Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2: Marriage and a Duel
    The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2: Marriage and a Duel
    The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2: Marriage and a Duel
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2: Marriage and a Duel

    By Brian Igoe

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This is the second in the Daniel O’Connell series of LiteBite Books. It takes us from the end of the last book in 1800, which was the year of the Act of Union between England and Ireland, to 1828 when at the famous Clare Election he was elected to Parliament. That election was the culmination of a series of Catholic electoral victories in Ireland, but these were, one might think, Pyrrhic Victory.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrian Igoe
    Release dateJun 30, 2013
    ISBN9781301019830
    The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2: Marriage and a Duel
    Author

    Brian Igoe

    You don’t need to know much about me because I never even considered writing BOOKS until I was in my sixties. I am a retired businessman and have written more business related documents than I care to remember, so the trick for me is to try and avoid writing like that in these books…. Relevant, I suppose, is that I am Irish by birth but left Ireland when I was 35 after ten years working in Waterford. We settled in Zimbabwe and stayed there until I retired, and that gave me loads of material for books which I will try and use sometime. So far I have only written one book on Africa, “The Road to Zimbabwe”, a light hearted look at the country’s history. And there’s also a small book about adventures flying light aircraft in Africa. And now I am starting on ancient Rome, the first book being about Julius Caesar, Marcus Cato, the Conquest of Gaul, (Caesar and Cato, the Road to Empire) and the Civil War. But for most of my books so far I have gone back to my roots and written about Irish history, trying to do so as a lively, living subject rather than a recitation of battles, wars and dates. My book on O’Connell, for example, looks more at his love affair with his lovely wife Mary, for it was a most successful marriage and he never really recovered from her death; and at the part he played in the British Great Reform Bill of 1832, which more than anyone he, an Irish icon, Out of Ireland, my book on Zimbabwe starts with a 13th century Chief fighting slavers and follows a 15th century Portuguese scribe from Lisbon to Harare, going on to travel with the Pioneer Column to Fort Salisbury, and to dine with me and Mugabe and Muzenda. And nearer our own day my Flying book tells of lesser known aspects of World War 2 in which my father was Senior Controller at RAF Biggin Hill, like the story of the break out of the Scharnhorst and Gneisau, or capturing three Focke Wulfs with a searchlight. And now for my latest effort I have gone back to my education (historical and legal, with a major Roman element) and that has involved going back in more ways than one, for the research included a great deal of reading, from Caesar to Plutarch and from Adrian Goldsworthy to Rob Goodman & Jimmy Soni.

    Read more from Brian Igoe

    Related to The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2

    Titles in the series (5)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Historical Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Fathers Of The Republic

      Sep 28, 2023

      Fathers Of The Republic
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 26, 2023

      Write to The Critic by email at letters@thecritic.co.uk including your address and telephone number Your excellent article by Tom Mangold (THE BIG LIE: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE BBC’S BASHIR COVER-UP, DECEMBER/JANUARY) brought to mind another, and argu

      3 min read

    • Article

      “England Was Seen As A Pariah State, Ruled By Regicidal Rebels Who’d Publicly Executed Their King”

      Sep 30, 2021

      ON THE HistoryExtra PODCAST Devil-Land: England Under Siege 1588-1688 by Clare Jackson (Allen Lane, 688 pages, £35) Ellie CawtHorne: Devil-Land looks at England from 1588 to 1688. Why do you think this is such a fascinating 100-year period of English

      9 min read

    • Article

      Town Mouse

      Oct 13, 2021

      TO celebrate the start of negotiations in London for the Anglo-Irish Treaty a century ago, in October 1921—the first step towards the foundation of what is today the Republic of Ireland—a small exhibition opened in the Irish Embassy last week. Approp

      1 min read

    • Article

      Catholic Hysteria

      Apr 25, 2019

      Catholic Hysteria
      8 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Feb 18, 2021

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Frederick Philbrick

      Jul 10, 2020

      Frederick Philbrick
      2 min read

    • Article

      Forgotten Contributions

      Aug 4, 2022

      Forgotten Contributions
      3 min read

    • Article

      Luck Of The Irish

      Feb 16, 2021

      Luck Of The Irish
      10 min read

    • Article

      “Good God, How Much Bloody Flux Must A People Bear Before You Provide Them With Food?”

      Apr 16, 2020

      For 30 years in the first half of the 19th century, Britain was obsessed with the price of bread. Waves of unrest swept the country as bad harvests, food shortages and dire living conditions stalked the poorest in society. Calls for parliamentary ref

      7 min read

    • Article

      Return Of The Irish Question

      Mar 6, 2024

      When devolved government returned to Northern Ireland earlier this year, Rishi Sunak channelled his inner Inspector Clouseau. ‘Now is not the time’ (to debate reunification), the headlines ran, conjuring up images of the new First Minister, Sinn Féin

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Hobbit King

      Sep 18, 2022

      The Hobbit King
      7 min read

    • Article

      Churchill and Home Rule for Ireland

      Aug 2, 2022

      Having twice changed political parties, Winston Churchill was especially sensitive to the charge that this displayed political inconsistency if not opportunism on his part. Indeed, his 1932 collection of essays Thoughts and Adventures contains an ent

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Road To Partition

      Oct 28, 2021

      The Road To Partition
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Daniel O'Connell series. Book 2 - Brian Igoe

      Copyright © 2013 by Brian Igoe

      Smashwords Edition

      This is a LiteBite Book, about the equal of fifty or so pages of a Paperback or Pocket Book.

