Duel to the death that shaped O’Connell

Daniel O’Connell has always been known as a pacifist and opposed to force of any description. Indeed it is sometimes felt that it led to the failure of the Repeal Movement, when he backed down after the government banned the final Clontarf rally. It also led to many of the Young Irelanders becoming disenchanted with him in later years. However such might not always have been the case.

 

Born in Kerry, O’Connell was sent to France to be educated. He fled the country after the execution of Louis XVI and studied for the bar in London. At that stage he was very much an anti-revolutionary.

Life in London led him to adopt radical views and it is said that when he returned to Ireland, he joined the United Irishmen.

He was so outspoken in his political beliefs that his friends warned him that he risked being arrested. When the 1798 rebellion started he returned to Kerry, possibly because he feared being arrested. When he saw the failure of the rebellion he felt the best way to achieve anything was by moral force.

In his private life he was not so much opposed to action. His diaries record many revelries while in London and there were even rows and arrests. There was mention of a challenge to a man named Thompson that O’Connell did not follow through. Supposedly in the 1790s he was as fascinated with duelling, as were many of his class and age, thinking that it had a certain charm. He did actually take part in two duels.

In 1813 he challenged a fellow lawyer, Maurice Magrath, to a duel because he supposedly kicked O’Connell under a table during a trial. At the agreed venue they compromised and no shots were fired. After that incident there were stories that O’Connell had been afraid to fire and backed down.

Two years later that reputation led to another duel. In a Catholic Emancipation speech, O’Connell described the Dublin Corporation as “beggarly”. One of the members, John D’Esterre, claimed that the remark was a personal insult and even though he believed the stories about O’Connell being a coward, challenged him to a duel. O’Connell decided to defend his honour and accepted the challenge. The duel was fixed for Bishop’s Court in Kildare.

D’Esterre was much too casual, he fired first and missed. O’Connell then shot his opponent. It was thought that the injury was not serious and that he was only slightly wounded. However, when he was brought to a nearby house it was discovered that he had actually been hit in the stomach and he died from his injuries two days later. O’Connell had only wanted to wound D’Esterre, not kill him and was greatly shocked by the death and for the rest of his life he supposedly kept his hand covered whenever he entered a church because he did not want the hand to offend God. He was devastated and reportedly offered to support D’Esterre’s widow. She refused but for the rest of his life, O’Connell paid a regular allowance to her daughter.

O’Connell’s refusal to back down from the duel greatly enhanced his image in the country, particularly among Catholics.
That famous duel against John D’Esterre took place on February 1, 1815 – 207 years ago this week.