As regards England, unfortunately, the concession of Emancipation was spoilt not merely by the sense that it was granted to force rather than to conviction, but even more to the intense bitterness and dislike with which it was regarded by a large proportion of English Protestants.  A new religious life and a new sense of religious responsibility was making itself widely felt there.  The eighteenth century, with its easy-going indifferentism, had passed away, and one of the effects of this new revival was unhappily to reawaken in many conscientious breasts much of the old and half-extinct horror of Popery, a horror which found its voice in a language of intolerance and bigotry which at the present time seems scarcely conceivable.

The years which followed were chiefly marked by a succession of efforts upon O’Connell’s part to procure Repeal.  An association which had been formed by him for this purpose was put down by the Government in 1830, but the next year it was reformed under a new name, and at the general election in 1831 forty members were returned pledged to support Repeal.  The condition of Ireland was meanwhile miserable in the extreme.  A furious tithe-war was raging, and many outrages had been committed, especially against tithe proctors, the class of men who were engaged in collecting the tax.  Ribbon associations and other secret societies too had been spreading rapidly underground.  Of such societies O’Connell was through life the implacable enemy.  The events of 1798 and 1803 had left an indelible impression on his mind.  The “United Irishmen,” in his own words, “taught me that all work for Ireland must be done openly and above board.”  The end of the tithe struggle, however, was happily approaching.  In 1838 an Irish Tithes Commutation Act was at last carried, and a land tax in the form of a permanent rent charge substituted.

Repeal was now more than ever the question of the hour, and to Repeal henceforward O’Connell devoted his entire energies.  In 1840 the Loyal National Repeal Association was founded, and a permanent place of meeting known as Conciliation Hall established for it in Dublin. 1841, O’Connell had early announced, would be known henceforward as the year of Repeal, and accordingly he that year left England and went to Ireland, and devoted himself there to the work of organization.  A succession of monster meetings were held all over the country, the far-famed one on Tara Hill being, as is credibly asserted, attended by no less than a quarter of a million of people.  Over this vast multitude gathered together around him the magic tones of the great orator’s voice swept triumphantly; awakening anger, grief, passion, delight, laughter, tears, at its own pleasure.  They were astonishing triumphs, but they were dearly bought.  The position was, in fact, an impossible one to maintain long.  O’Connell had carried the whole mass of the people with him up to the very brink of the precipice, but how to bring them safely