O’Connell Monument, O’Connell St.

Daniel O'Connell often referred to as The Liberator or The Emancipator. He campaigned for Catholic emancipation, including the right for Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament, denied for over 100 years—and repeal of the Acts of Union which combined Great Britain and Ireland. O'Connell was born at Carhan near Cahersiveen, County Kerry, to the O'Connells of Derrynane, a wealthy Roman Catholic family that had been dispossessed of its lands. His wealthy uncle Maurice sponsored his education, sending him to Reddington Academy at Long Island, near Queenstown in Cobh and Douai in France. O'Connell was admitted as a barrister to Lincoln's Inn in 1794 and later transferred to Dublin's Kings Inn. It was in Dublin that 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. Although O'Connell was in a better position than most Catholics in Ireland at the time, he still felt the discrimination held against him based on his religion. He was prevented from promotion to higher rankings in his barrister profession because he was Catholic. Throughout his life, O'Connell never supported the use of violence, but rather he believed the Irish should instead assert themselves politically. The commemorative bronze monument of O'Connell was commissioned by Dublin Corporation, designed and sculpted by John Henry Foley and completed by Foley's assistant Thomas Brock in 1883. In the famous novel Ulysses, by James Joyce, the protagonist Leopold Bloom refers to O'Connell's statue as “the hugecloaked liberator’s form” as he passes by in Paddy Dignam's funeral procession.