made
his first public speech, and from that time forward his place as a
leader may be said to have been fixed. A Catholic Association had some
years earlier been formed, and of this he soon became the chief figure,
and his efforts were continually directed towards the relief of his
co-religionists. In 1815 a proposal had been made by the Government that
Catholic Emancipation should be granted, coupled with a power of veto in
the appointment of Catholic bishops, and to this compromise a
considerable Catholic party was favourable. Richard Lalor Sheil--next to
O'Connell by far the ablest and most eloquent advocate for
Emancipation--supported it; even the Pope, Pius VII., declared that he
felt "no hesitation in conceding it." O'Connell, however, opposed it
vehemently, and so worked up public opinion against it that in the end
he carried his point, and it was agreed that no proposal should be
accepted which permitted any external interference with the Catholic
Church of Ireland. This was his first decisive triumph.

O'Connell's buoyancy and indomitable energy imparted much of its own
impulse to a party more dead and dispirited than we who have only known
it in its resuscitated and decidedly dominant state can easily conceive.
In 1823 a new Irish Catholic Association was set on foot, of which he
was the visible life and soul. It is curious to note how little
enthusiasm its proceedings seem at first to have awakened, especially
amongst the priesthood. At a meeting on February 4, 1824, the necessary
quorum of ten members running short, it was only supplied by O'Connell
rushing downstairs to the book-shop over which the association met, and
actually forcing upstairs two priests whom he accidently found there,
and it was by the aid of these unwilling coadjutors that the famous
motion for establishing the "Catholic rent" was carried. No sooner was
this fund established, however, than it was largely subscribed for all
over the country, and in a wonderfully short time the whole priesthood
of Ireland were actively engaged in its service. The sums collected were
to be spent in parliamentary expenses, in the defence of Catholics, and
in the cost of meetings. In 1825 the association was suppressed by Act
of Parliament, but was hardly dead before O'Connell set about the
formation of another, and the defeat of the Beresfords at the election
for Waterford in 1826 was one of the first symptoms which showed where
the rising tide was mounting