CHAPTER XX V. A.D. 1750-1884. CHARLES O'CONOR OF BELANAGARE, SON OF A.D. 1750-1790. NYTHING like a detailed account of the life and labours of this remarkable man would stretch this family memoir far beyond the limits assigned to it. A mere outline of his career is therefore all that can be here attempted. His memoirs, occupying close on 400 pages of an octavo volume, have been written and published by his grandson, Dr. O'Conor, and even these memoirs deal with but a portion of his life and correspondence, as the work was left unfinished by its author. Born in 1710, before his father had obtained possession of his family estates, Charles O'Conor's youth was spent in the Co. of Sligo. Shut out from the ordinary means of obtaining a liberal education by the cruel penal laws, which made it a crime to open a seminary for the education of Catholic youth, his earliest lessons were received from a poor friar, who occasionally visited his father's house, and who was the first to place a Latin grammar in his hands. For his further progress in learning he was indebted to the arrival of his uncle, Bishop O'Rourke, whom the pope had named Bishop of Killala; and who, to escape the persecutions which awaited him on his arrival in his diocese, was obliged to seek an asylum amongst his relatives. From this learned and accomplished prelate young O'Conor imbibed the principles and learning which guided him in after life, and rendered him one of the most distinguished of Irish scholars. In 1727, when but seventeen years of age, he was sent to Dublin, where he entered on a course of mathematical and scientific studies under the guidance of another clergyman, the Rev. Walter Skelton. In 1731 he married Catherine, daughter of John O'Fagan, or O'Hagan,1 and by her, who died in 1750, he had four children-two sons, Denis and Charles, and two daughters, Bridget and Anne. In 1750 his father died; and in 1753 he published the first edition of his principal work, "The Dissertations on Irish History." Shortly after this, with Dr. Curry and Mr. Wyse, he became one of the founders of the Catholic Association, which by its labours laid the foundation for the future emancipation of the Catholics of Ireland. In his History of the Catholic Association, Mr. Wyse thus refers to Mr. O'Conor : CHARACTER OF CHARLES O'CONOR OF BELANAGARE.? "With Dr. Curry was immediately associated another man not inferior to him in any of the moral and intellectual endowments which could qualify for the prosecution of a great cause, and occupying, by his hereditary station in his own body, that claim to the reverence of the people and the aristocracy which was essential to the success of a national appeal. Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, the immediate ancestor of the present O'Conor Don, boasted a descent scarcely equalled in historic lustre by any other in the island. He came down in right line from a younger brother of Roderic O'Conor, last King of Ireland. By the composition of Hugh O'Conor, the chieftain of the sept, with the Deputy Perrot, in the time of Elizabeth, and the adoption of the party of the queen in the Tyrone war, the Ballintubber branch was sufficiently fortunate to preserve some relics of the ancient inheritance. "Their subsequent fortunes were various, but all indicative of the rapid decline of the family. The seventeenth century scattered them into a variety of branches. Of one of these Mr. Charles O'Conor was the chief. His grand-uncle had followed the fortunes of Charles II. into exile; was restored to his family domains by the Act of Settlement; was a major in the service of James at the Revolution, and ultimately died a prisoner at Chester Castle. His estate, on the point of being forfeited by the iniquitous character of rebellion ascribed to this contest, after a good deal of difficulty, was finally restored by the Commissioners of Claims. "But, as in most other cases of Catholic property, the scar of wrong and confiscation still remained behind. Eight or nine hundred acres of bad land was all that had been rescued from the wreck. It was encumbered with innumerable Chancery claims, arising from a variety of claimants during its alienation from the family, and was ultimately borne down by dilapidation and debt. "Dr. Curry had very considerable academical advantages over Mr. O'Conor the latter was indebted for the first elements of his education to the scanty and piecemeal instruction of a few itinerant friars, who received shelter by the fireside of his hospitable father. But he had 1 Mrs. O'Conor's father styled himself Fagan, or O'Fagan; but Mr. O'Conor, in his writings, states that his true name was O'Hagan, and that he belonged to the family of Tullyoge. "Wyse's History of Catholic Association, Vol. I., p. 38. been gifted with a naturally felicitous organization, which soon put to its utmost value the meagre assistance he had received. His application, favoured by the political necessities which excluded him from the sphere in which birth would have, under other circumstances, placed him, was uninterrupted, well regulated, and intense: his knowledge of languages and history extensive; of the language, history, and antiquities of his own country profound; a clear reasoner; a pleasing rather than a vigorous writer; calm, dispassionate, sometimes eloquent; seldom trespassing on the laws of good taste; and in a political as well as a literary sense, under the guidance of a most correct judgment. No other man could with more propriety at the time be selected from the body to give an extensive impulse to the labours of Dr. Curry. His moral qualities, if possible, exceeded in their importance to the cause which he had solemnly and earnestly undertaken, those high intellectual endowments to which we have just referred. He was truly and sacredly devoted to his country. Like his friends, the entire object of his long life seems to have been to redeem it from the self-ignorance, the blind impolicy, the national degradation to which it had been reduced. In this lofty and noble vocation, no man ever put out, with more perfect abandonment of all unworthy motive, the valuable gifts which he had received. His entire correspondence breathes of the public only -self is almost forgotten. The gold was not alloyed by the base dross; there was no intriguethere was no vanity. His modesty was equal to his merit. A man of more unassuming manners, of greater simplicity, or gentler deportment, never existed. He cherished religion as the best gift of Heaven, and benevolence and truth amongst the first moral virtues; he pursued industry and practised economy as the parents of hospitality and generosity. Though his income was at all times scanty and limited, his purse was never closed against the demands of public service, or the calls of individual distress. He lived to a great age, and every day of it was devoted to vindicating the honour, illustrating the antiquities, and promoting the redemption of