O'Connor, Arthur

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O'Connor, Arthur (1763–1852). Irish republican. Born in Mitchelstown (Co. Cork), into a landed family, his background was protestant but he was a sceptic. He sat in the Dublin Parliament as a follower of Grattan (1791–5), speaking in favour of catholic emancipation, but in 1796 joined the United Irishmen and conducted negotiations for the French invasion of that year. Imprisoned in Dublin for six months for seditious libel in 1797, he was arrested again on his way to France in February 1798. Tried for high treason and acquitted, he was detained on lesser charges but released into exile in France in 1803. In 1807 he married Condorcet's daughter and settled on an estate near Nemours which had once been Mirabeau's. He became a French citizen in 1818. His rationalism and capacity for organization marked him out as one of the ablest of Irish leaders.

Edward Royle

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