Daniel O'Connell's Processional Chair An ebonised scroll back carrying chair, Irish c.1830 in Neo-Grecian style with chamfered horizontal splats, the splayed legs with brackets carved with quarter...

Daniel O'Connell's Processional Chair An ebonised scroll back carrying chair, Irish c.1830 in Neo-Grecian style with chamfered horizontal splats, the splayed legs with brackets carved with quarter paterae, the crest rail with a Victorian silvered plaque inscribed ''O'Connell's Processional Chair''. Note: This large and handsome carrying chair, on a platform, would have served to raise O'Connell above the heads of an assembled crowd. O'Connell the great constitutional demagogue was adept at manipulating his audience, terminating in the monster meetings in favour of Repeal of the Union. This chair, Neo-Classical in it's concept, devoid of Nationalistic symbols is likely to have been that used in the early phases of his parliamentary career and the successful campaign for Catholic Emancipation. Daniel O'Connell (1775 - 1847) was elected to the House of Commons for County Clare in 1829 in what Sir Robert Peel called ''an avalanche'', as a Catholic he was allowed to stand for election but not allowed to take his seat. With O'Connell's tireless devotion to Catholic Emancipation, the Catholic Relief Act 1829 passed through both Houses of Parliament successfully, allowing him to take his seat when he was re-elected in 1830. He stayed and M.P. for various constituencies until his death. He became Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1841. With the onset of famine in 1845 the followers of O'Connell known as ''Young Irelanders'' began to defect to a more revolutionary outlook which O'Connell opposed. He died in Genoa on his way to Rome in 1847.

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