Feargus O'Connor

Feargus Edward O'Connor (18 July 1794 – 30 August 1855) was an Irish Chartist leader and advocate of the Land Plan, which sought to provide smallholdings for the labouring classes. A highly charismatic figure, O'Connor was admired for his energy and oratory, but was criticised for alleged egotism.

After the failure of his Land Plan, O'Connor's behaviour became increasingly erratic, culminating in an assault on three MPs and a mental breakdown, from which he did not recover. After his death three years later at the age of 61, 40,000 people witnessed the funeral procession.

Feargus O'Connor was born on 18 July 1794 in Connorville house, near Castletown-Kinneigh in west County Cork, into a prominent Irish Protestant family who claimed to be the descendants of the 12th-century king Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair. He was originally christened Edward Bowen O'Connor, but his father chose to call him Feargus. His father was Irish nationalist politician Roger O'Connor, who like his uncle Arthur O'Connor was active in the United Irishmen. His elder brother Francis became a general in Simón Bolívar's army of liberation in South America. Much of his early life was spent on his family's estates in Ireland, which included Dangan Castle, the childhood home of the Duke of Wellington. He was educated mainly at Portarlington Grammar School and had some elementary schooling in England.

O'Connor's father Roger was notorious for his eccentric lifestyle. At one point Feargus and Francis decided to leave, stealing horses from their brother Roderic, travelling to London and asking to be taken in by family friend M.P. Francis Burdett. Burdett looked after them, and financed Feargus to run a farm in Ireland, but it was unsuccessful. He studied law at Trinity College, Dublin, before inheriting his uncle's estate in 1820. He took no degree, but was called to the Irish bar about 1820. Since he had to take an oath of allegiance to the crown to become a member of the Bar, his father disinherited him because he regarded it as inconsistent with the dignity of a descendent of the Kings of Ireland.

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