Although Daniel O’Connell had succeeded in passing Catholic emancipation the government made it very hard for it to have much effect. They raised the voting price to £10, which was a large sum for many people. The Irish had 230,000 voters, but because of this price rise they were knocked down to a mere 14,000 voters. The government did this so that they could minimize O’Connell’s power and cut the number of people involved in politics. Even though emancipation was not as successful as hoped, O’Connell succeeded in laying down the foundation for Irish nationalism and giving the Irish people some hope and belief.
O’Connell’s next goal was to repeal against the act of union. When the Act of Union was passed in 1800 it did not help the Irish. It simply bought problems and distrust to the Irish people. British invertors were not investing in Ireland and the Irish industries did not have the size and power to compete with the British industries. O’Connell organised a meeting to discuss the repeal of the Act of Union, three quarters of a million Irish turned up. O’Connell organised more of these meeting; they had such high turnouts that they were known as ‘Monster Meetings’. O’Connell successfully created an Irish nation movement and completely changed the British view of the Irish. The British now had a certain amount of respect for the Irish and even feared and threatened their movement.
O’Connell stared to have the backing of a newly formed Irish newspaper named ‘The Nation’. Thomas Davis, Charles Gavin Duffy, and John Blake Dylan founded this newspaper. These three men were known as ‘young Ireland’. This newspaper promoted Irish pride and identity.
At the height of O’Connell’s support he arranged a monster meeting where two million people were expected to turn up. But the government considered this dangerous so they sent soldiers to stop it. The meeting was called off because O’Connell wanted peace. O’Connell had a huge meeting planned in Dublin on October 5th but the government banned this meeting and Daniel O’Connell did not stand up to the government, he let the ban stand. Many believe this was Daniel O’Connell’s biggest mistake. Not standing up to the British government lost O’Connell support and the Irish lost the will to fight. In 1834 Daniel O’Connell put forward for a debate in the House of Commons. He wanted the repeal of the Act of Union. Many disagreed. He lost 40-527. In 1933 the government passed the Coercion Act which gave the police the power to jail without trial, this gave them the opportunity to break up meeting. This was a huge blow to O’Connell.
From just one single seat in the House of Parliament Daniel O’Connell managed to increase this to 38 seats. This was seen as a huge achievement,
In conclusion we can see that O’Connell was never overly successful in his stated aims as a politician. He did successfully manage to get Catholic emancipation passed, but this was effectively cancelled out buy the raise of the voting price. He also failed to pass the repeal of the act of union. Daniel O’Connell may not have been 100% successful in his main two stated aims. However, these stated aims were merely the surface of O’Connell’s goals. Daniel O’Connell created an Irish Nation movement and successfully managed to give the Irish people hope, pride, and an identity. He made the Irish people stand up and be noticed by the British. Daniel O’Connell single handily changed the way politics was run.
