¹ Whyte, J. H.‘The influence of the catholic clergy on elections in nineteenth century Ireland’, English Historical Review, LXXV, no. 295, p. 244.Google Scholar

² Ibid., pp. 239–44.

³ Ward, B., The eve of catholic emancipation (London, 1911), I, pp. 53—4.Google Scholar Cf. Burke, T. A., ‘The Irish catholics and the legislative union’, Bull. Irish Comm. Hist. Sciences, no. 18.Google Scholar

⁴ Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, xi, cols.556—7, 25 May 1808.Google Scholar For Grattan's later observations on this statement, see ibid., xv, col.634, 27 Feb.1810.

⁵ Select speeches of O'Connell, ed.O'Connell, J. (Dublin, n.d.), 1, p. 9.Google Scholar

⁶ Ward, , op.cit., I, pp. 76–7.This was confirmed in 1810 by sixteen joint resolutions of the Irish bishops expressing hostility to the veto, Freeman's Journal, 9 Mar.1810.Google Scholar

⁷ MacDonagh, M., Daniel O'Connell and the story of catholic emancipation (Dublin, 1929), p. 91.Google Scholar

⁸ O'Connell, , Select Speeches, I, pp. 447–8,Google ScholarDublin Evening Post, 26 Jan.1815.

⁹ E.g.In a letter to the Knight of Kerry of 15 May 1815, O'Connell wrote, ‘If they enact restrictions, the effect will be worse than the present state of affairs.The Crown Priests will be despised and deserted by the people, who will be amply supplied with enthusiastic anti-anglican friars from the Continent.There is a tendency already to substitute friars for any priests who are supposed to favour the Veto.It is very marked in Dublin already, and they know little of Ireland who suppose that they could abolish friars by law ’: O'Connell, M.R. (ed.), The correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, II, p. 35.Google Scholar

¹⁰ L'Estrange, the prior of the Carmelite church at Clarendon St., Dublin, was a close friend of O'Connell's and, by the standards of the day, an advanced nationalist.

¹¹ O'Connell, , Select Speeches, II, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

^11a Hayes (the Rev.Richard Hayes, O.F.M.) spent nearly two fruitless years in Rome before, in ill-health and debt, he was forcibly deported from the papal states in July, 1817, see his own account of his Roman mission printed in ibid., II, pp.519–24.

^11b Dr P.J.Jupp has pointed out that there was considerable (though also not notably successful) clerical intervention in the general elections of 1807 and 1818 in a few cases — in seven constituencies in 1818.Two bishops, and a future bishop, Doyle, were actively involved in 1818, Jupp, P.J., ‘Irish parliamentary elections and the influence of the catholic vote, 1801—20’, Historical Journal, x, no. 2, pp. 187–90.Google Scholar

¹² Gwynn, D., Daniel O'Connell, revised centenary edition (Cork, 1947), pp. 147—8.Google Scholar Patrick Curtis, the archbishop of Armagh, may have joined the association simultaneously and this also would have been a significant adhesion.But Doyle's move was the really telling one.

¹³ On 27 Dec.1827, O'Connell told Doyle that success depended altogether on the backing of the bishops, The life, times and correspondence oj the right rev.Dr Doyle, 2nd ed., edit.Fitzpatrick, W.J. (Dublin, 1880), n, pp. 51–2.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Wyse, T., Historical sketch of the late catholic association of Ireland (London, 1829), I, pp. 83, 229–40.Google Scholar

¹⁵ MacDonagh, , Daniel O'Connell, pp. 163–7.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Dublin Evening Post, 16 Feb.1830.Dr Mclntyre points out that, nonetheless, there were numerous instances of clerical activity in elections even in the early 1830s.Mclntyre, A., The Liberator: Daniel O'Connell and the Irish Party, 1830—47 (London, 1965), p. 113.Google Scholar A famous passage of de Tocqueville's describing a dinner at Carlow in 1835 throws light upon the reasons for this: ‘An archbishop was there, four bishops and several priests…The conversation turned on the state of the country and politics.The feelings expressed were extremely democratic.Distrust and hatred of the great landlords; love of the people, and confidence in them.Bitter memories of past oppression.An air of exaltation at present or approaching victory.A profound hatred of the Protestants and above all of their clergy.Little impartiality apparent.Clearly as much the leaders of a Party as the representatives of the Church’, de Tocqueville, A., Journeys to England and Ireland, edit.Mayer, J.P. (London, 1957), p. 130.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Broderick, J.F., The holy see and the Irish movement for the repeal of the union with England (Rome, 1951), pp. 58–9.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., p.49.This is interestingly borne out by the election of 1831 in O'Connell's own county, Kerry.There, reform and the rancours of religion appear to have dominated the electioneering; repeal was quite ignored.Maurice Fitzgerald thus reported: ‘The Priesthood were marshalled under a Jesuit Bishop.I was depicted as a traitor at once to King and Country – described as never having supported the Catholic claims!! and that my vote on Reform was an attack on the People and their Religion — and all this was piously and sincerely believed — the effect was a general fury equal to that raised against Vesey in Clare and with much more of personal rancour.The effect would have been the detaching of almost every Catholic freeholder from even the best Landlords — and in the conflict I should have polled little more than the Protestants giving Dan a universal triumph and committing the Country to religious and agrarian warfare.’, Fitzgerald to Croker, 23 Feb.1831, Croker Papers, Duke University Library.

