inheritance gives reputation’). There are copies of these in the Royal Irish Academy.
[Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. O'Donovan, vols. iii. and iv.; Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Society for 1820.]
O'CONNELL, DANIEL or DANIEL CHARLES, Count (1745?–1833), French general, one of the twenty-two children of Daniel O'Connell of Darrynane, co. Kerry, and his wife Mary O'Donoghue, daughter of O'Donoghue Duff of Anwys, Kerry, was born, according to his own belief, on 21 May 1745. His mother was in some doubt as to the dates of birth of her numerous children, and an idea prevailed in the family that he was born two years later. At home he learned some Latin and Greek, and before he was sixteen went to the continent with his cousin, Murty O'Connell of Tarmon, co. Kerry [see O'Connell, Moritz, Baron O'Connell], and obtained the cherished wish of his boyhood—an appointment in the French army. On 13 Feb. 1760 he became a cadet in the French infantry regiment of royal Suédois, in which he succeeded to a commission in due course. Like other young exiles of his class and time, O'Connell appears to have been an honest, sensible, home-loving lad, the very antithesis of the rollicking youths depicted by Lever. He is described as tall for his age, handsome, fair, with dark hair, and of winning manners. With the royal Suédois he made the last two campaigns of the seven years' war, and afterwards became assistant-adjutant (sous-aide-major) of the regiment. A year later he succeeded his cousin Conway [see Conway, Thomas, Count, 1734–1800] as adjutant of the famous regiment of Clare of the Irish brigade, with which he arrived in the Isle of France (Mauritius), after a six months' voyage, in 1771. ‘It is with the utmost trouble that we support life here,’ he wrote to his eldest brother; ‘we are a numerous corps of troops, and provisions very scarce. No money at all. … I hope you have paid my debts. It's the only pecuniary request I purpose ever making you.’ This purpose was not fulfilled, as until late in life he appears to have been short of money, and his appeals to the generosity of the head of the house were many. Reductions in the brigade destroyed his prospects of promotion therein, and for some years he was a capitaine en second. He appears to have applied his enforced leisure to various studies. He was an excellent linguist, and retained the love of his native country to the last. Some criticisms written by him on a recently published ‘Ordonnance’ for the Discipline of the Army came under the notice of the military authorities, and obtained for him the cross of St. Louis, with a pension of two thousand livres (about 80l.) a year and the brevet of lieutenant-colonel, with which he was posted to his old regiment, royal Suédois, and served with it at the taking of Minorca and at the famous siege of Gibraltar, where he was severely wounded (cf. Mrs. O'Connell, Last Colonel of the Irish Brigade, i. 275–300). After the sieges O'Connell was made a count, and given the colonelcy of the German regiment of Salm-Salm in French pay. Some years of prosperity followed, in which the count proved himself a good friend to a host of needy young relatives claiming his good offices. At a grand review of thirty thousand French troops in Alsace, in the summer of 1785, Salm-Salm was pronounced the best regiment in the field. Five years later a mutiny of his men left O'Connell in the anomalous position of a colonel without a regiment. He appears to have accepted the revolution, although detesting it, and remained in Paris through 1790 and 1791 as member of a commission engaged in revising the army regulations, which is the revised form now adopted in the republican armies. In 1792 considerations of duty or of personal safety led him to join the Bourbon princes at Coblentz, and, like many other French officers, he made the disastrous campaign of that year as a private in Berchini's hussars. In November the same year he was an émigré in London, almost penniless, but bent on concealing the fact that he had served against the republic, lest it should debar his future return to France. An alibi was procured, and attested at Tralee, to the effect that O'Connell had been in Ireland all the time, and was forwarded to Paris to prevent the confiscation of his property. O'Connell submitted to Pitt a scheme for reconstructing the Irish brigade in the service of King George, which was adopted. Six regiments were to be raised in Ireland, and officered as much as possible from the survivors of the old brigade in the service of France. O'Connell was appointed colonel of the 4th regiment of the new Irish brigade. But the government mismanaged the recruiting business, and the disabilities of the Roman catholic officers further complicated the arrangements. In September 1796 the regiments of Berwick, O'Connell, and Conway were ordered to be incorporated with those of Dillon, Walsh de Serrant, and Walsh junior, and two years later the brigade ceased to exist altogether. On the drafting of his regiment O'Connell retained his full pay as
