A Discourse Perspective on Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Movement

There is no doubt that Daniel O’Connell can be hailed as a towering figure of nineteenth-century Irish politics. In this book, however, a different angle is taken on O’Connell’s centrality to Irish public discourse. Thus, rather than adding to the vast body of research works on O’Connell’s politics or the history of Catholic Emancipation and Repeal, this study provides a discourse perspective on the Liberator’s oratorical skills, along with the general perception of O’Connell as shaped by the press of his age. What rhetorical strategies did O’Connell implement in order to persuade the Catholics of Ireland that he was the man to make their voice heard by the British authorities?; How were O’Connell’s figure, his followers and his ideology assessed by nationalist and unionist print media? The volume addresses these research questions by combining the study of public speaking with news discourse within an integrated approach to the Irish public sphere in the early 1840s.