While the
end of the Confederacy saw the end of much of the Gaelic aristocracy, there
were still a few families which survived long after the collapse. These
families prospered and remained in the background, trying to attract as little
negative attention their way as possible. One family of great importance was
the O’Conor’s of Belagnare. Charles O’Conor was born and raised in Belanagare
in county Sligo and went on to become a writer and antiquarian who played one
of the most important roles in the preservation of Irish history and culture in
the 18th century. O’Conor worked towards engraving Irish history into
the national and international scene along with his own name. He took a
prominent place in the early stages of the Catholic emancipation in Ireland as
the co-founder of the Catholic Committee in 1757 along with Dr. John Curry and
Mr. Wyse of Waterford. The Committee sought to fight for the repeal of the
Penal Laws which suppressed Catholics in Ireland.
The Penal laws were first introduced in the early 1600’s and
under the influence of rulers like Cromwell, Catholics were put to the
extremities of persecution. O’Conor grew up as part of the remaining Catholic
aristocracy left in Ireland, and as a direct descendant of Ruairí au
Choncobair, the last high king of Ireland. The Gaelic aristocracy had been
decimated after the collapse of the Irish Confederacy with the vast majority
losing all of their land to the planters. Charles travelled around the country while growing up, receiving his education through traditional hereditary means,
living with other families who taught him. O’Conor was taught bi-lingually,
studying Latin, English and Irish as well as learning to speak and read French
to a passable degree. The language of his home however is thought to have been
mostly Irish, but as an aristocrat in an Ireland during the height of England’s
suppression of the native people, English fluency would have been a necessity.
As part
of his hereditary education he lived in Dublin for a period during his late
teens. While there he came in the company of very influential intellectuals,
one of which was his future colleague and friend, Tadhg Ó’Neachtain. Ó’Neachtain
influenced his writings greatly and provided O’Conor with an introduction to
his family’s circle of academic colleagues, giving him a platform to start from.
It’s not exactly known who O’Conor met in the Ó’Neachtain circle but one man he
most certainly met was Tadhg’s father, Seán. Around this time O’Conor was
continuing his studies with Dominic Ó’Duibhgennáin who he showed a great deal
of admiration for. The Ó’Duibhgennáins had been the hereditary teachers of the O’Conor’s and one
of the last families in country to continue the tradition. The death of Dominic
brought an end to this tradition and signalled a new age of education in
Ireland.[4]
It was around this time that Catholic schools began to be banned and hedge-schools
start to appear around the country. Catholic children were not meant to receive
any kind of education which had been influenced by Catholic teachers, however,
while Catholic based education was banned, no hedge-school teachers were ever
reported to have been prosecuted for their actions.
O’Conor
had connections to many influential academics of the time with one important
connection being Henry Brooke, an Anglo-Irish dramatist, writer and father of
Charlotte Brooke. Henry being of the Protestant gentry in a divisive time, was
strongly anti-Catholic, producing pamphlets attacking the Catholic population,
the first of which was entitled The Farmers letters to the Protestants of
Ireland. Henry condemned the Catholics and attacked all members and sectors
of its institution, accusing them of the greatest of crimes against
Protestants, created purely for fuelling the hatred against the Catholic
population, simply to justify their subjection of the native population. While
the Gaelic people remained quiet and downtrodden throughout most of this
period, O’Conor continuously responded to Henry’s pamphlets and to his first,
he responded with a pamphlet entitled Rusticus. Here O’Conor first
challenges Henry, bringing into question the validity of this piece of work,
pointing towards the conquest of the native’s lands by the colonial gentry. A
rivalry ensued between the two men for many years but neither knew who they
were exactly dealing with as both men were keeping their anonymity. Brooke
would release a pamphlet and O’Conor unable to let such material slide, jumped
in with both feet in defence of Irish Catholics.
O’Connor and the Catholic Association were
well established by 1761 but they still required a Protestant writer to publish
work on their behalf as Catholics had next to no voice at this time. Brookes
had been struggling financially since 1745 so when O’Conor and the committee asked
Henry to write articles for them in support of their cause he agreed to as long
as they payed him what he required. Henry published on their behalf until 1763
when he was forced to as the pay was not good enough. Henry needed to make more
money and tried writing for different people but continued to struggle.
