{{quote
|L'altare della libertà vacilla se cementato con il solo sangue.
|Daniel O'Connell, ''Suoi diari, 1796''
|The Altar of Liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood.
|lingua=en}}

{{Bio
|Nome = Daniel
|Cognome = O'Connell
|PostCognome = (in gaelico irlandese '''Dónal Ó Conaill''') - conosciuto anche come ''The Liberator'' ("Il Liberatore") o ''The Emancipator'' ("L'Emancipatore")
|Sesso = M
|LuogoNascita = Cahersiveen
|GiornoMeseNascita = 6 agosto
|AnnoNascita = 1775
|LuogoMorte = Genova
|GiornoMeseMorte = 15 maggio
|AnnoMorte = 1847
|Attività = politico
|Attività2 = avvocato
|Nazionalità = irlandese
|PostNazionalità = , figura predominante dell'Irlanda della prima metà del XIX secolo
|Immagine =  Daniel O'Connell - Project Gutenberg 13103.jpg
}}

Difensore della maltrattata popolazione cattolica irlandese, lottò per la cosiddetta ''Atto d'Unione del 1800 (''Repeal'') tra l'Irlanda e la Gran Bretagna.

In Irlanda è ricordato come il fondatore di una forma non-violenta di nazionalismo irlandese e della mobilitazione della comunità cattolica, in numero predominante nel territorio, come forza politica atta a raggiungere l'emancipazione.

==I primi anni ==
Nato a Carhen, nei pressi di Cahirciveen, nella contea del Kerry in una famiglia cattolica un tempo benestante, Daniel studiò giurisprudenza a Douai, in Francia sostenuto da uno zio benestante, Maurice ('''Hunting Cap''') O'Connell. Nel 1794 venne ammesso a Lincoln's Inn, uno dei 4 tribunali di Londra e nel 1796 si trasferì al King's Inns di Dublino. 
Negli anni giovanili entrò in contatto coi movimenti democratici e iniziò ad impegnarsi per la conquista dei diritti religiosi in Irlanda.

Durante gli anni a Dublino non si fece coinvolgere, su consiglio dello zio, in alcuna attività militante ma quando la flotta francese alleata di Wolfe Tone entrò nella baia di Bantry (dicembre 1796) il giovane O'Connell scrisse allo zio affermando di essere l'ultimo dei suoi colleghi a unirsi ai corpi volontari, un mese dopo si aggregò al Lawyer's Artillery Corps.

Il 19 maggio, 1798, O'Connell venne assegnato al tribunale irlandese (Irish Bar) e divenne avvocato. Quattro giorni dopo ebbe luogo la sollevazione della Society of United Irishmen affogata nel sangue dalle truppe inglesi. O'Connell non appoggiò la sollevazione, era convinto che il modo per affermare i propri diritti fosse quello di usare strumenti politici e non la forza.

==La campagna per l'emancipazione cattolica==

thumb|250px|left|Il monumento a O'Connell nell'omonima strada di [[Dublino ]]
O'Connell tornò a dedicarsi all'attività politica intorno al Camera dei Comuni, l'associazione inoltre forniva cibo e soldi ai membri più indigenti. 

Nel re Giorgio IV in quanto capo della Duca di Wellington, Primo Ministro dell'epoca sia il Ministro dell'interno Sir Robert Peel, benché strenui oppositori dell'emancipazione cattolica, di fronte al rischio di una ribellione o guerra civile in Irlanda persuasero il sovrano a riconoscere il diritto dei cattolici e dei presbiteriani di accedere a cariche parlamentari. Il provvedimento ottenne l'appoggio dei Whig e divenne legge nel 1829 incrinando però il rapporto di fiducia dei Tory nel primo ministro e in Robert Peel. 

{{Infobox Person
|name        = Daniel O'Connell<br/>''Dónal Ó Conaill''
|image       = Daniel O'Connell - Project Gutenberg 13103.jpg
|caption     = Daniel O'Connell
|birth_date  = 
|birth_place = Cahirciveen, Ireland
|death_date  = 
|death_place = Genoa, Italy
|other_names = 
|known_for   = 
|occupation  = 
|nationality = 
}}
'''Daniel O'Connell''' (Irish: '''Dónal Ó Conaill'''), known as '''The Liberator''',<ref>[http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/daniel_o'connell.htm] O'
Connell at Irish-Society.</ref> or '''The Emancipator''',<ref> [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/ashorthistory/archive/intro177.shtml A Short History of Ireland]</ref> was an Irish political leader in the first half of the nineteenth century. He campaigned for Repeal of the Union between Ireland and Great Britain. 

