 Portrait byGeorge Francis Mulvany | |
| Born | 17 October 1803 |
| Died | 18 June 1864(1864-06-18) (aged 60) |
| Resting place | Rathronan Cemetery,Ardagh, County Limerick, Ireland 52°30′25″N9°04′21″W / 52.506997°N 9.072535°W /52.506997; -9.072535 |
| Education | Trinity College,Cambridge |
| Known for | Irish nationalist MP, leader of theYoung Ireland movement |
William Smith O'Brien (Irish:Liam Mac Gabhann Ó Briain; 17 October 1803 – 18 June 1864) was anIrish nationalist Member of Parliament (MP) and a leader of theYoung Ireland movement. He also encouraged the use of theIrish language. He was convicted ofsedition for his part in theYoung Irelander "Famine Rebellion" of 1848 but his sentence of death was commuted to deportation toVan Diemen's Land. In 1854, he was released on the condition of exile from Ireland, and he lived inBrussels for two years. In 1856 Smith O'Brien was pardoned and returned to Ireland, but he was never active again in politics.
Born in Dromoland,Newmarket on Fergus,County Clare, William Smith O'Brien was the second son ofSir Edward O'Brien, 4th Baronet, ofDromoland Castle.[3] His mother was Charlotte Smith, whose father owned a property calledCahirmoyle in County Limerick. William took the additional surnameSmith, his mother's maiden name, upon inheriting the property. He lived at Cahermoyle House, a mile fromArdagh, County Limerick.[4] He was a descendant of the eleventh centuryArd Rí (High King of Ireland),Brian Boru.[5]He received an upper-class English education atHarrow School andTrinity College, Cambridge.[6]Subsequently, he studied law atKing's Inns in Dublin andLincoln's Inn in London.[3]
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From April 1828 to 1831 Smith O'Brien was theTory faction MP forEnnis, his father's borough.[7] Although a Protestant country-gentleman, he supportedCatholic Emancipation and theRoman Catholic Relief Act 1829 while remaining a supporter of British-Irish union.
In 1835 Smith O'Brien becameWhig MP forCounty Limerick. In 1837Daniel O'Connell clashed with him over his opposition to the introduction of secret voting in elections and also Smith O'Brien's support for granting state payments toCatholic clergy.[8] The Catholic Bishops came out in support ofO'Connell's stance on Church and nation, resolving "most energetically to oppose any such arrangement, and that they look upon those that labour to effect it as the worst enemies of the Catholic religion."[9]
Smith O'Brien remained in theHouse of Commons until 1849[10] when his seat was forfeited.
In 1843, in protest against the imprisonment ofDaniel O'Connell, he joined O'Connell's anti-unionRepeal Association.[10] Within the association he identified with the circle aroundCharles Gavan Duffy and his paperThe Nation which O'Connell in hostile reference toGiuseppe Mazzini's anti-clerical and insurrectionaryYoung Italy dubbedYoung Ireland.[11]
After O'Connell and his son John forced a division with resolutions renouncing a resort to revolutionary force regardless of circumstances, Smith O'Brien withdrew with the Young Irelanders into a newIrish Confederation, although he was to continue to preach reconciliation until O'Connell's death in May 1847.[10] The objectives of the Confederation were "independence of the Irish nation" with "no means to attain that end abjured, save such as were inconsistent with honour, morality and reason".[12]
In the Confederation Duffy was trying to hold together a broad national coalition, and had for that reason advanced Smith O'Brien, as a Protestant and a landowner, to the leadership. On the Confederation's Council Duffy and Smith O'Brien were supported byPatrick James Smyth who argued that with propertied classes, as well as the priesthood opposed, the Confederation could not, in the event of insurrection, hope to call out a single parish in Ireland.[13]
As thefamine took hold, Smith O'Brien started organising practical relief. By the spring of 1848, the scale of the catastrophe facing the country persuaded all factions on the Irish Confederation Council that independence was an existential issue; that the immediate need was for an Irish national government able take control of national resources. In March 1848, Smith O'Brien called for the formation of a National Guard. He was arrested, but acquitted on a charge of sedition.[14] In May, Duffy published "The Creed of the Nation." If Irish independence was to come by force, it would be in the form of a Republic.[15]
The Government made clear that its chosen response to the crisis in Ireland was coercion not concession.John Mitchel was convicted under new martial law measures approved by Parliament (including by a number of "Old Ireland" O'Connellite MPs). On 9 July 1848 Duffy was arrested for sedition. He managed to smuggle a few lines out toThe Nation but the issue that would have carried his declaration, that there was no remedy now but the sword, was seized and the paper suppressed.[16]
Planning for an insurrection had already advanced. Mitchel, although the first to call for action, had scoffed at the necessity for systematic preparation. Smith O'Brien, to Duffy's surprise, attempted the task. In March 1848 Smith O'Brien andThomas Francis Meagher returned fromrevolutionary Paris with hopes of French assistance. (Among the leading republicans in France,Ledru-Rollin had been loud in his declaration of French support for the Irish cause).[17] There was also talk of an Irish-American brigade and of aChartist diversion in England[18] With Duffy's arrest, it was left to Smith O'Brien to confront the reality of the Confederates'domestic isolation.
