Queer Places:
Dromoland Castle (now Dromoland Castle Hotel), Dromoland, Newmarket on Fergus, Co. Clare, V95 ATD3, Ireland
Harrow School, 5 High St, Harrow HA1 3HP, United Kingdom
University of Cambridge, 4 Mill Ln, Cambridge CB2 1RZ
Smith O'Brien's Cottage, Port Arthur TAS 7182, Australia
Rathronan Cemetery, Glenville, Ardagh, Co. Limerick, V42 YY65 Ireland
William Smith O'Brien (October 17, 1803 – June 16, 1864) was an Irish nationalist leader, Member of Parliament, and central figure in the Young Ireland movement who
transitioned from a loyal unionist to a convicted revolutionary during the Great Famine.
Born on October 17, 1803, at Dromoland Castle in County Clare, William Smith O'Brien was the second son of Sir Edward O'Brien, the 4th Baronet, and Charlotte Smith. Through the Dromoland line, he was a direct descendant of the eleventh-century High King of Ireland, Brian Boru. His mother was the daughter of William Smith of Cahirmoyle, County Limerick, a property William later inherited, adding Smith to his surname.
He received an elite English education at Harrow School before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1821, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1826. During his time at Cambridge, he joined the Cambridge Apostles—a prestigious, highly selective intellectual secret society—and served as President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1831. Following university, he studied law at Lincoln's Inn in London and King's Inns in Dublin, though he never actively practiced law.
O'Brien entered public office as a traditional Tory, representing his father's pocket borough of Ennis from 1828 to 1831. Although a Protestant landowner, he notably broke with his family's traditional stance by supporting Catholic Emancipation in 1828 and 1829. After a brief period out of parliament, he successfully contested County Limerick as an independent Whig/Liberal, holding the seat from 1835 until his exclusion in 1849.
During his early parliamentary tenure, O'Brien established a reputation as a diligent reformer focused on Irish economic and social welfare. He was a constant advocate for improved public education, infrastructure development, and systematic poor relief, publishing works such as Plan for the relief of the poor in Ireland (1831). He also maintained strong imperial interests, associating with Edward Gibbon Wakefield's colonization theories and serving as a founding member of the National Colonisation Society.
Initially an ardent supporter of the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland, O'Brien's political outlook shifted dramatically during the early 1840s. In protest against the British government's dismissal of magistrates who attended Daniel O'Connell's peaceful "monster meetings," O'Brien resigned his position as a Justice of the Peace. In October 1843, he officially joined O'Connell's Repeal Association, rapidly rising to a position of leadership second only to O'Connell himself.
Within the association, O'Brien aligned closely with the younger, more radical intellectuals centered around Charles Gavan Duffy and the nationalist newspaper The Nation, who were dubbed "Young Ireland" by a disapproving O'Connell. The ideological rift widened over the role of physical force and non-sectarian education. In July 1846, when O'Connell demanded that all members sign a pledge utterly renouncing the use of revolutionary force under any circumstances, O'Brien led the Young Ireland faction in a dramatic secession from the Repeal Association, subsequently helping to establish the Irish Confederation.
The onset of the Great Famine radicalized O'Brien, who grew increasingly despairing of achieving justice or adequate famine relief for Ireland through constitutional means. Following the February 1848 revolution in the Second French Republic, O'Brien and Thomas Francis Meagher traveled to Paris to seek moral support from the new French revolutionary government, returning to Ireland with the first Irish tricolour flag—designed to symbolize the union of Catholics (green) and Protestants (orange).
After the British government suspended habeas corpus and arrested fellow leaders like John Mitchel and Charles Gavan Duffy, O'Brien reluctantly took command of the disorganized physical-force movement. On July 23, 1848, he raised the standard of revolt in County Tipperary. However, the anticipated mass rising failed to materialize. Hampered by the opposition of the Catholic clergy, widespread starvation among the peasantry, and a lack of military preparation, O'Brien's forces engaged in only a brief skirmish with the constabulary on July 29 at Widow McCormack's house in Ballingarry, derisively dubbed the "Battle of Widow McCormack's Cabbage Patch."
Following the collapse of the insurrection, O'Brien was arrested at the Thurles railway station on August 7, 1848. Tried for high treason at a special commission in Clonmel, he and three co-defendants—Thomas Francis Meagher, Terence MacManus, and Patrick O'Donoghue—were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Following an international public outcry and petitions bearing tens of thousands of signatures from Ireland and England, the British government commuted the sentence to transportation for life.
In late 1849, O'Brien was transported to Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania, Australia). Initially refusing to give his parole, he was held in strict isolation at the penal stations of Maria Island and Port Arthur, where he made an unsuccessful escape attempt. By late 1850, he accepted a ticket-of-leave, settling first as a tutor in Avoca and later living comfortably in New Norfolk, where he maintained cordial relations with fellow political exiles and local settlers.
Due to intense lobbying by British parliamentarians and his family, O'Brien received a conditional pardon in 1854, allowing him to leave Tasmania. He settled temporarily in Brussels, Belgium, where he published his two-volume political treatise, Principles of Government, or Meditations in Exile (1856), and became a founding member of the Ossianic Society, dedicating himself to the study and revival of the Irish language.
In May 1856, he was granted an unconditional free pardon by Lord Palmerston's government and returned to July to Ireland amid public celebrations. Although hailed as an elder statesman of Irish nationalism, he refused to return to active parliamentary politics or endorse the secret, revolutionary methods of the later Fenian movement. Instead, he focused on estate management, local poor law administration, cultural pursuits, and extensive foreign travel, including visits to Canada, the United States, Hungary, and Poland.
O'Brien passed away at Bangor in North Wales on June 16, 1864, after suffering a heart attack aggravated by chronic liver illness. His remains were returned to Ireland and interred in the family mausoleum at Rathronan churchyard in County Limerick. In 1870, a prominent limestone statue sculpted by Thomas Farrell was erected in his honor, which now stands on O'Connell Street in Dublin.
References:
 The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life 1st Edition by W.C. Lubenow |
Other references:
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