==Early life==
O'Connell was born in Carhen, near Caherciveen, County Kerry, to a once-wealthy Roman Catholic family. Under the patronage of his wealthy bachelor uncle, Maurice "Hunting Cap" O'Connell, he studied at Douai in France, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1794, transferring to Dublin's King's Inns two years later. In his early years, he became acquainted with the pro-democracy radicals of the time, and committed himself to bringing equal rights and religious tolerance to his own country.

thumb|left|O'Connell's Home at Derrynane

While in Dublin studying for the law O'Connell was under his Uncle Maurice's instructions not to become involved in any militia activity. When Wolfe Tone's French invasion fleet entered Bantry Bay in December, 1796, O'Connell found himself in a quandary. Politics was the cause of his unsettlement.<ref name="gywnn"> Dennis Gywnn, ''Daniel O’Connell The Irish Liberator'', Hutchinson & Co. Ltd pg 71 </ref> Dennis Gwynn in his ''Daniel O’Connell: The Irish Liberator'' suggests that the unsettlement was because he was enrolled as a volunteer in defence of Government, yet the Government was intensifying its persecution of the Catholic people of which he was one.<ref name="gywnn"/> He desired to enter Parliament, yet every allowance that the Catholics had been led to anticipate, two years previously, was now flatly vetoed.<ref name="gywnn"/>

As a law student, O'Connell was aware of his own talents, but the higher ranks of the Bar were closed to him. Having read the ''Jockey Club'', as a picture of the governing class in England, and was persuaded by it that, ''“vice reigns triumphant in the English court at this day. The spirit of liberty shrinks to protect property from the attacks of French innovators. The corrupt higher orders tremble for their vicious enjoyments.”''<ref name="gywnn"/> Daniel O'Connell's studies at the time had concentrated upon the legal and political history of Ireland, and the debates of the Historical Society concerned the records of governments, and from this he was to conclude, according to one of his biographers, "in Ireland the whole policy of the Government was to repress the people and to maintain the ascendancy of a privileged and corrupt minority."<ref name="gywnn"/> 

On 3 January 1797, he wrote to his uncle saying that he was the last of his colleagues to join a volunteer corps and 'being young, active, healthy and single' he could offer no plausible excuse.<ref>O'Connell Correspondence, Vol I, Letter No. 24a</ref> Later that month, for the sake of expediency, he joined the Lawyer's Artillery Corps.<ref> O'Ferrall, F., ''Daniel O'Connell, Dublin'', 1981, p. 12</ref>

On United Irishmen staged their rebellion which was put down by the British with great bloodshed. O'Connell did not support the rebellion; he believed that the Irish would have to assert themselves politically rather than by force. He decided to retire to his Kerry home and took part in neither the rebellion nor its repression . For over a decade he went into a fairly quiet period of private law practice in the south of Ireland. He also condemned Robert Emmet's rebellion of 1803. Of Emmet, a Protestant, he wrote: 'A man who could coolly prepare so much bloodshed, so many murders - and such horrors of every kind has ceased to be an object of compassion.'<ref>O'Connell Correspondence, Vol I, Letter No. 97</ref>

==Political beliefs and programme==
A critic of violent insurrection ''in Ireland'', O'Connell once said that ''"the altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood,"'' and yet as late as 1841, O’Connell had “whipped his MP’s into line to keep the “Opium War” going in China. The Tories at this time, had proposed a motion of censure over the War, and O’Connell had to call upon his MP’s to support the Whig Government, as a result of this intervention, the Government was saved. <ref>''Charles Gavan Duffy: Conversations With Carlyle (1892), with Introduction, Stray Thoughts On Young Ireland'', Brendan Clifford, Athol Books, Belfast, ISBN 0 85034 1140.pg 17 &21</ref> The Dublin Corporation had always been reactionary and bigoted against Catholics, and served the established Protestant Ascendancy. O'Connell in an 1815 speech referred to "The Corpo", as it was commonly referred to, as a "beggarly corporation". Its members and leaders were outraged and because O'Connell would not apologize, one of their number, the noted duellist D'Esterre, challenged him. The duel had filled Dublin Castle (from where the British Government administered Ireland) with tense excitement at the prospect that O’Connell would be killed. They regarded O’Connell as “worse than a public nuisance,” and would have welcomed any prospect of seeing him removed at this time.<ref>Dennis Gywnn, ''Daniel O’Connell The Irish Liberator'', Hutchinson & Co. Ltd pg 71 Pg 138-145</ref> O'Connell met D'Esterre and mortally wounded him, (he was shot in the hip, the bullet then lodging in his stomach), in a duel. His conscience was bitterly sore by the fact that, not only had he killed a man, but left his family almost destitute. O’Connell offered to “share his income” with D’Esterre’s widow, but she declined, but consented to accept an allowance for her daughter, which he regularly paid for more than thirty years until his death. The memory of the duel haunted him for the remainder of his life. <ref>Dennis Gywnn, ''Daniel O’Connell The Irish Liberator'', Hutchinson & Co. Ltd pg 71 Pg 138-145</ref> 