Having with Meagher andJohn Dillon gathered a small group of both landowners and tenants, on 23 July Smith O'Brien raised the standard of revolt inKilkenny.[19] This was a tricolour he and Meagher had brought back from France, its colours (green for Catholics, orange for Protestants) intended to symbolise the United Irish republican ideal.
As Smith O'Brien proceeded intoCounty Tipperary he was greeted by curious crowds, but found himself in command of only a few hundred ill-clad largely unarmed men. They scattered after their first skirmish with the constabulary, derisively referred to byThe Times of London as "Battle of Widow McCormack's Cabbage Patch".[3]
In Smith O'Brien's subsequent trial, the jury found him guilty of high treason. He was sentenced to behanged, drawn, and quartered. Petitions for clemency were signed by 70,000 people in Ireland and 10,000 people in England.[20]
In Dublin on 5 June 1849, the sentences of Smith O'Brien and his confederates Meagher, Terence MacManus andPatrick O'Donoghue were commuted to transportation for life to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania in present-day Australia).[21]
Smith O'Brien attempted to escape fromMaria Island off Tasmania, but was betrayed by Ellis, the captain of the schooner hired for the escape. He was sent toPort Arthur where he met up withJohn Mitchel, who had been transported before the rebellion. The cottages which Smith O'Brien lived in on Maria Island and Port Arthur have been preserved in their 19th century state as memorials.[22]
Having emigrated to the United States, Ellis was tried by another Young Irelanders leader,Terence MacManus, at alynch court in San Francisco for the betrayal of Smith O'Brien. He was freed for lack of evidence.[22]
In 1854, after five years inTasmania, Smith O'Brien was released on the condition he never return to theUnited Kingdom. He settled inBrussels.[23] In May 1856, he was granted an unconditionalpardon and returned to Ireland that July. He contributed to theNation newspaper, and published the two-volumePrinciples of Government, or Meditations in Exile in 1856.[24] But despite the efforts ofGeorge Henry Moore to recruit him as a leader of theIndependent Irish Party,[25] Smith O'Brien played no further part in politics.[23]
In 1864 he visited England and Wales, with the view of rallying his failing health, but no improvement took place, and he died at Bangor, in Wales on 16 June 1864.[21]
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A statue of William Smith O'Brien stands inO'Connell Street, Dublin. Sculpted in Portland limestone, it was designed by Thomas Farrell and erected in D'Olier Street, Dublin, in 1870. It was moved to its present position in 1929.
Smith O'Brien Avenue inLimerick city is named for him.[27] As isSmith O'Brien's GAA club, in Killaloe, County Clare.[citation needed]
In the United States,O'Brien County, Iowa is named after him.[28]
Smith O'Brien was a founding member of theOssianic Society, whose aim was to further therevival of theIrish language and to publish and translate literature relating to theFenian Cycle ofIrish mythology.
He wrote to his son Edward fromVan Diemen's Land, urging him to learn the Irish language. He himself studied the language and used an Irish-language Bible, and presented to theRoyal Irish Academy Irish-language manuscripts he had collected. He enjoyed the respect ofCounty Clarebards (the county being largely Irish-speaking at the time), and in 1863, on his advice, Irish was introduced into a number of schools there.[29]
While studying in London Smith O'Brien met Mary Ann Wilton and fathered two children born to her. In Autumn 1832 he married Lucy Caroline Gabbett (1811–1861) of County Limerick. They had five boys and two girls.[21]
The children of William Smith O'Brien and Lucy O'Brien were Edward William (Ned) (1831–1909), William Joseph (1839–1867), Lucy Josephine (1840–1907), Lucius Henry (1842–1913), Robert Donough (1844–1917), Charlotte Grace (1845–1909) and Charles Murrough (1849–1877).[3] The elder daughter Lucy Josephine O'Brien married RevJohn Gwynn and their children included writer and MPStephen Gwynn,Lucy Gwynn who was the first woman registrar ofTrinity College Dublin, andEdward Gwynn who was Provost ofTrinity College Dublin. O'Brien's younger daughterCharlotte Grace O'Brien was a campaigner for the better treatment of Irish emigrants.[30]
William Smith O'Brien's elder brotherLucius O'Brien (1800–1872) was for some time member of parliament forCounty Clare.
William Smith O'Brien's sister Harriet O'Brien married an Anglican priest but was soon widowed. AsHarriet Monsell, she founded the order of Anglican nuns, theCommunity of St John Baptist, in Clewer, Windsor, in 1851. The gold cross she wore, and which still belongs to the Community, was made with gold panned by her brother during his exile in Australia.
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Quotations related toWilliam Smith O'Brien at Wikiquote| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forEnnis 1828–1831 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forCounty Limerick 1835–1849 | Succeeded by |
