O’BRIEN, Timothy (1790-1862), of 14 Merrion Square and 50 Fleet Street, Dublin and Borris-in-Ossory, Queen’s co.

Though O’Brien was born in county Tipperary, his father settled in Dublin in the early 1800s and, following emancipation, became one of the city’s most prominent Catholic merchants. Following his father into the wine trade, O’Brien became the consul in Dublin for Spain and for Parma and Placentia. A ‘man of the people … and the architect of his own fortunes’ he engaged extensively in mercantile affairs and was a shipowner and director of several joint-stock companies.1F. Boase, Modern English Biography, i (1896), 1200; Thom’s Irish Almanac and Official Directory (1857), 978; Freeman’s Journal, 8 Sept. 1863. He became deputy-governor of the Royal Hibernian bank, and a director of both the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland and the Alliance and Dublin Consumers Gas Company. Having accumulated a large fortune, he was active on the reformed corporation of Dublin, contributing £500 for the recovery of its property from the court of chancery in 1842. He served as lord mayor of Dublin in 1844 and 1849, an office he was said to have carried out with impartiality, energy and ability, whilst acquiring a reputation for ‘lavish hospitality’.2C. MacLoghlin to D. O’Connell, 31 Mar. 1842, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vii. 146-7; Freeman’s Journal, 2 July 1847; The Times, 5 Dec. 1862; The Era, 7 Dec. 1862; Gent. Mag. (1863), i. 132; Dublin Evening Mail quoted in Daily News, 5 Dec. 1862. In 1846 he also promoted himself, without success, as a candidate for the position of high sheriff of the city of Dublin.3T.M. Ray to D. O’Connell, 14, 16 Oct. 1846, O’Connell Correspondence, viii. 127-8, 129-30.

O’Brien had joined the Catholic Association in the 1820s and later became an active member of the Repeal Association. As mayor of Dublin, he attracted popularity by daily escorting Daniel O’Connell to court during the state trial of 1844. He was chairman of the Irish Reform Club and in February 1846 was returned unopposed as a repealer at the Cashel by-election, which followed the resignation of the anti-repeal Liberal, Joseph Stock.4D. O’Connell to P.V. Fitzpatrick, 25 Mar. 1844, O’Connell Correspondence, vii. 248-50; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Feb. 1846, 4 Dec. 1862; Daily News, 9 Feb. 1846. Committed to the reform of landlord-tenant relations, he denounced what he regarded as the ‘heartlessness and cruelty of Irish landlords’ who apparently took advantage of the famine to depopulate parts of county Tipperary, and in May 1846 O’Brien showed determined opposition to the government’s ‘obnoxious and unconstitutional’ Irish coercion bill.5Hansard, 1 May 1846, vol. 85, cc. 1361-5. Although he ascribed Ireland’s economic decline to its union with Britain, he was an enthusiastic free trader, believing that ‘the poorer classes of the community’ would benefit greatly’ from the repeal of the corn laws.6Freeman’s Journal, 9 Feb. 1846; Dod, Parliamentary Handbook (1847), 224. He was amongst the small minority of Irish MPs who divided in favour of a select committee to inquire into the economic effects of the dissolution of the Irish parliament: Daily News, 9 Dec. 1847. As a member of the ‘Old Ireland’ party, he was re-elected unopposed at the 1847 general election, having fended off criticism from supporters of the Irish Confederation over the repeal party’s links with the Whig ministry.7B. Walker, ‘Politicians, Elections and Catastrophe: The General Election of 1847’, Irish Political Studies, 22:1 (2007), 1-34 [20]; Freeman’s Journal, 31 July, 5 Aug. 1847.