Politically, he focused on parliamentary and populist methods to force change and made regular declarations of his loyalty to the British Crown. He often warned the British Establishment that if they did not reform the governance of Ireland, Irishmen would start to listen to the "counsels of violent men". Successive British governments continued to ignore this advice, long after his death, although he succeeded in extracting by the sheer force of will and the power of the Catholic peasants and clergy much of what he wanted, i.e. eliminating disabilities on Roman Catholics; ensuring that lawfully elected Roman Catholics could serve their constituencies in the British Parliament  (until the Irish Parliament was restored); and amending the Oath of Allegiance so as to remove clauses offensive to Roman Catholics who could then take the Oath in good conscience.

Although a native speaker of the Irish language, O'Connell encouraged Irish people to learn English in order to better themselves.

And although he is best known for the campaign for Catholic Emancipation; he also supported similar efforts for Irish Jews. At his insistence, in 1846, the British law “De Judaismo," which prescribed a special dress for Jews, was repealed. O’Connell said: "Ireland has claims on your ancient race, it is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews".

==Campaigning for Catholic Emancipation==
He returned to politics in the 1810s, establishing the Catholic Board in 1811 which campaigned for only Members of Parliament (MPs) standing for the British House of Commons. 
thumb|200px|left|Statue of Daniel O'Connell outside [[St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne]]
As part of his campaign for Catholic Emancipation, O'Connell stood in a County Clare for a seat vacated by William Vesey Fitzgerald, another supporter of the Catholic Association. After O'Connell won the seat, he was unable to take it because Catholics were not allowed to sit in the British Parliament at this time.  It was only through a legal loop hole that he was allowed to stand in the first place. It is incorrectly assumed that he didn't take his seat because of his refusal to take an oath to the King as head of the Duke of Wellington, and the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, even though they 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.
Peel and Wellington managed to convince George IV that Catholic emancipation and the right of Catholics and Presbyterians and members of all Christian faiths other than the established Church of Ireland to sit in Parliament needed to be passed; and with the help of the Whigs, it became law in 1829. However, this destroyed the trust other Tory MPs had in Peel and Wellington. (Jews and other non-Christians got the right to sit in Parliament in 1858).
Michael Doheny, in his ''The Felon’s Track'', says that the very character of Emancipation has assumed an “''exaggerated and false guise''” and that it is an error to call it emancipation. He went on, that it was neither the first nor the last nor even the most important in the concessions, which are entitled to the name of emancipation, and that no one remembered the men whose exertions “''wrung from the reluctant spirit of a far darker time the right of living, of worship, of enjoying property, and exercising the franchise''.”<ref name="doheny">Michael Doheny’s ''The Felon’s Track'', M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd., 1951, pp 2-4 </ref> Doheny's opinion was, that the penalties of the “penal laws” had been long abolished, and that barbarous code had been compressed into cold and stolid exclusiveness and yet Mr. O’Connell monopolised its entire renown.<ref name="doheny"/> The view put forward by John Mitchel, also one of the leading members of the Young Ireland movement, in his “Jail Journal”<ref>John Mitchel’s ''Jail Journal'' which was first serialised in his first New York City newspaper, ''The Citizen'', from 14 January 1854 to 19 August 1854. The book referenced is an exact reproduction of the ''Jail Journal'', as it first appeared.</ref> was that there were two distinct movements in Ireland during this period, which were rousing the people, one was the Catholic Relief Agitation (led by O'Connell), which was both open and legal, the other was the secret societies known as the Ribbon and White-boy movements.<ref name="mitchell">John Mitchel, ''Jail Journal, or five years in British Prisons'', M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd., 1914, pp. xxxiv-xxxvi</ref> The first proposed the admission of professional and genteel Catholics to Parliament and to the honours of the professions, all under British law — the other, originating in an utter horror and defiance of British law, contemplated nothing less than a social, and ultimately, a political revolution.<ref name="mitchell"/> According to Mitchel, for fear of the latter, Great Britain with a “very ill grace yielded to the first”. Mitchel agrees that Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington ''said'' they brought in this measure, to avert civil war; but says that “no British statesman ever officially tells the truth, or assigns to any act its real motive.”<ref name="mitchell"/> Their real motive was, according to Mitchel, to buy into the British interests, the landed and educated Catholics, these “Respectable Catholics” would then be contented, and "become West Britons" from that day.<ref name="mitchell"/>  
right|300px|thumb|Daniel O'Connell as depicted on the £20 note of [[Series C Banknotes (Ireland)|Series C Banknote of Ireland]]
Ironically, considering O'Connell's dedication to peaceful methods of political agitation, his greatest political achievement ushered in a period of violence in Ireland. A flaw in his achievement was that one of the most unpopular features of the Penal Laws remained in the form of the obligation for all working people to support the Irish Constabulary were used to seize property in lieu of payment resulting in the Tithe War of 1831-36. Although opposed to the use of force, O'Connell successfully defended participants in the battle of Carrickshock and all the defendants were successfully acquitted. 