O’Conor
was driven by the historical inaccuracies that were being taught about Irelands
ancient past, he sought to revise the teachings of the time and released many
dissertations, pamphlets and other documents correcting very influential
historians. One of his most famous acts was when he called out the work of
James Mac Pherson in 1766. The history of Ireland and other Celtic nations at
this time were entangled in a web of unclarity and O’Conor was determined to
correct them. In 1761, when James Mac Pherson released a story about Ossian,
the so-called narrator and author of a set epic poems in Scottish history, many
were quick to spot that the story was taken from Irish mythology with Ossian
being derived from Oisín, son of Fionn Mac Cumhail, leader of the Fianna. In
1766 O’Conor released a written refute to Mac Phersons work, calling him
out for the fictionalised names which appeared nowhere in Irish or Scottish
history manuscripts. ‘Nor doth it import, that no such name as Fingal, can be
found in the regal lists of Ireland or Scotland, or that all ancient and modern
history is silent of such a Monarch.’ O’Conor used this case as part of his platform of solidifying the source of
Gaelic culture as being solely in Ireland and that it made its way over to the
Scottish highlands.
In 1749
O’Conor began to devote his time to the cause of civil liberties of Roman
Catholics in Ireland. He along with Dr. John Curry wrote pamphlets in support
of the cause using aliases and in 1757, both O’Conor and Dr. Curry along with Mr. Wyse of
Waterford, founded the Catholic Committee. While the committee campaigned for the relaxation of Penal laws binding
Catholics to subjugation, they were largely ineffective and periodically
inactive for most of its existence. ‘From the 1750’s a rudimentary political
organisation existed in the Catholic committee which was mainly active in
resisting the demands of the guilds for quarterage fees.’ It was not until the 1790’s that the committee really began to gain some ground
in the relaxation of the Penal laws with the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791
and in April 1793 the committee was dissolved. O’Conor went on to become one of the most respected antiquarians in Ireland
managing to position himself where he was sought out for his expertise. As the
interest increased in what was once the dying culture of Ireland, so did the
popularity of Charles O’Conor.
Throughout the 16th and 17th
centuries there were multiple attempts to establish historical societies
throughout Ireland, but these kinds of societies found it difficult to thrive
within the country. In 1681 The Dublin Philosophical Society was founded and
provided a platform for Irish intellectuals to come together and form connections,
but this society only lasted on and off for 25 years. In 1731 The Dublin
Society which later became the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) was founded but at
this stage only existed for the improvement of farming and industry. In 1744
the Physico-Historical Society was formed and while it helped to create
historical documents of several counties, they were littered with personal
bias’s and eventually the society began to continuously fade away until it
ended in 1753. A society centred around the Irish language did also exist in
Dublin with the formation of Comhthionól na Gaoidheilge but little is known
about the actions of this society. In 1772 the Royal Dublin Society appointed a
committee to research the ancient state of arts, literature and antiquaries, a
move which O’Conor had been seeking to happen for years and he went on to work
closely with the committee until he was made an honorary member in 1773. The
society immediately sent out 3000 pamphlets across Ireland and to Irish
colleges in Europe seeking historical manuscripts, architectural information
and those fluent in the ancient Irish language and capable in writing it. This
society lasted until it eventually faded out in 1775. In April 1785 The Royal
Irish Academy was founded and under the encouragement of Lord Charlemont, the
society dedicated itself to the study of science, polite literature and antiquities.1807
saw the formation of The Dublin Gaelic Society who sought to improve the
general understanding of the literature and antiquities of Gaelic Ireland.
O’Conor died on
1st July 1791 but his footprint will mark Irish history forever. In
1788 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland agreed to a proposal to give O’Conor a
state pension to allow him to employ workers to help him continue in his work.
This gesture would have been only a dream to him as a young scholar where he
fought so hard only for the formation of a society to study the antiquities of
Gaelic Ireland.
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