April 1829
Catholic Emancipation
Daniel O'Connell's mass movement forces Westminster to let Catholics sit in parliament and hold high office.
- O'Connell, Daniel — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
- The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question 1690–1830 — Thomas Bartlett, Gill and Macmillan (1992)
- Modern Ireland 1600–1972 — R. F. Foster, Allen Lane (1988)
In the 1820s Daniel O’Connell built the Catholic Association, funded by a “Catholic rent” of a penny a month that brought poor tenants and priests into politics on a scale never seen before. In 1828 he won a by-election in County Clare though, as a Catholic, he could not take his seat. Fearing unrest, Wellington’s government passed the Catholic Relief Act in April 1829.
- O'Connell, Daniel — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
- The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question 1690–1830 — Thomas Bartlett, Gill and Macmillan (1992)
- Modern Ireland 1600–1972 — R. F. Foster, Allen Lane (1988)
- O'Connell, Daniel — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
- Ireland: A History — Thomas Bartlett, Cambridge University Press (2010)
Why it matters today
Ireland
O'Connell showed that a mobilised, peaceful mass of ordinary people could win against the state. That model of constitutional nationalism runs through Parnell to John Hume.