O’CONNELL, Charles (1805-1877), of Ballynabloun and Bahoss, Cahirciveen, co. Kerry of 14 Albemarle Street, London, Mdx.

A former officer in the British army, Charles O’Connell had married Daniel O’Connell’s second daughter, Catherine, to whom he was a distant cousin, in October 1832.1Morning Post, 26 Mar. 1828, 7 Apr. 1832; Belfast News-letter, 16 Oct. 1832. Going by the nickname of ‘Long Charlie’, he had acted as second in ‘the string of abortive duels’ that occurred ‘in consequence of a misunderstanding’ between Maurice O’Connell and William Mahon at the election for County Clare in May 1831.2Burke’s Irish Family Records (1976), 891; HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 893; Standard, 26 May 1831; Morning Post, 26, 28 May 1831. At one point O’Connell intervened physically to protect Mahon’s second when he was ‘most violently assailed by the mob’: Freeman’s Journal, 26 May 1831. After Daniel O’Connell was returned for Dublin at the 1832 general election, his son-in-law was nominated by the local election committee as the repeal candidate for his former seat of Kerry.3Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1833), 144. Although the Kerry election committee had acted ‘rather against’ the wishes of O’Connell, who would have preferred another candidate, Charles O’Connell was returned without a contest.4J.H. Whyte, ‘Daniel O’Connell and the Repeal Party’, Irish Historical Studies, 11:44 (1959), 297-316 (at 300).

O’Connell responded enthusiastically to the National Political Union’s invitation to attend a National Council in Dublin in January 1833. As a member of his father-in-law’s ‘Household Brigade’, he consistently opposed the government’s Irish coercion bill and voted for the first reading of the Irish Church temporalities bill, 11 Mar. 1833.5Morning Post, 7 Jan. 1833; R. Dunlop, Daniel O’Connell and the Revival of National Life in Ireland (1908), 269. He supported Joseph Hume’s resolution on economies in the public service, 14 Feb. 1833, and Thomas Attwood’s motion for a committee on distress, 21 Mar., and backed proposals made by George Robinson for the commutation of taxes, 26 Mar., and by Hume for the abolition of military flogging, 2 Apr. He is not known to have spoken in debate, served on any committees or introduced any bills, but did vote for Matthias Attwood’s motion on currency reform, 24 Apr., and endorsed George Grote’s ballot motion, 25 Apr. A supporter of free trade, he divided in favour of a reduction of malt duty, 26 Apr. 1833, and backed Whitmore’s motion for a low fixed duty on corn, 17 May. A progressive liberal, he divided in favour of the second reading of the Jewish disabilities bill, 22 May, but appears to have been absent from three important divisions on the slavery question in July 1833.

O’Connell was among those who disagreed with the Liberator on the issue of postponing a discussion of repeal in the House, and as early as January 1834 reports circulated ‘that this truly honest and well-meaning country gentleman’ was ‘heartily sick of his senatorial labours’.6Whyte, ‘O’Connell and the Repeal Party’, 301; Freeman’s Journal, 15 June, 6 July 1833; Standard, 29 Jan. 1834, quoting Kerry Post. By the Easter recess it was anticipated that a new writ for Kerry was pending, O’Connell ‘not having attended in his place’ during the session. He did, however, turn up to oppose Althorp’s scheme to replace church rates, 21 Apr. 1834, and support O’Connell’s repeal motion, 29 Apr. He also backed his father-in-law’s opposition to the second reading of the Irish tithes bill, 2 May, and voted for Tennyson’s motion to repeal the Septennial Act, 15 May. It was no surprise, however, when he retired at the 1835 general election to make way for his kinsman, Morgan John O’Connell. In addition he provided John O’Connell with the annuity on which he qualified to represent Youghal.7Standard, 1 Apr. 1834; Morning Post, 3 Dec. 1834; D. O’Connell to P. Mahony, 27 July 1837, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vi. 74-5.

Thereafter O’Connell ‘out built himself’ in the construction of a ‘splendid mansion’ at the centre of reclaimed bog-land at Bahoss, county Kerry, incurring financial liabilities after having.8S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (2nd edn., 1840) i. 237; Morning Post, 18 Mar. 1843. He was reported to have spent £4,000 on the house, which he sold to the poor law union for £2,000 in 1841: Morning Post, 18 May 1841. In 1838, at the prompting of his wife, O’Connell’s father-in-law unsuccessfully applied for his appointment to the stipendiary magistracy, being convinced that it was ‘impossible any man could be more fit for that office’. Charles was, in O’Connell’s opinion, ‘young, active, well-humoured, intelligent and a perfect gentleman in mind and manners’, and had been for ‘ten years an attentive and useful magistrate’. O’Connell made further unsuccessful applications on his behalf to the Irish chief secretary, Lord Morpeth, in November 1839, and to the Irish viceroy, Lord Ebrington, in February 1840.9O. MacDonagh, The Emancipist. Daniel O’Connell 1830-1847 (1989), 184-5; D. O’Connell to Catherine O’Connell, 1 May 1839; D. O’Connell to R.L. Sheil, 29 Oct. 1839; D. O’Connell to Lord Ebrington, 22 Feb. 1840, O’Connell Correspondence, vi. 236, 285-6, 313. Although he claimed not to have previously ‘taken any part in the repeal movement’, Charles O’Connell resigned his commission of the peace on 29 May 1843, in protest at the government’s ‘unconstitutional suspension of magistrates’ who had attended repeal meetings.10PP 1843 (403) li. 3 [7]. In the early 1840s he was sometimes confused with Charles O’Connell of Ennis, a cousin of the Liberator and a controversial crown solicitor for county Clare. It was the latter who accompanied O’Connell on his stormy visit to Belfast in 1841 and was expelled by the Repeal Association in October 1847: Standard, 18 Apr. 1840, 18, 21 Jan., 27 May, 14 June 1841, 3 Nov. 1847; Morning Post, 14 Apr. 1840, 28 Jan. 1841, 15 June 1842, 6 Oct. 1847. His father-in-law subsequently found the Whig administration to be more yielding, and in January 1847 Charles was appointed a government (or resident) magistrate and posted to the Castlerea district of county Roscommon.11A. Macintyre, The Liberator. Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party 1830-1847 (1965), 290; Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, 1 July 1843; Bury & Norwich Post, 27 Jan. 1847, quoting Limerick Chronicle; Morning Post, 23 Apr. 1847. He subsequently became resident magistrate for the Bantry district of county Cork, where he died in January 1877. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Daniel Charles (1842-1925), a magistrate of Conservative views, who in 1877 took the daughter of Sir Joseph Neale McKenna MP as his second wife.12Belfast News-letter, 23 Jan. 1877; The Times, 23 Jan. 1877.