O'Connell challenged the British government by
announcing that he intended to achieve repeal within
a year. Though he openly opposed violence, Prime
Minister Peel's government considered him a threat
and arrested O'Connell and his associates in 1843
on trumped-up charges of conspiracy, sedition, and
unlawfule assembly. They were tried in 1844, and all
but one were convicted, although the conviction was
later overturned in the House of Lords. O'Connell did
serve some time in jail and was considered a martyr
to the cause of Irish independence.]

Even at this short interval Irishmen can now see how completely they
put judgment aside, and allowed feeling and passion to predominate in
the matter. Many of the hottest protestants, of the staunchest foes
to O'Connell, now believe that his absolute imprisonment was not to
be desired, and that whether he were acquitted or convicted, the
Government would have sufficiently shown, by instituting his trial, its
determination to put down proceedings of which they did not approve. On
the other hand, that class of men who then styled themselves Repealers
are now aware that the continued imprisonment of their leader--the
persecution, as they believed it to be, of "the Liberator" [2]--would
have been the one thing most certain to have sustained his influence,
and to have given fresh force to their agitation. Nothing ever so
strengthened the love of the Irish for, and the obedience of the Irish
to O'Connell, as his imprisonment; nothing ever so weakened his power
over them as his unexpected enfranchisement [3]. The country shouted
for joy when he was set free, and expended all its enthusiasm in the
effort.