[21] In 1802, O'Connell married his cousin, the daughter of Dr. O'Connell, of Tralee. By this lady he had four sons and three daughters. Two of the sons are now [1855] in Parliament. Maurice, the eldest, was a barrister, but never distinguished himself either as a lawyer or a politician. Morgan was for some time in the Austrian service, and distinguished himself as a gallant officer. His "affair of honour" with Lord Alvanley showed cool determination and honourable feeling. Mr. John O'Connell, who tried to take his father's place in Conciliation Hall, as Repeal Leader, has displayed little of the talent and tact which distinguished the Liberator. The youngest son, Daniel, is a very commonplace person. It is usually said, that the children of a great man rarely arrive at eminence, and the limited talents of O'Connell's sons keep up the proverb in full force, as far as he and they are concerned:
'Few men achieve the praise of their great sires, But most their sires disgrace.'
O'Connell's attempts at authorship were not very successful. His letters to the "Hereditary bondsmen" were diffuse and declamatory. They were full of repetitions, putting the points of a case in a variety of phases, but they were by no means equal to the force, power, and nervous eloquence of his speeches. He was eminently an extemporaneous speaker, and, like Fox, appeared to more advantage as an orator than a writer. Yet many of his letters contain true eloquence. He hit hard, and could be terse when he pleased. Who can forget the alliterative satire of the three words "base, bloody, and brutal," as applied to the Whigs?
His only substantive and independent work was Vol. I. of "A Memoir on Ireland, Native and Saxon," published early in 1843. This book was dedicated to the Queen, in order, as the Preface stated, "that the Sovereign of these realms should understand the real nature of Irish history; should be aware of how much the Irish have suffered from English misrule; should comprehend the secret springs of Irish discontent; should be acquainted with the eminent virtues which the Irish have exhibited in every phasis of their singular fate; and, above all, should be intimately acquainted with the confiscations, the plunder, the robbery, the domestic treachery, the violation of all public faith, and of the servility of treaties, the ordinary wholesale slaughters, the planned murders, the concerted massacres, which have been inflicted upon the Irish people by the English Government." This one sentence will sufficiently indicate the character of the work. O'Connell further stated, in his preface, that "there cannot happen a more heavy misfortune to Ireland than the prosperity and power of Great Britain." He endeavoured to justify this assertion, by adding that "justice to Ireland" had never been granted except when Great Britain was in difficulties. The work brought the "proofs and illustrations" of British misrule in Ireland down to the Restoration. A second volume was to have carried them down to the present period, but it never was published. Nor has Literature nor History sustained any loss,--unless it was much superior to the first volume. The seven opening chapters, rapidly sketching the history of English dominion in Ireland from 1172 to 1840, are not devoid of a certain degree of eloquence, but is anti-English to a degree. The historical "proofs and illustrations," are simply statements from partisan writers, with connecting comments by O'Connell.