I saw Daniel OConnell last Sunday, rising majestically out of a foggy Dublin dawn, wrapped in his cloak, eyes boring into mine. At least thats how it felt, the pair of us alone in the deserted main thoroughfare of the capital.

hat do you think of the country you died for?I whispered to the bronze likeness. Have we honoured the legacy you gave so much for? His reply drifted silently on the breeze.

The man forever honoured as The Liberator was no stranger to controversy, and would likely raise an amused eyebrow at the current wrangling on whether a monument to him should grace Dil ireann during this decade of centenaries.

Doubtless the champion of Catholic Emancipation would throw a dismissive Kerry yerra at todays petty politics his heart, as always, geared toward more critical issues.

What would assuredly cause him righteous anger from his loftyplinth are the legions of homelesshuddled in frozen doorways on the street that bears his name.

Such was his commitment to the cause of human dignity it even echoed across the oceans, with former slave Fredrick Douglass crediting The Liberators glorious rhetoric in directly hastening Abraham Lincolns act of emancipation in 1863.

He defined me not as a colour, but as a man, and strengthened the campaign I was dedicated to wage.

OConnells fiery oratory was particularly directed at his own countrymen, the bastard Irishmen who turned a blind eye to slavery. How can the noble emotions of the Celtic heart have become extinct amongst you? he raged. It was not in Ireland that you learned this cruelty.

No stranger to the compromises of politics, when fellow MPs in the House of Commons offered him their support on Irish independence in return for his silence of slavery, OConnell was not for turning: May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth before, to help Ireland, I keep silent on slavery.

Yet, while Ireland in 2022 is not short of caring public servants, all too often the limelight is taken by those Yeats excoriated as fumbling in a greasy till.

Wandering down the quays as Dublin slowly awoke from its slumber, I wondered where are todays great orators modern-day Liberators whose magnificent rhetoric would rouse us to be better than we are?

Has the nation that produced the exhilarating eloquence of Grattan, Burke, Redmond and Connolly succumbed to the dreary tongue-tied measurement of political correctness?

On hearing of OConnells death in 1847, Douglass said: The fire of freedom burned brightly within his mighty heart, with words that shook the world.

We need that fire again today desperately.

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Has the nation that produced the fiery oratory of Daniel O'Connell succumbed to tongue-tied political correctness? - Independent.ie