O'Connell was the first Catholic to enter parliament, and the Duke of Wellington confessed that this was permitted only to avert a civil war. In 1828 he was elected to the British House of Commons, but was not admitted because he refused to take the anti-Catholic oath. He came back to his constituents and was elected again, and they continued to elect him, just as the merchants and bankers in the city of London continued to elect Baron Rothschild, who was refused admission for the same reason,--because he would not take the oath. He was the first Jew, as Daniel O'Connell was the first Roman Catholic, to obtain a seat upon the floor.
O'Connell was elected lord mayor of Dublin in 1841 and was the first Catholic to hold that office. At the height of his fame and power he might have been a lord protector or the king of Ireland, but he advocated peaceful revolutions, and, like Grattan, lost his influence because he would not consent to the policy and the methods of the radical and revolutionary element. In 1847 he went to address a meeting of his sympathizers at Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin, where Brian Boru won his great victory over the Danes in the last battle between Christianity and heathenism upon the soil of Ireland. The meeting had been forbidden by the authorities, and O'Connell was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison for two months. This broke him down. When he was released he left Dublin, started for Rome, and died at Genoa on his way. He is buried in Prospect Cemetery under a lofty tower. His will may be seen in the public records office in the Four Courts. He married his cousin, Mary O'Connell, and had four sons, all of whom were men of character and ability and have served in the British parliament.
The anniversary of the birth of Thomas Moore is celebrated in Dublin every summer, and a programme of his "Irish Melodies" is sung by local musicians--sweet old-fashioned ballads like "The Harp That Once through Tara's Halls," "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms," and others like them. The proceeds of the concert are devoted to a fund which is to be raised to erect a monument in memory of this most popular of Irish poets, whose songs are heard in every cottage in Ireland. His most pretentious poem, a Persian epic called "Lalla Rookh," brought $15,000,--the highest price ever paid for a poem. Scott's "Lady of the Lake" and some of Tennyson's and perhaps Kipling's poems and other poets', have received larger sums in royalties, but no other man was paid so much for his verses in advance of their publication.