In 1841, Daniel O'Connell became the first Roman Catholic Lichfield house compact secured an alliance between Whigs, radicals and Irish MPs in 1835).

==Campaign for "Repeal of the Union"==
thumb|right|150px|The round tower marking O'Connell's grave in [[Glasnevin Cemetery]]
thumb|left|150px|O'Connell Monument in Dublin
O'Connell campaigned for Repeal of the Act of Union, which in 1801 merged the Parliaments of the Queen Victoria as the Queen of Ireland.

To push for this, he held a series of '''Monster Meetings''' throughout much of Ireland outside the Protestant and Unionist-dominated province of Prime Minister, Sir Clontarf, Tara. 

Tara held a lot of significance to the Irish population as it was the old inauguration site of the High Kings of Ireland. Clontarf was symbolic because of its association with the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, when the Irish King  Brian Boru broke Viking power in Ireland. Despite appeals from his supporters, O'Connell refused to defy the authorities and he called off the meeting.
This did not prevent him being jailed for sedition, although he was released after 3 months by the British House of Lords.  Having deprived himself of his most potent weapon, the monster meeting, O'Connell failed to make any more progress in the campaign for Repeal.

==Death and legacy==
  
O'Connell died of softening of the brain (Genoa, Italy while on a pilgrimage to Rome at the age of 71, his term in prison having seriously weakened him. According to his dying wish, his heart was buried in Rome and the remainder of his body in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, beneath a round tower. His sons are buried in his crypt.

O'Connell is known in Ireland as "The Liberator" for his success in achieving Catholic Emancipation. O'Connell admired Latin American liberator Simón Bolívar, and one of his sons, Morgan O'Connell, was a volunteer officer in Bolívar's army in 1820, aged 15.<ref></ref>

The principal street in the centre of Dublin, previously called Sackville Street, was renamed O'Connell Street in his honour in the early twentieth century after the Irish Free State came into being.<ref></ref> His statue (made by the sculptor John Henry Foley, who also designed the sculptures of the Albert Memorial in London) stands at one end of the street, with a statue of Charles Stewart Parnell at the other end.

The main street of Limerick is also named after O'Connell, also with a statue at the end (in the centre of The Crescent). O'Connell Streets also exist in Ennis, Sligo, Clonmel, Waterford, Melbourne and North Adelaide.

There is a museum commemorating him in Derrynane House, near the village of Derrynane, County Kerry, which was once owned by his family.
He was a member of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland as well.

==Family==
In 1802 O'Connell married his third cousin Mary O'Connell. They had four daughters (three surviving), Ellen (1805), Catherine (1808), Elizabeth (1810), and Rickard (1815) and four sons. The sons &mdash; Maurice (1803), Morgan (1804), John O'Connell (1810), and Daniel (1816) &mdash; all sat in Parliament.  Daughter Ellen left Ireland to live in the United States.

===Connection with the licensed trade===
O'Connell assisted his younger son, Daniel junior, to acquire a brewery in James's Street, Dublin.<ref>''Irish Whiskey - a 1000 year tradition'', Malachy Magee, O'Brien Press, Dublin, ISBN 0 86278 2287. pg 68 to 74</ref>  The brewery produced a brand known as '''O'Connell's Ale''' and enjoyed considerable popularity.  The business was not successful though, and after a few years was taken over by the manager, John Brennan, while Daniel junior embraced a political career.  Brennan changed the name to the Phoenix Brewery and continued to brew and sell O'Connell's Ale.  When the Phoenix Brewery was effectively closed when absorbed into the Guinness complex in 1909, the brewing of O'Connell's Ale was carried out by John D'Arcy and Son Ltd at the Anchor Brewery in Usher Street.  In the mid-1920s, D'Arcy's ceased trading and the firm of Watkins Jameson and Pim carried on the brewing.