to.

It was followed two years later by a much more important victory.
Although Catholics were excluded from sitting in Parliament the law
which forbade their doing so did not preclude their being returned as
members, and it had long been thought that policy required the election
of some Catholic, if only that the whole anomaly of the situation might
be brought into the full light of day. An opportunity soon occurred. Mr.
Fitzgerald, the member for Clare, having accepted office as President of
the Board of Trade, he was obliged to appeal to his constituents for
re-election, and O'Connell caught at the suggestion made to him of
contesting the seat. His purpose had hardly been announced before it
created the wildest excitement all over Ireland. The Catholic
Association at once granted L5,000 towards the expenses, and L9,000 more
was easily raised within a week. In every parish in Clare the priests
addressed their parishioners from the altar, appealing to them to be
true to the representative of their faith. After a vehement contest,
victory declared itself unhesitatingly for O'Connell, who was found to
have polled more than a thousand votes over his antagonist.

The months which followed were months of the wildest and most feverish
excitement all over Ireland. O'Connell, though he used his "frank," did
not present himself at the House of Commons. He devoted his whole time
to organizing his co-religionists, who by this time may be said to have
formed one vast army under his direction. In every parish the priests
were his lieutenants. Monster meetings were held in all directions, and
it may without exaggeration be said that hardly a Catholic man escaped
the contagion. So universal a demonstration was felt to be irresistible.
A sudden perception of the necessity for full and unqualified
Emancipation sprang up in England. Even the Duke of Wellington bent his
head before the storm. In the king's speech of February, 1829, a
revision of the Catholic disabilities was advised. The following month
the Catholic Relief Bill was carried through the House of Commons by a
majority of 180, and received the royal assent on the 13th of April.

Thus the victory was won, and won too without a single shackling
condition. It was won, moreover, by the efforts of a single individual,
almost without support, nay, in several cases against the active
opposition of some who had hitherto been its warmest advocates, a fact
for which O'Connell's own