" This nickname of their favourite did not
offend the people, they even thought it appropriate, there was such a
dashing independence in his whole manner; and Shiel never wrote anything
more felicitously true, than when he said of him--"He shoulders his
umbrella like a pike, and throws out his legs, as if he were kicking
Protestant ascendancy before him."
O'Connell was a liberal in the highest sense; he loved toleration; but
he was also a Catholic to the heart's core--thorough, uncompromising:
proud of the down-trodden Church to which he belonged, with--at first,
perhaps, an intuitive feeling; later on, the proud consciousness, that
his name would be linked with her struggles and her triumphs.
"One of my earliest aspirations," he more than once said, "was to do
something for the good of my country, and write my name on the page of
her history." He was fervently devoted to the holy practices of the
Catholic Church. The fatal result of his duel with Captain D'Esterre,
seems to have exercised a marked influence upon his whole life, and he
frequently alluded to it in terms of the profoundest regret. It was a
sight not to be forgotten, to see him attend Mass and receive Holy
Communion in Clarendon Street.
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