Morgan O'Connell

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Morgan O'Connell was one of seven children of Daniel O'Connell, the Irish national leader who was to become the first Roman Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin, and his wife, a cousin, Mary O'Connell. Although in general opposed to the spilling of blood, and pledged to peaceful change in Ireland, Daniel O'Connell was an admirer of the Latin American revolutionary Simón Bolívar, and in 1820, at the age of 15, Morgan was sent to Venezuela where he became the youngest officer in the Irish Legion of Bolívar's army. Like his father, Morgan O'Connell served in the British Parliament, as did all his brothers.

O'Connell's father had killed a man, John D'Esterre, in a duel of honour in 1815, in Dublin, Ireland, but later vowed not to duel again; and tried to help the D'Esterre family wherever possible afterwards. Morgan O'Connell therefore represented his father in two quarrels: he fought a duel with Lord Alvanley in May 1835, and declined to fight Benjamin Disraeli that December.

In Derrynane House (the O'Connell homestead), near Caherciveen, County Kerry, there is a portrait of Morgan O'Connell (painted by John Gubbins in 1820) wearing the hussar-type uniform made for him in Dublin before he embarked for Venezuela in 1820. He looks a fine young man in his elaborate uniform. He has two jackets, one worn buttoned and the other draped over the left shoulder. The cuffs of both jackets are heavily embroidered in gold work and both jackets have ornate lacework on the chest and close round brass buttons, 19 on the buttoned jacket and 16 on the draped one. All the work on the jacket would have been done by hand as would the decorative belt from which his sword is suspended. He carries what appears to be a bearskin hat, probably a busby, which has a gilt chain. A short plume is attached to the top of the busby. In battle, he would have a cap-line attached to his jacket and to the busby to prevent its loss.