O’Brien became mayor of Dublin for a second time in 1849 and, after presenting the Queen with the keys of the city during her visit to Ireland, was created a baronet.8The ‘joy and satisfaction’ with which he greeted the royal visit created some dissatisfaction in nationalist circles: C. Woodham Smith, The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 (1962), 387; J. Murphy, Abject Loyalty: Nationalism and Monarchy in Ireland during the Reign of Queen Victoria (2001), 83-4. As a leading Dublin citizen for nearly half a century, O’Brien inevitably exerted a strong influence over the city’s commercial and political bodies and, when in parliament, took a close interest in municipal issues. A member of the council of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, he opposed the Dublin consolidation improvement bill, claiming that Dublin’s citizens were ‘almost unanimously averse’ to its ‘monstrous and impolitic’ provisions.9PP 1852-53 (747) xxiv. 61 [186]; Hansard, 13 Mar. 1849, vol. 103, c. 631; 27 Mar. 1849, vol. 103, cc. 1367-70. He nevertheless supported the motion for an inquiry into the Waterford, Wexford, and Dublin Railway Company, of which he was a major shareholder, arguing that ‘to proceed with the railway would be ruinous’.10Hansard, 1 Aug. 1850, vol. 113, cc. 641-2.

An Irish repealer, O’Brien only intermittently supported the Whig ministry, and was consistent in his opposition to its Irish habeas corpus suspension bill of 1848.11Freeman’s Journal, 12 May 1848. In 1850 he opposed the continuance of the Act, which he regarded as ‘totally uncalled for’: Hansard, 9 Aug. 1850, vol. 113, c. 963. With regard to the Irish franchise bill of 1850, he opposed the £8 rating, arguing that given the great depreciation of property in Ireland during the famine, it would ‘virtually disenfranchise many towns’.12Hansard, 4 Mar. 1850, vol. 109, c. 346; Freeman’s Journal, 13 May 1850. He nevertheless voted for the measure and supported the ministry in the confidence vote over Palmerston’s foreign policy, 28 June 1850.13The Era, 30 June 1850. In February 1851 he joined the ‘Irish Brigade’ in its campaign against the Russell ministry’s ecclesiastical titles bill and attended the tenant-right conference to consider Sharman Crawford’s land bill in Dublin, 20 Aug. 1851.14Freeman’s Journal, 12, 17 Feb., 2 June, 21 Aug. 1851; J.H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 1850-9 (1958), 32; Daily News, 22 Aug. 1851. As a committee member of the Catholic Defence Association, he supported demands for the repeal of the Titles Act, 17 Oct. 1851, yet signed an appeal by seven of the Brigade’s MPs against the appointment of an Englishman as permanent secretary of the organisation, and was thus accused of attempting to ‘nationalise’ the issue.15Freeman’s Journal, 18 Oct., 22 Dec. 1851; J. O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers: John Sadleir M.P., 1813-56 (1999), 200, 214-5; Whyte, Independent Irish Party, 33; Belfast News-letter, 22 Dec. 1851. He did, however, join the other ‘Brigadiers’ in supporting the Conservatives on four questions of confidence in the session of 1851, voting against the Liberal ministry on the motion censuring Lord Clarendon’s administration of Ireland early in 1852, and siding with Palmerston to bring down the Russell ministry in February 1852.16Belfast News-letter, 25 Feb. 1852; Whyte, Independent Irish Party, 178-9.

