Daniel O'Connell and the "American Eagle" in 1845: Slavery, Diplomacy, Nativism, and the Collapse of America's First Irish Nationalist Movement

ANGELA F. MURPHY

ON MARCH 30, 1845, DANIEL O'CONNELL made a fateful miscalculation while speaking to the Loyal National Repeal Association (LNRA) in Dublin. He had founded this group five years earlier to agitate for an Irish parliament independent from Great Britain,1 but the Irish leader soon developed a broader agenda, hoping to convince his fellow repealers to join the crusade against American slavery as well. Many Irish Americans supported his original design and formed auxiliary repeal associations across the Atlantic. Hoping to remain focused on Irish independence, most members of these associations had grown accustomed to ignoring their leader's antislavery pleas. On this particular occasion, however, O'Connell, irritated by the United States' recent decision to annex the slave territory of Texas, went too far, and his speech created a fullscale crisis among American repealers, driving many from the movement and dissipating the energy of those few who clung to the cause.