      The Daniel O’Connell Series. Book 2. Marriage and a Duel.

      By Brian Igoe

      This is the second in the Daniel O’Connell series of LiteBite Books. It takes us from the end of the last book in 1800, which was the year of the Act of Union between England and Ireland, to 1828 when at the famous Clare Election he was elected to Parliament. That election was the culmination of a series of Catholic electoral victories in Ireland, but these were, one might think, Pyrrhic Victories, for the new elected delegates could not, as Catholics, take their seats! The outcome, one of O’Connell’s greatest victories, is described in Book 3.

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Contents:

      Chapter 1. Marriage.

      Chapter 2. The Duel.

      Other Books by Brian Igoe:

      Historical books:

      The Road to Zimbabwe

      The Story of Ireland

      A Traveler’s Pocket History of Ireland

      The Last King of Ireland (the story of Daniel O’Connell)

      The Limbless Landlord

      Napper Tandy, a forgotten Irish Patriot

      The King of the Irish Roads (the story of Charles Bianconi)

      Other:

      To Fly is Everything

      High Yield Investment Programmes – Fact or Fiction?

      Note: Sums of money are referred to constantly in this book. As a very approximate guide, using the retail price index, in 1800 £1 would today be worth around £55 (€65, $84), and remained at around that level until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815.

      Spelling: the text of the book is largely conservative English, but the grammar is modern.

      Chapter 1. 1800 − 1805. Marriage.

      Daniel was distracted from his career at its very beginning by what he called ‘the atrocious Act of Union’ which came with the new century. At the time, the Catholic population actually supported the Act, which by uniting the political entities of England and Ireland did away with the need for a Parliament in Dublin.

      The rationale most often quoted was that that once it was through, the English Parliament would pass all the necessary Emancipation legislation which in Dublin was being blocked by the Protestant Ascendancy. Lord Castlereagh had done an amazing job in convincing many Catholics, perhaps most, and certainly including Hunting Cap, to support this Union with England. They saw it as the death knell of the hated Ascendancy landlords. Irish though Castlereagh might be, a member of the élite Ascendancy though he undoubtedly was. Yet with Grattan he was a strong supporter of Catholic Emancipation – all things being equal. He had been, in fact, a life-long advocate of Catholic concessions, though his position on the specific issue of Catholic Emancipation varied depending on his assessment of the potential repercussions on other policy priorities. There is little doubt that he meant to perform on his promises.

      Daniel took a contrary view, for he did not think that Pitt, who like Castlereagh certainly meant what he said, would be able to force through an Emancipation Bill. He had spent enough time in England to understand English problems and English thinking. He recognised, and maybe even sympathised a little, with George III’s conviction that to permit Catholic Emancipation would be a violation of his Coronation Oath to Defend the Protestant Faith. Moreover, England’s approach to Ireland since the Normans, he knew, had been at root motivated by the fear of Ireland being used as a base for military action against England.

      Now, of course, the threat was not Spain as in the past, but France. France and the young Napoleon Bonaparte, by now ‘First Consul’ and the conqueror of Austria just that year. Napoleon was becoming the greatest threat to Europe yet seen. So the English were faced with a real problem. They wanted, needed, the support of the Irish, and that increasingly clearly meant the support of Catholics. The Royal Navy and the Army depended on their services, not to mention the labour force building the new canals. Some forty percent of Wellington’s troops in the Peninsular Wars six years later were Irish Catholics. But the English baulked at the idea of an Independent Ireland because the independent Irish might well use their independence to support England’s enemies, in particular France. That threat had been highlighted only a short time ago with the landings of 1796 and 1798 in Bantry and Killala Bays. And of course England was at war with France, and had been since 1792 with one short interlude, and would be until 1815 with another equally short interlude.

      But to woo the Irish Catholics while the Irish Protestants were in charge in Dublin had proved impossible. Thus the idea of Union was born. And the Act would be passed in Dublin’s last Ascendancy Parliament because, quite simply, the English could afford to buy the necessary votes. The practice was common in Dublin, but this time it was done on a most uncommon scale. For this they used that crusty bigot the old Chancellor Lord Fitzgibbon, who seemed happy to swap his Irish title for an English one, becoming Baron FitzGibbon, of Sidbury in the County of Devon, in the Peerage of Great Britain. The process of the extinction of the Irish Parliament made many wealthy men.

      Daniel did his best to protest, but he was whistling into the wind, and he knew it. He called meetings, mostly like the one on January 13th, 1800. The Hall where Daniel was speaking was already full. Suddenly, they all heard the unmistakable and all too familiar sound of marching boots. Then the sound of grounding muskets outside the door. The infamous Major Sirr had arrived. Sirr had actually been born in Dublin Castle, where his father had been Town Major before him. So although he didn’t precisely inherit the post of Military Chief Constable, having been commissioned into the 68th Regiment of Foot, he was certainly born to it, and had built for himself a reputation as an efficient officer, totally opposed to everything Catholic. Widely regarded by everyone from all walks of life as a cross between a witch hunter and a policeman, he was not popular.

      Ireland was still

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1