Wellington, Waterloo - and Daniel O'Connell

With the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo now upon us, I have been reading about the Duke of Wellington, whose old London home, Apsley House, is located not far from our Embassy. In particular, I have been reflecting on the Iron Duke's Irishness and the Irish presence in the ranks of Wellington's army.

Last week I attended a talk at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith delivered by a serving Irish army officer, Lt. Colonel Dan Harvey, on the Irish at Waterloo. It was a very enlightening presentation because it drew attention to the very large number of Irishmen who fought in that momentous battle whose outcome shaped Europe for a century afterwards. In fact, approximately one-third of Wellington's 'British' troops were actually Irish, as were many of his officers. In this way, these Irishmen contributed to the formation of modern Europe, but their contribution has been forgotten, in Ireland and elsewhere.

And what of the Iron Duke himself. How should we view him? He was an Irishman. His family had lived in Ireland for centuries before his birth. It is true, of course, that he held views we would today regard as anathema. He was an ultra-conservative in an age of revolutionary change and was dedicated to the preservation of the Union between Ireland and Britain. Wellington played a key role in calming the whirlwind generated by the French Revolution and the dismantling of old Europe brought about by the armies of Napoleon. A scion of the Irish ascendancy, he was certainly no democrat and advocated firmness in response to popular upheavals in Ireland and in Britain.

In comments I made at Dan Harvey's Waterloo lecture last week, I argued that Wellington and Daniel O'Connell were the two greatest Irishmen of the 19th century. The comparisons between them are interesting. They were near contemporaries. Wellington was born six years before O'Connell and died 4 years after him. Both studied in France and both were appalled by the violence of the French Revolution.

Wellington had a significant political career, as an MP in the Irish Parliament prior to the Act of Union, as Chief Secretary for Ireland in the early 19th century, later as a member of the House of Lords and ultimately as Prime Minister. But Wellington's genius did not find its main outlet in politics but on the battlefield.

O'Connell, by contrast, was the consummate political 'General', marshalling an unlikely coalition of the powerless and giving them the power to drive political change. The Catholic Association he built in order to secure Catholic Emancipation was one of the first mass political movements in modern Europe. In his drive for Emancipation, O'Connell found himself pitted against the British establishment, with Wellington at its helm. O'Connell was no admirer of Wellington, chiding him as a 'stunted Corporal.' He knew how to dish out verbal brickbats, for this was the only arsenal available to him as he struggled to make his cause heard. Wellington did not care much for O'Connell either.

The careers of Wellington and O'Connell came together in 1828/1829 at a time when Wellington was Prime Minister and O'Connell was a thorn in his side as he pressed for reform. Wellington had always opposed Catholic Emancipation but, after the Clare By-election, came to believe that the momentum behind Emancipation was unstoppable. Once he became convinced of its necessity, Wellington worked assiduously to bring it about. He had to cope with stiff resistance within his own party and needed to convince majorities in the Commons and the Lords. Finally, he had to overcome the determined opposition of King George IV. This took some doing. A contemporary wrote that the Duke had an ability to persuade the King that no-one else could match. 'He treats with him as with an equal, and the King stands completely in awe of him.' Wellington was perhaps the only politician who could have pulled it off. Of course, Emancipation would eventually have come about, but Wellington was crucial to its emergence in 1829 and by peaceful means. Wellington was vilified by ultra-Tories for conceding to O'Connell, but he was undoubtedly right to believe that the alternative was bloody conflict which had to be avoided. He once wrote that, as someone who had spent more time than most in the field, he would do anything to prevent the kind of violent civil conflict that could have erupted had Emancipation been denied.

We may have difficulty today in agreeing with Wellington's political views, for example his dogged opposition to the Great Reform Act of 1832, on which he never relented. But this does not detract from his significance as a 19th century Irishman of great achievement. Had Ireland been independent in the early 19th century, there would still have been Irishmen of Wellington's disposition warming of the dangers lurking under the guise of reform and resisting its onset. It appears that Wellington never uttered the phrase attributed to him to the effect that being born in a stable did not mean you were a horse. And when a Wellington Testimonial Committee was set up in Dublin to recognise Wellington’s part in delivering Catholic Emancipation, one of the subscribers was – Daniel O’Connell.

Wellington’s story, and the Irish story at Waterloo, highlights yet another strand to the complex, interconnected weave of British and Irish history.

Daniel Mulhall is Ireland's Ambassador in London.