O’CALLAGHAN, Hon. Cornelius (1809-1849), of Shanbally Castle, Clogheen, co. Tipperary

O’Callaghan came from an ancient line of Irish landowners, reputed to be ‘one of the few Milesian families to be found in the peerage of Ireland’.1The Assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 166. His grandfather, a convert to Protestantism, had sat in the Irish parliament for Fethard in 1768-85, and his father had briefly represented Lostwithiel, 1806-7, at Westminster. A nephew of the 1^st marquess of Ormonde, he was heir to an estate of more than 42,000 acres in counties Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, where his father was one of the largest landed proprietors.2E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800, v (2002), 379-81; HP Commons 1790-1820, iv. 683-4; CP, viii. 81-2; Morning Chronicle, 18 Aug. 1837.

Having served as a cavalry officer, O’Callaghan was elected unopposed for the seat of County Tipperary at the 1832 general election as a Whig. He is not known to have spoken in debate, but during 1833-4 he served on select committees on the disfranchisement of Carrickfergus and the navigation of the River Shannon.3Caledonian Mercury, 22 Dec. 1832; PP 1833 (527) viii. 103; PP 1834 (532) xvii. 141. In the Commons, O’Callaghan supported Whig policy concerning Irish tithes and church appropriation, but voted with the O’Connellites against the Irish coercion bill in March 1833. Nevertheless, he opposed the repeal motion in April 1834, which was to exclude him from the representation of Tipperary at the 1835 general election, his place being taken by Richard Otway Cave, a more radical and active Anti-Tory.

O’Callaghan stood for the seat of Dungarvan at the 1837 general election, having again stood aside in Tipperary for Cave. Although local Liberals had forwarded a requisition to the Hon. John Plunket, O’Callaghan enjoyed the support of his kinsman, the duke of Devonshire, and was able to see off a challenge from a local repealer, John Matthew Galwey (MP Co. Waterford 1832-5). His return was hailed by the English Liberal press as ‘a striking illustration … of the progress of sound opinion in Ireland’.4Morning Chronicle, 27 June, 6, 10 July, 18 Aug. 1837. O’Callaghan’s grandmother, Lady Lismore, was the niece of the 3rd duke. Assembled Commons, 166. Although O’Callaghan himself received no government patronage, his father’s position as ‘one of the steadiest friends of the Whig Ministry’, for which he was rewarded with a peerage in 1838, was thought sufficient to ensure his unswerving loyalty to Melbourne’s ministry.5Ipswich Journal, 1 Sept. 1838; Morning Chronicle, 18 Aug. 1837. He continued to vote with the bulk of Irish Liberals in support of Whig measures such as Irish municipal reform, tithes and church appropriation, electoral registration, and supported the ministry over the Conservatives’ motion for an inquiry into the conduct of the Irish administration. He also supported free trade and Whig imperial and foreign policy, and voted with the ministry in confidence votes in 1840 and 1841.

In November 1838, O’Callaghan attended a public dinner in honour of Daniel O’Connell at Thurles. By now he was designated by Dod as a Liberal, and publicly applauded the marquess of Normanby’s conciliatory policy during his term as lord lieutenant.6Belfast News-letter, 16 Nov. 1838; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1838). He also defended the practice of Irish members, such as Thomas Wyse and Richard Lalor Sheil, accepting government posts. In turn, when O’Callaghan nominated Sheil at the County Tipperary by-election of September 1839, the latter argued that O’Callaghan’s presence in parliament answered the Conservatives’ charge that the Irish county members were not sustained by the aristocracy, since O’Callaghan could ‘poll more on his own single estate than half the Tory constituency of the county’.7Freeman’s Journal, 18 Sept. 1839. Yet it was Sheil who, according to the Lismore family, effectively ended O’Callaghan’s parliamentary career shortly before the 1841 general election, when Sheil informed Lord Lismore that he needed a borough seat and suggested that O’Callaghan might give up Dungarvan to contest Tipperary. Given that this was likely to prove expensive, Lismore instead offered to fund Sheil’s re-election for Tipperary. While matters were pending, however, Sheil addressed the electors of Dungarvan, effectively displacing O’Callaghan as the Liberal candidate. Although O’Callaghan was spoken of as a candidate for Tipperary in 1841 and 1843, he did not stand for parliament again.8Daily News, 6 Nov. 1849; Freeman’s Journal, 14 June 1841; Bristol Mercury, 30 Dec. 1843.

O’Callaghan was regarded in Ireland as ‘one of the most honest of the Irish whigs’, who was ‘really anxious to serve the country’. His abilities were thought to have been considerable, and it was claimed that he might have been more eminent in politics ‘but for the physical difficulty of speaking, his tongue having been too large for his mouth, and his articulation being indistinct’. He died after a short illness in London in 1849, aged only 40, and was buried at Shanbally.9Freeman’s Journal, 21 Aug. 1849; Daily News, 6 Nov. 1849. His nephew, the Hon. William Frederick O’Callaghan, sat as a supporter of home rule for Tipperary, 1874-77.