Roger O'Connor

Roger O'Connor (1762–1834) was an Irish nationalist and writer, known for the controversies surrounding his life and writings, notably his fanciful history of the Irish people, the Chronicles of Eri. He was the brother of the United Irishman Arthur O'Connor, and the father of the Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor and of Francisco Burdett O'Connor who was to fight in the Spanish American wars of independence.

Early life O'Connor was born in Connorville, County Cork, into an Irish Protestant family. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1784. He married Louisa Anna Strachan, who died after giving birth to two children, Louise and Roderic. He remarried in 1788, to Wilhelmina Bowen, who bore him four sons and three daughters. Roger went into hiding in the run-up to the abortive 1796 rebellion. He subsequently surrendered to the authorities and was released. In July 1797 he assisted in the defence of other accused persons. According to Roger, this act led to further plots against him led by his loyalist brother Robert. He and Arthur were arrested and held in various locations over a period of several years before being finally released. Though an avowed Irish nationalist, O'Connor denied that he had ever been party to treasonable conspiracies. In 1799 he published To the People of Great Britain and Ireland, a booklet that detailed what he considered to be his mistreatment. The O'Connors received considerable support from Whig politicians in Britain. MP and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan wrote that "the usage of Roger O'Connor, who is one of the finest fellows I ever saw, has been merciless beyond example". At this time he began his career as a writer, preparing commentaries on the Old Testament. He did so from a position of scepticism towards religion; he once said Voltaire was his God.

In 1817 O'Connor and his son Arthur were arrested on a charge of having organised a mail robbery five years earlier, during which a guard was shot and killed. Two of the robbers had been apprehended after attempting to pass some of the stolen property, and had implicated O'Connor. The robbers were labourers employed on O'Connor's estate.

O'Connor's later attempt to sue one of the accusers for perjury brought out details of events on the night of the robbery that led to continued suspicion against him. Local support was also undermined when he was cross-examined about his religious views, and asserted that the Bible was not a divine revelation. John P. Prendergast, in an article on O'Connor, says that "thenceforth Roger O'Connor stood condemned in public opinion of the robbery for the Galway mail".

While these events were unfolding, O'Connor's teenage sons Feargus and Francis fled the family home, travelled to London and asked to be looked after by Francis Burdett. Burdett took them in. She inherited "a considerable sum of money from him on his death." Two of Roger's sons were brought up by Burdett. One of these was Feargus O'Connor, one of the main leaders of the Chartists. The other was Francisco Burdett O'Connor, a commander in Simón Bolívar's army and, later, a Bolivian politician.

Assessment Prendergast concludes that O'Connor showed great courage in his patriotic statements during his arrest and imprisonment for alleged sedition, but that his eccentric personality and Irish nationalism "rendered him so odious [in the eyes of his enemies] that the grossest charges would be willingly believed". James Dunkerley says that several authors have described O'Connor as "a little mad", adding that the Chronicles of Eri is a "colourful concoction - a more 'imagined community' it would be hard to locate outside of Atlantis". Madden considered him to be possessed of considerable "cleverness, cunning, astuteness and plausibility", but argued that the personal charm and persuasiveness that made his conversation and speech-making so powerful, was never translated into print. His writings were bombastic: "he wrote in the genuine Boanerges Bombastes-Furioso style, wherein the swaggering Pistol talked in the true Ercles vein. His various political pamphlets are couched in terms of extravagant hyperbole".