Episode description

On a field outside Dublin, Daniel O'Connell met and shot a former royal marine in a duel.

John d'Esterre had been outraged when O'Connell, the later hero of Catholic emancipation, described the mainly Protestant Dublin corporation as a 'beggarly corporation'. O'Connell later claimed that he had practised with two pistols every week, knowing that one day he would be challenged to a duel.

Nominating O'Connell is the vice chancellor of Oxford and terrorism expert Louise Richardson.

It's not the violence of the duel that appeals, but O'Connell's revolutionary way of marshalling huge support for his causes, which were always conducted in a remarkably non-violent way. "The altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood," O'Connell said. He took his seat in Westminster in 1830 and thereafter fought for the abolition of slavery and the repeal of the union, a cause in which he failed.

Patrick Geoghegan, O'Connell's biographer and special advisor to the new Irish prime minister, adds the colour to a truly extraordinary and important life.

Presented by Matthew Parris.

Producer: Miles Warde

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2017.