"At Taunton this miscreant had the audacity to style me an incendiary! Why, I was a greater incendiary in 1831 than I am at present, if I ever were one; and if I am, he is doubly so, for having employed me. Then he calls me a traitor. My answer to that is, he is a liar. He is a liar in action and in words. His life is a living lie. He is a disgrace to his species. What taste of society must that be that could tolerate such a creature, having the audacity to come forward with one set of principles at one time, and obtain political assistance by reason of those principles, and at another to profess diametrically the reverse? His life, I say again, is a living lie. He is the most degraded of his species and kind, and England is degraded in tolerating, or having upon the face of her society a miscreant of his abominable, foul, and atrocious nature. My language is harsh, and I owe an apology for it; but I will tell you why I owe that apology: it is for this reason, that if there be harsher terms in the British language I should use them, because it is the harshest of all terms that would be descriptive of a wretch of his species. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the cross, whose name, I verily believe, must have been D'Israeli. For aught I know, the present D'Israeli is descended from him, and with the impression that he is, I now forgive the heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief who died upon the cross."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomPolitical activistsPoliticians from IrelandCatholics from IrelandActivists from Ireland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Speech to the Dublin Franchise Association at the Corn Exchange (2 May 1835), quoted in Michael MacDonagh, The Life of Daniel O'Connell (1903), p. 250
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_O'Connell
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Daniel O'Connell
1775 – 1847
Daniel O'Connell (Irish language: Dónal Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was a political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Ireland through to the poorest class of tenant farmer helped secure Catholic emancipation in 1829 and allowed him to take his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom after he was elected a second time.
62 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Daniel O'Connell →
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