “aid” disbursed by the British Government during the Great Hunger. Estimates range from four to nine million.
This compares with 20 million spent to in 1833-34 to compensate slave owners from Barbados, including ancestors of Douglas Hogg and Dvid Cameron. A few years after the Great Hunger the British Government spent between 40 and 60 millions on the Crimean War, on of the most useless wars (prior to World War 1) in the history of the world.
Interesting that with this history Redmond thought he could get a peaceful resolution from the British establishment and the powers in the northeast of Ireland.