his oppressed country." In the latter sphere of illustrating the antiquities and preserving the ancient history of his country, Mr. O'Conor's labours were not less distinguished than in the political struggles in which his co-religionists were then engaged. His profound knowledge of the Irish language, which was with him truly his native tongue, and his capability of deciphering its oldest and most cramped MSS., gave him advantages possessed by few of his successors, and placed him in a position which a man of his untiring zeal and energy was sure to turn to good account. At a very early age he saw the importance of collecting all the valuable old Irish MSS. which he could secure; and to him posterity are indebted for the preservation of that collection lately purchased from Lord Ashburnham, and now lodged in the Royal Irish Academy. Scarcely any ancient historical MS. in the Irish language escaped him, and his handwriting, well known to every Irish scholar, can be traced in the copious notes with which he illustrated most of the Irish documents preserved in our public libraries. An enumeration and account of all his writings would occupy too much space, but amongst his principal works may be mentioned the following:"Dissertations on the History of Ireland," first published in 1753. Principles of the Roman Catholics," 1756. "Introduction to Dr. Curry's Civil Wars," 1756. "The Protestant Interest of Ireland considered," 1757. "Observations on the Affairs of Ireland," published in the name of Lord Taaffe. "Remarks on the Essay of Colonel Vallancy on the Origin and Antiquity of the Irish Language." "Origin and Antiquity of the Ancient Scots," 1775. "On the Heathen State and Topography of Ancient Ireland," 1783, &c., &c. As a letter-writer Mr. O'Conor excelled. His preserved correspondence with Dr. Curry, Dr. Johnson, Colonel Vallancy, Lord Taffe, Dr. Leland, and other learned men of the day, would fill a large volume. It may be truly said that nearly all his letters are models of chaste style and high sentiment. Although he lived to see his efforts in the political emancipation of his Catholic countrymen partially successful, yet his life was spent in times when the penal laws rendered it almost impossible for a Catholic to call any property his own. The bitterness of these laws, which held out bribes to the son to betray the father, and to the brother to prove false to his brother, was felt personally by himself. The small remnant of property restored to his father narrowly escaped a new confiscation, through the baseness of an unnatural brother, who, having conformed to the religion of the State, filed a bill of discovery against him, and, joined by other Protestant discoverers, attempted to wrest from him the small patrimony which the more open and furious persecutions of the past had still left in his family. Writing of this in "After the storm in 1756, he says :— '80, my poor father was finally cast on the shore on a broken plank. I have succeeded to him. This is the plank from which it is now hoped I may be driven by a penal law. I struggle to keep my hold; and if I am left nothing to inherit but the religion and misfortunes of a family long on the decline, the victim is prepared for the sacrifice, resignedly indeed, though not willingly." Writing again in the same year on the same subject, and referring to the decree of the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates in favour of his father, he says: "That this decree conferred or established a right of inheritance, Mr. French did not dispute; but he considered this claim as small in itself, having apparently no matter to operate upon, since the incumbrances affecting Belanagare appeared at the time to equal the value of the whole at twenty years' purchase. "On this principle Mr. French held the possession he obtained; and the consequence shows demonstrably that he acted on no other principle. He wanted security only for the sums he expended. He doubted the claimant's ability for that security, till after a period of several years he was prevailed on, through the interposition of friends, and of his own lady in particular, to admit Denis O'Conor into the possession of Belanagare, paying thereout a yearly rentcharge equal in value to the yearly interest of the sum he had expended, and subject to the full operation of the afore-mentioned mortgages and other bars, in case of failure in the discharge of that rentcharge in any future time. "Mr. French has conferred his whole right and title in these lands of Belanagare on his second son, Robert French, lately one of the Judges of His Majesty's Court of Common Pleas in this kingdom. To that worthy person, who united the virtues which give lustre to public life with the most amiable manners in private life, Denis O'Conor and his eldest son, now living, have paid the aforesaid rentcharge through a course of more than thirty years. The same the latter has paid to the late John French, and the same he pays to the present possessor, Arthur French; and thus was the late Denis O'Conor admitted into a part of his family inheritance under an irredeemable mortgage. He has obtained but a conditional inheritance; and the chances against it may annihilate its duration. The title of Mr. French includes an interest in the land that can never cease but by a volition of the holder that it should cease. On this ground the present occupant, Charles O'Conor, has succeeded as heir-at-law to his father. "To bring such a tenure under the operation of the laws against the growth of Popery is attempted in the present year. In January last, Charles O'Conor's youngest brother conformed to the religion established by law in this kingdom, and filed a bill in the Court of Chancery for obtaining possession of the lands of Belanagare as first Protestant discoverer, representing his eldest brother, a Papist, and consequently disqualified by law for holding any part thereof. Such is his prayer; and lest it should fail, he prefers another for obtaining a dividend of these lands by gavil. This account, which I give, in compliance with your wish rather than to gratify any wish of my own, short as it is, will appear long to you, as it is painful to me. It includes a long series of calamities and humiliations. My great-grandfather died young, a few years before a rebellion which was ruinous to his whole family. My grandfather, attainted of high treason, died in misery. My father" (The rest of the letter is missing.) The bill of discovery here referred to, which was filed in 1756 by Charles O'Conor's youngest brother, Hugh, was followed in 1757 by another bill, filed by one Robert Cockaine. After many years of anxious and expensive litigation, a compromise was arrived at by money payments, which piled up new incumbrances on the estate, and left but little for the maintenance of Charles O'Conor's family in respectability. Upon the marriage of his eldest son Denis in 1760, Charles O'Conor gave |