Young Ireland - Repeal Association

Repeal Association

On 15 April 1840, Daniel O’Connell held the first meeting of his new Repeal Association, in the Corn Exchange, Dublin. The group was received with sneers, and O’Connell’s sincerity was questioned. In the General Election in 1832, O’Connell had made the same appeal for repeal. Although half the representatives chosen for Ireland were pledged Repealers, O’Connell dropped the demand. Several new members accepted appointments under the system they had pledged to overthrow. Since that time, O’Connell had become a close ally of the Whigs. As they were expected to fall from power in 1840, activists' renewing the agitation for Repeal was suspected as a devise to embarrass the new administration. Not one man of status, outside the members of the defunct Association, joined the ranks of the new one. With the new Association's mounting debts, the contributions from its members not sufficient to pay half its ordinary expenses, both Thomas Davis and John Blake Dillon, joined its ranks in April 1841, having in the process, to overcome their dislike of the abusive tone of O’Connell’s agitation. O’Connell welcomed them and made them members of the General Committee, which controlled the organisation of the Association. The two men began their work in earnest; Davis first became Chairman of a sub-committee in charge of the registers of the Association, which contained the names of all the Members.

Davis thus could communicate with all the leading politicians of the Party, and whenever he came across any with depth or ability; he at once developed into friendly associations. In the autumn of 1841, Dillon and Davis took over the roles of Editor and sub-Editor of the Morning Register, a Dublin daily paper belonging to Alderman Staunton, which had been the organ of the Catholic Association, and “was generally regarded among the mercenaries” of the Dublin Castle, according to Michael Doheny, who was to become one of Young Ireland's leading figures. As editors they featured articles on such topics as Protestant nationality, historical parallels from classic and mediaeval history, and agencies and conditions of guerrilla warfare. Michael Doheny suggests in his Felon’s Track that “all Dublin was startled by the originality, vigour and brilliancy of its articles”. It was also at this time that they first came into contact with Charles Gavan Duffy. On Duffy’s next visit to Dublin some six months later, he discovered that Davis and Dillon had abandoned their experiment with the Register. Davis had no way to reach a wider public, even with his contributions to the Dublin Monthly Magazine.