Kenmare

Daniel O Connell Summer School

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The Daniel O Connell Summer School – Our Vision Our Plans from 2013…. To O’Connell was the founder of Irish popular politics and a pioneering humanitarian whose influence was felt at home and abroad. In Western Europe, he was celebrated as a man who pioneered a new styles of “people power” and through it, helped to bring stability to a Europe that had been ravaged by years of war. In Great Britain, especially when he held the balance of power during the 1830s, he helped to pioneer all sorts of reforms while in the United States, he is still remembered as one of the great leaders of the movement to end slavery. In Ireland, O’Connell is the man who is remembered as the person who successfully led the campaign for Catholic Emancipation which enabled Catholics to sit in Parliament. O’Connell was able to use this achievement to create “an Irish Party” in Westminster which for the first time, was able to act in a more focused way to address the grievances of Ireland. He is also remembered as a great lawyer – “The “Counsellor” of Irish folklore – the man who led the campaign to give full civil rights to Jews as well as one of the pioneers of the first movement for full civil rights in Britain and Ireland. This is the person whom the Daniel O’Connell School celebrates. This is the man who in his own time, was a highly political thinker, the founder of Irish the modern political system, and the man who is still remembered in various parts of the globe. And he was born in Cahirsiveen and resided in Derrynane until he died in 1845. Both in his own time and since then, O’Connell was a complicated man, as man who was seen in different ways, sometimes for the better, sometimes less so. However, nobody can doubt his importance. Moreover, he remains as a figure of continuing national and international relevance, a figure whose career and legacy can lend itself to all sorts of debates and discussions which are still relevant to both the Ireland and the wider world.