Life
1838-1906 [Charles Owen O’Conor]; commonly “The O’Conor Don”; b. Dublin; ed. Downside; MP for Roscommon, 1860-80; supported agrarian, tax, and educational reforms; carried the Irish flag at the coronation of Edward VI. MP for Roscommon in 1860; pamphlets include Irish Land Tenure, Taxation of Ireland, and Freedom of Education; appt. High Sheriff of Sligo, 1863; member of commissions on Penal Servitude, 1863; Factories and Workshop, 1875; Registration Deeds, 1878; Reformatories and Industrial Schools, 1896; issued monority report in connection with Bessborough Commission; prominent in support of Irish Sunday Closing Bill; lost his seat to a Parnellite in 1880; exponent of Catholic Educational rights, he worked on royal commissions on penal servitude and factory laws; President of RIA, and Antiquarian Society, he also brought about the introduction of Irish into the Intermediate syllabus in Ireland; published The O’Conors of Connaught (1891); d. Clonalis. ODNB DIB DIH
Commentary
Maurice Headlam, Irish Reminiscences (London: Robert Hale 1947): ‘The O’Conor Don, who carried the standard of Ireland at the Coronation of Edward VII, was, I think, of purely Celtic blood, whereas Mr Bagwell was of Cromwellian English stock - both Unionists and both lovers of Ireland - the latter strongly Church of Ireland, the former fervent Catholic. The O’Conor Don was unmarried and I only stayed with him twice, I think, to fish an attractive stream called the Suck. But he was a good talker when he overcame his habitual shyness, and I learned much of the Roman Catholic side of Irish politics - not, as is [45] generally believed, all Nationalist - from conversation with him at the club, at his rather ugly modern house in Co. Roscommon, and during his last illness, when I used to go to see him at his hospital in Dublin - a brave, modest, upright man.’ (pp.45-46.)
References
University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection), holds The O’Conors of Connaught, an historical memoir compiled from a MS of the late John O’Donovan, with adds. from the state papers and public records (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1891).
Notes
Hostile: There is a hostile reference to O’Conor as a Unionist in Seán de Fréine, The Great Silence (Cork: Mercier Press 1978).
Kith & Kin? Charles O’Conor (1804-1884), Negro slavery not unjust : speech of Charles O'Conor at the Union Meeting at the Academy of Music, New York City, December 19, 1859 / revised by himself [Slavery and anti-slavery: a transnational archive: Part I: Debates over slavery and abolition] (NY: Van Evrie, Horton & Co. [1859]), 13pp., [3], 22cm. [incls. publisher's advertisements (pages [1-3]). Note: There is no entry for such a person with those dates in Dicitonary of irish Biography (RIA 2009).
Vide Wikipedia [paraphrase]: Charles O’Conor (1804-1884) great-grandson of the antiquarian Charles O'Conor of Belanagare [q.v.] was an American lawyer who was notable for his career as a trial advocate and candidacy in the 1872 presidential election. He was the first Catholic presidential nominee. New York City, New York, U.S. Cadet member of O'Conor Don family; son of Thomas O'Conor (1770-1855), a sworn member of the United Irishmen who fled fro Roscommon to America in 1801 after the failed rebellion of 1798 and worked in New York as a journalist; feted for his part in the Forrest divorce case in which he won a large alimony for Mrs Forrest and received silver vases as tokens of thanks from other prominent ladies in New York; engaged in several slavery cases as well as the Jumel case involving $6M dollar estate; elected President of the NY Law Institute 1869; prominent part in prosecution of Boss Tweed for corruption; member of Directory of the Friends of Ireland, involved in fostering the 1848 Rising; defeated on Democratic ticket for office of Lieut.-Gov. of New York; nominated as candidate in presidential election won by Ulysses S. Grant but declined, as did John Quincy Adams II; built house in Nantucket, Mass., with adjoining fire-proof library; bur. St. Patrick's Cath., NY. m. Mrs Cornelia McCracken, with no children; separated. (Available online; accessed 17.09.2024.)
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