Having signed the memorial to the Treasury concerning relief on the debts owed by the Irish poor law unions, 29 Mar. 1852, O’Brien pledged himself to the policy of independent Irish opposition, and easily defeated a Conservative challenge at Cashel at that year’s general election, standing on a platform of poor law reform, state aid to Irish railways and manufacturing, and land reform, duly attending the tenant-right conference in August 1852.17PP 1852 (585) vi. 1 [506-8]; Freeman’s Journal, 22 May 1852; Whyte, Independent Irish Party, 180-1; Freeman’s Journal, 5 Oct. 1853. He was at that time described as ‘a little dry-looking man, with a very small head’ and, though over sixty years of age, ‘not so old looking’.18Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 18 Apr. 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 5, 24 Apr., 28 Aug., 21 Sept. 1852. He voted with the Liberals to bring down Derby’s ministry over Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852 and, in attacking the Irish portion of Gladstone’s budget in May 1853, distanced himself from other independent Irish members, whom he accused of behaving in a manner ‘calculated to do the greatest injury to their country’ by forming ‘themselves into cliques of sixteen or a dozen’ and coming ‘forth to dictate as to the government of Ireland’. Thereafter, as one commentator put it, O’Brien ‘used to roar for nationality, but always gave his vote to either Russell or Palmerston’.19Belfast News-letter, 20 Dec. 1852; Hansard, 6 May 1853, vol. 126, cc. 1277-8; Whyte, Independent Irish Party, 180-1; Morning Chronicle, 26 Apr. 1859.

Above all, O’Brien was committed to raising the social and political status of Irish Catholics and chaired a public meeting to protest against the inspection of nunneries bill, 27 Mar. 1854.20Freeman’s Journal, 27, 28 Mar. 1854, 4 June 1855. In the Commons, however, he appears neither to have sat on any select committees nor introduced any bills, and became known as a poor attender, taking part in only 41 of 219 divisions in 1849, 30 of 227 in 1853, and 35 of 198 in 1856.21O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 198; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 20 Oct. 1849; Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot & J.A. Roebuck, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of parliament (1857), 27. He was absent from a number of important divisions, including those on the conduct of the Crimean War, 29 Jan. 1854, which brought down the ministry of Lord Aberdeen, and the fall of Kars, 29 Apr. 1856.22Daily News, 31 Jan. 1854. He was, however, on the organising committee of the Grand Banquet given for Crimean veterans stationed in Ireland, 22 Oct. 1856: Freeman’s Journal, 24 Oct. 1856. He did, however, support Palmerston on the Canton affair, 3 Mar. 1857, and, still maintaining an independent stance, saw off two Liberal challengers at the 1857 general election. He was absent from the division lobby at the Liberal’s defeat on the conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, and the next year resolved with other Irish Liberal members to resist Irish coercion and demand the reform of laws governing landlord-tenant relations.23Freeman’s Journal, 26 Jan. 1859; The Times, 27 Jan. 1859. However, having been one of only eight Irish members absent from the division on Derby’s reform bill in April 1859, he retired at the 1859 general election citing failing health.24Freeman’s Journal, 25, 30 Mar. 1857, 4 Dec. 1862; Morning Chronicle, 1 Apr. 1857; Liverpool Mercury, 11 Apr. 1859.

O’Brien died at his residence in Merrion Square, Dublin in December 1862, and was buried in the family mausoleum at Glasnevin cemetery, of which he had once taken an active part in the management.25Freeman’s Journal, 4, 8 Dec. 1862; W.J. Fitzpatrick, History of the Dublin Catholic Cemeteries (1900), 184. William Keogh, with whom O’Brien had once had strong political differences, paid tribute to him as a politician ‘of rigorous and manly independence’ who never yielded his convictions to private interests.26Freeman’s Journal, 8 Sept. 1863. Renowned in Ireland as a comparatively rare example of a ‘self-raised man’, he left a large property, including ‘the wreck of a great ducal house’ at Lohort, near Mallow, co. Cork. He was succeeded by his son, Patrick O’Brien (1823-95), who was MP for King’s County from 1852-85. His grandson, Sir Timothy Carew O’Brien (1861-1948) was an international cricketer for Ireland and England.27F. Boase, Modern English Biography, ii (1898), 1946; Freeman’s Journal, 8 Dec. 1862; J. Shanahan, ‘O’Brien, Sir Timothy Carew’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, vii. 84-5.

28F. Boase, Modern English Biography, ii (1898), 1946; Freeman’s Journal, 8 Dec. 1862; J. Shanahan, ‘O’Brien, Sir Timothy Carew’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, vii. 84-5.">