¹⁹ Fitzpatrick, , Life of Doyle, II, pp. 274, 328.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid., II, p.451.

²¹ Dublin Evening Post, 18 Oct.1834.Google Scholar

²² Broderick, The holy see and the Irish movement, p.60.

²³ Ibid., p.62.

²⁴ Pilot, 12 Jan.1835, letter to the clergy of the diocese, 7 Jan.1835.The Pilot welcomed the letter with the observation that whatever might be said for episcopal political neutrality in the immediate past, the current crisis made it incumbent on the bishops to use their influence at the elections.

²⁵ In January, 1839, Crotty, a former president of Maynooth and one of those who later held aloof from repeal, stated publicly, ‘Every prelate, every pastor, every man who has power or influence should come forward to support him [O'Connell]…I freely recognize him as our great leader, and am ready and determined to follow him to the boundary’.Crolly spoke in similar terms at the same time, Broderick, , The holy see and the Irish movement, pp. 110–117.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., pp.67–99.

²⁷ Propaganda Archives, Lettere e Decreti, vo.321, ff.220–1, quoted and translated, ibid., pp.101–2.

²⁸ Almost two thirds (19 out of 29) of the episcopate of the day became at one stage or other open repealers.In the list below they are marked by an asterisk: Province of Dublin, Dublin, D.Murray, Ferns, *J.Keatinge, Kildare and Leighlin, F.Healy, Ossory, *W.Kinsella; Province of Tuam, Tuam, *J.MacHale, Achonry, *P.MacNicholas, Clonfert, *T.Coen, Elphin, *P.Burke, Galway, *G.Browne, *L.O'Donnell, Killala, *T.Feeny, Kilmacdaugh, *E.French; Province of Armagh, Armagh, W.Crolly, Clogher, *C.MacNally, Down and Connor, C.Denvir, Kilmore, J.Browne, Raphoe, P.MacGettigan, Ardagh, *W.Higgins, Derry, *J.MacLoughlin, *P.McGinn, Dromore, *M.Blake, Meath, *J.Cantwell; Province of Cashel, Cashel, *M.Slattery, Ardfert, C.Egan, Cork, J.Murphy, Cloyne and Ross, B.Crotty, Limerick, J.Ryan, Killaloe, *P.Kennedy, Waterford and Lismore, *N.Foran.It may be of some interest to note that all the bishops in MacHale's province, Tuam, were repealers, and that, with the exception of Derry, all the bishops governing the major cities in Ireland, Murray, Denvir, Murphy and Ryan, were not.

²⁹ Pilot, 11 Sept.1844.

³⁰ Parker, C.S., Sir Robert Peel, from his private papers (London, 1891), III, p. 132.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid., Heytesbury to Peel, 20 Dec.1844, p.133.

³² Parker, C.S., Life and letters of Sir James Graham (London, 1907), I, pp. 401—2.Google Scholar

³³ Broderick, , The holy see and the Irish movement, pp. 186–7.Google Scholar For the complete text in Italian, see ibid., pp.222–3.

³⁴ The Times, 13 01 1845.Google Scholar

³⁵ MacHale and Browne went directly from the meeting of the hierarchy on 20 November 1844 to speak at a repeal banquet at Limerick, Nation, 18 Jan.1845.

³⁶ Pilot, 15 Jan.1845.

³⁷ Ibid., 24 Jan.1845.

³⁸ The observations on or of Murray, Ryan, Walsh, Cantwell and Slattery derive from Propaganda Archives, Acta, 1851 and 1852, and are quoted by Whyte, J.H. in A history of Irish Catholicism, edit.Corish, P.J. (Dublin, 1967), vi, pp. 4, 8–9.Google Scholar

³⁹ Dr Whyte notes a similar phenomenon in respect of the division in the hierarchy on the issue of the Queen's Colleges: ‘ … of the twenty-six bishops in office at the end of 1849, thirteen were prepared, when it came to the test, to declare themselves on the intransigent side, and thirteen on the moderate side … Of fifteen bishops over sixty, ten were moderates; while of eleven bishops aged sixty and under, eight were intransigents’, ibid., p.6.

⁴⁰ The Times, 13 Apr.1846.

⁴¹ Gillooly of Elphin and Delany of Cork.

⁴² Coholan of Cork.