Prophet of a Coming Time

DETAILS
Tuesday 27th October 2026 at 6:00pm (AEDT)
Dr Fergus O’Ferrall
Daniel O’Connell: Prophet of a Coming Time

ABSTRACT
The seminar outlines the significance of the career of Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) as the founding father of Irish democracy. It will describe the set of political principles enunciated by O’Connell which not only permanently shaped early Irish democratic practice but are of universal significance in respect of our democratic future in the twenty-first century. O’Connell was an advanced radical democrat and a humanitarian with a European and world-wide reputation unparalleled by that of any other Irish political figure. It will seek to place O’Connell’s political principles in the context of the civic republican political philosophy even more than the liberal political tradition in which he has often been set.

The focus will be on the distinctiveness of O’Connell’s political project: his personal charisma, flamboyant rhetorical skills, his Catholic faith and the separation of Church and State, his utilitarianism and civic republicanism, his unswerving commitment to nonviolence and parliamentary means of change and his constant invention of new modes of political mobilisation of a people hitherto excluded from the public sphere- all render O’Connell, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a unique ‘prophet of a coming time’.

SPEAKER
Dr. Fergus O’Ferrall is a native of County Longford, Ireland. He obtained in Trinity College a Moderatorship in Modern History and Political Science and a PhD in Irish History. Amongst his publications are Catholic Emancipation Daniel O’Connell and the Birth of Irish Democracy 1820-1830 (Dublin, 1985) and a biography, Daniel O’Connell (Gill’s Irish Lives Series, Dublin, 1981 and 1998). His most recent book is County Longford Explored Irish History in the Hidden Heartland (Geography Publications, Dublin, 2025). Other publications include John Ferrall: Master of Sligo Workhouse 1852-66 (Maynooth Studies in Local History, Dublin 2019). He has co-edited and contributed to other publications including Longford History and Society (Dublin, 2010) He has contributed articles on a wide range of subjects to journals such a Studies: An Irish Quarterly, The Irish Review and to the online Dublin Review of Books.

LOCATION (In-Person only)
Wild Geese, 29 Sydney Road, Brunswick 3062. This is a free event open to the public. Please register to attend.