The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power
Centenary lecture, ‘Ireland’s Napoleon’, to mark O’Connor Power’s death. Thank you Tuam library and the Old Tuam Society for hosting the talk.
The Irish Brigade of the Home Rule movement made the weather and created the climate for the restoration of an Irish parliament.
Henry Lucy, the distinguished parliamentary reporter, comments on Power’s maiden speech, July 1874:
… and making his first speech showed himself possessed of the ‘House of Commons manner’ which other people strive after for a generation and never acquire. Imperturbably self-possessed, without being conceited, he dominates the House, which gladly yields itself up to the charm of his unpretentious yet effective speech.
Henry Lucy, Men and Manners in Parliament, The Irish Member, 1919, pps. 37-38.
Mr Parnell, MP, and the IRB, pamphlet, London 1886. Houses of the Oireachtas.
‘There is hardly a branch of the numerous British services in which sworn Fenians do not hold office.’
And a disguised attack on O’Connor Power, ‘A well-known ex-Irish member, who is still awaiting from the Liberal party a colonial appointment, was another Supreme Councillor.’
On the Supreme Council there were seven members and five on the military council.
Roger Casement was a guest at a Johnson Club supper in 1896. As was Joseph Conrad.*
Conan Doyle’s short story, ‘The Fiend of the Cooperage’ was published in 1897. Doyle was a guest speaker at the Irish Literary Society, 13 February, 1897.
In the story, two men are isolated in the jungle and have only each other for company. ‘Dr Severall is a rank Radical and I am a good stiff Unionist’ They argue about Home Rule for two solid hours every evening.**
*John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, p.133.
** Jane Stanford, ‘Moriarty Unmasked: Conan Doyle and an Anglo-Irish Quarrel’, 2017, p.38.
In August 1875 James Joseph O’Kelly returned to Ireland for the Daniel O’Connell Centennial celebrations. Two days later he was at a meeting in Dublin of the IRB’s Supreme Council. He interviewed O’Connor Power for the New York Herald. In an editorial he wrote about the weakness of Isaac Butt’s leadership and the need for ‘the emergence of a second O’Connell’. There was ‘no man in Ireland competent to the task of a real leader’. He then described Power as ‘the most able, eloquent and competent available man’.
In September Power arrived in New York. In October he gave a series of lectures at the Cooper Institute. His subject was ‘The Condition of Ireland, Political, Social and Industrial’. He was in America
… to express the objects and principles of the New National Movement which has agitated the country for the last five years, this is precisely the task which because a better man has not yet found time to discharge it, has fallen to my lot … no matter how many lectures or speeches it requires, I shall continue my humble efforts while an American town remains to be visited, and while one friend of freedom remains to be enlisted in the cause of Irish independence.
Power toured North America for the next six months as the accredited agent of the Supreme Council and as a fundraiser for the Home Rule League. He sailed home on the Republic and arrived in Liverpool 13 March 1876.
The following September he was again in the United States for the centennial of American Independence.
See That Irishman, pp. 67-75.
In 1882 the National Liberal Club was established by William Ewart Gladstone. It was to be ‘a home for democracy’. In November 1884, O’Connor Power was present when the foundation stone for the new premises was laid on the Thames Embankment. The club house was opened in 1887 in time for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations.
Earlier the NLC was headquartered in Charing Cross where a radical clique met in the Vespers, a small smoking room. O’Connor Power, Thorold Rogers, Alfred Bennett, Fisher Unwin, and F W Chesson were members of the group and, in December 1884, were founding members of the Johnson Club. Fisher Unwin was married to Richard Cobden’s daughter.
In December 1885, the Manchester Guardian reported that O’Connor Power had successfully introduced weekly discussions on practical politics in the NLC. He continued to be an active member and, in the 1890s, he directed a political committee, organising functions and inviting speakers.
In May 1897, he addressed the Women’s National Liberal Association Conference in London on ‘Colonial Policy’.
In November 1898, he represented the NLC at the funeral of T B Potter, a Radical MP for Rochdale and founder of the Cobden Club.
In March 1909, he was the NLC guest speaker and his topic was ‘The House of Lords’. In May he spoke on ‘Adult Suffrage’.
In January 1912, he chaired a talk given by Tom Kettle to the NLC’s Political and Economic Circle.
A fierce big man.*
‘A poetic soul’, John O’Connor, born in Mallow, County Cork, was a leading member of the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Known as ‘Long John, six foot six of treason felony’, he was over six foot six inches in height. He was imprisoned on several occasions for Fenian activities.
The image is from the front page of the Daily Graphic, 17 December, 1892. See Posts ‘The Johnson Club, December 13th, 1892’, ‘Confusion Fusion’, ’13th December, 1892′.
See also That Irishman, Part Three, p.117.
*O’Connor was an inspiration for Conan Doyle’s character, Colonel Sebastian Moran, ‘a fierce big man’.
On Thursday the chief speakers were O’Connor Power … Mr O’Connor Power was courageous enough to promise the Bill his support, in spite of Mr Parnell’s decree that the Irish party was not to vote on the Second Reading, and his ably reasoned suggestions of improvements in the Bill made a profound impression on the House.
Spectator May 7 1881.
The second reading passed with the support of Irish members, including James Joseph O’Kelly.
