As we turn to the acute problem of poverty in Ireland and the dominant figure of Daniel O’Connell, the emphasis remains in the public domain. A series of substantial reports, presented in the form of open letters to the editor of The Times, was commissioned by John Thadeus Delane himself. These open letters generated much heat in Irish newspapers, inspired a brilliant parody in Punch and led to the use of a forged private letter by O’Connell’s son, John, in the propaganda war between the Repeal Association and the British establishment. As in the House of Commons, personal honour was at stake when each side challenged the other with regard to accurate reporting. It was Thomas Campbell Foster’s account of ‘The Condition of the People of Ireland’ in The Times that had the greatest impact on the British reading public and that permanently tarnished Daniel O’Connell’s name.

O’Connell and Parnell were both in the very first rank of nineteenth-century politicians and parliamentarians. Their conditions and their personalities (both in the private sphere and as publicly projected personae) were quite different, and their political campaigns took place in two very dissimilar periods. In this classic essay, the two great exemplars of Irish nineteenth-century statesmanship are compared.