ner of secret societies. He knew too
well that they only ended in betrayal by some traitor who had contrived
to be admitted to their ranks. Under such conditions and with such views
what was there to induce the successful and prosperous advocate who
loved peace and who hated social disturbance, to mix himself up with
political affairs at a time when national politics meant for a patriotic
Irishman only social exclusion, danger, poverty, and even ruin?

O'Connell could not help himself. He had to walk, as Carlyle says of a
very different man, "his own wild road whither that led him."
O'Connell's wild road--the road that he had to walk, led him to the
leadership of two great national movements.

To understand what O'Connell fought against we must, of course,
understand O'Connell's time. It is not easy for an American reader to
understand it without some thought and without the endeavor to grasp the
reality of a state of things quite outside his own living experience.
When O'Connell began his career in politics the Act of Union had but
lately been passed. That Act of Union deprived Ireland of the more or
less independent Parliament which she had had for generations and even
for centuries. It was indeed a Parliament "more or less"
independent--less, perhaps, much rather than more. Still there had been
always a recognition of Irish nationality in the existence of any form
of Irish Parliament. The troubles between England and her American
colonies--between England and France--had led to the concession of what
we now know as Grattan's Parliament--the nearest form of Home Rule
Ireland had ever enjoyed since her conquest by the descendants of the
great Norman kings. But it was a Parliament of Protestants--no Catholic,
in a nation of which five-sixths were Catholics, could sit in the
National Parliament or even give a vote for a member of that National
Parliament. Grattan's Parliament was exclusively Protestant; but yet,
with all its imperfections, so nationalist was it in spirit that it was
willing, under Grattan's inspiration, to enable Roman Catholics to vote
for the election of members of the Irish House of Commons. But Grattan
and his friends were anxious to go much farther. They demanded a
complete political equality for the Roman Catholics. A society was
formed for the purpose of conducting the agitation. Its leaders were
almost all Protestants--many of them were Protestants from Ulster. The
stupid bigotry of George the T