The Daniel O’Connell Heritage Trail

“Long life to O’Connell, Success to O’Connell, Hurra for O’Connell the member for Clare.”

The tune above was composed by Galway piper, Patrick Conneely in the year 1828 in honour of Daniel O’Connell, who stood for election as member of parliament for County Clare.

The 1828 Clare by-election of 5th July 1828, was notable as this was the first time since the reformation that an openly Roman Catholic MP, Daniel O'Connell was elected.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 had extended the franchise to Catholics in Ireland. However, under the Oath of Supremacy required of MPs to take their seats, Catholics were not permitted to sit in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. This requirement was confirmed under the Acts of Union.

Clare was held by William Vesey Fitzgerald when he was appointed as President of the Board of Trade. As this was seen to be an office of profit, Vesey-FitzGerald had to stand in a by-election. It was not unusual for such ministerial by-elections to be uncontested. However, the Catholic Association, a group campaigning had vowed to oppose every member of the current government, which had declined to allow for Catholic Emancipation.

Although Catholics were disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons, there was no law preventing them from running for election. Daniel O'Connell decided to stand, although he would not be permitted to take his seat if elected.

Like all parliamentary elections prior to the Ballot Act 1872, Clare was held as an open vote, which meant that all votes would be known. This meant that Protestant and pro-union landowners could influence their tenants, who were far more likely to be Catholic and anti-union.

After O'Connell refused to take the Oath, his seat was vacated.

The Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, and the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, who had previously opposed Catholic participation in Parliament, saw that denying O'Connell his seat would cause outrage and could lead to another rebellion or uprising in Ireland, which was about 85% Catholic. This led directly to the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829.

In the following by-election, in July 1829, O'Connell was elected unopposed.

The second tune, also in 6/8 time, bearing the same title was collected by James Goodman (1828 - 1896)

James Goodman was born in Ballyameen, Dingle, County Kerry and was raised in Ventry, County Kerry, a Gaeltacht area, and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, having gained a scholarship in 1847. He was ordained in the Church of Ireland in 1851 (his father the Reverend Thomas Chute Goodman had been rector of Dingle). He married Charlotte King in 1852. Goodman began collecting song and music in his undergraduate years but it was during his curacy in Ardgroom that he began collecting in earnest. He was a proficient flute player and later in his thirties learned to play the uilleann pipes. The principal source for his collection of tunes was piper Tom Kennedy from the Dingle peninsula who followed him to Ardgroom. He collected several hundred tunes from Kennedy that had not previously been notated. By 1866 he had compiled an impressive manuscript collection of some 2,000 melodies, mostly traditional Irish in content. It comprised both tunes taken down by himself and also music drawn from other manuscripts and printed sources. He died in 1896, his collection was not published in his lifetime.

The Goodman collection is housed in Trinity College Dublin. To date, two volumes have been published from the collection, ‘Tunes of the Munster pipers volumes 1 & 2’.

References

Image 1: Irish Minstrels and Musicians ‘O’Neill 1913’

Image 2: Transcribed by Binneas from ‘Tunes of the Munster Pipers Volume 2’

Barron, Declan. "Clare History: The Clare Election of 1828".

MacDonagh, Oliver (1991). The Life of Daniel O'Connell.