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During the 19th century, the tide began to turn against anti-Catholic oppression. Daniel ‘the Liberator’ O’Connell was elected to the Westminster parliament in 1828 as the member for County Clare but, initially, the Catholic Kerry-born barrister was not allowed to take his seat. The law was changed, not least because of fears of a Catholic uprising, and O’Connell took his place in parliament in 1830.

Derrynane House is the ancestral home of Daniel ‘the Liberator’ O’Connell (Route 5, Stage 6)

The Great Famine

Before the Great Famine of 1845-52 Ireland was one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. The tenant farmers eked out an impoverished existence on land owned by a largely absent aristocracy. There was widespread dependency on potatoes as a subsistence crop, and when blight struck in 1845 the British government was disastrously slow to respond to the unfolding crisis. The ensuing famine saw some one million deaths with a further million emigrating, mostly to the United States, although estimates vary widely.