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Daniel O'Connell

Daniel(I) O’Connell (Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Ireland, down to the poorest class of tenant farmers secured the final instalment of Catholic emancipation in 1829 and allowed him to take a seat in the United Kingdom Parliament to which he had been twice elected.

At Westminster, O'Connell championed liberal and reform causes (he was internationally renowned as an abolitionist) but he failed in his declared objective for Ireland—the repeal of the 1800 Act of Union and the restoration of the devolved Irish Parliament. Against the backdrop of a growing agrarian crisis and, in his final years, of the Great Famine, O'Connell contended with dissension at home. Criticism of his political compromises and of his system of patronage split the national political movement that he had singularly led.

Kerry and France
O'Connell was born at Carhan near Cahersiveen, County Kerry, to the O'Connells of Derrynane, a wealthy Roman Catholic family that, under the Penal Laws, had been able to retain land only through the medium of Protestant trustees and the forbearance of their Protestant neighbours. His parents were Morgan O'Connell and Catherine O'Mullane. The poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill was an aunt; and Daniel Charles, Count O'Connell, an Irish Brigade officer in the service of the King of France (and twelve years a prisoner of Napoleon), an uncle. O'Connell grew up in Derrynane House, the household of his bachelor uncle, Maurice "Hunting Cap" O'Connell (landowner, smuggler and justice of the peace) who made the young O'Connell his heir presumptive

In 1791, under his uncle's patronage, O'Connell and his elder brother Maurice were sent to continue their schooling in France at the English Jesuit college of Saint-Omer. Revolutionary upheaval and their mob denunciation as "young priests" and "little aristocrats", persuaded them in January 1793 to flee their Benedictine college at Douai. They crossed the English Channel with the brothers John and Henry Sheares who displayed a handkerchief soaked, they claimed, in the blood of Louis XVI, the late executed king. The experience is said to have left O'Connell with a lifelong aversion to mob rule and violence.

1798 and legal practice
After further legal studies in London, including a pupillage at Lincoln's Inn, O'Connell returned to Ireland in 1795. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, while maintaining the Oath of Supremacy that excluded Catholics from parliament, the judiciary and the higher offices of state, had granted them the vote on the same limited terms as Protestants and removed most of the remaining barriers to their professional advancement. O'Connell, nonetheless, remained of the opinion that in Ireland the whole policy of the Irish Parliament and the London-appointed Dublin Castle executive, was to repress the people and to maintain the ascendancy of a privileged and corrupt minority.

On 19 May 1798, O'Connell was called to the Irish Bar. Four days later, the United Irishmen staged their ill-fated rebellion. Toward the end of his life, O'Connell claimed, belatedly, to have been a United Irishman. Asked how that could be reconciled with his membership of the government's volunteer Yeomanry (the Lawyers Artillery Corps), he replied that in '98 "the popular party was so completely crushed that the only chance of doing any good for the people was by affecting ultra loyalty." Whatever the case, O'Connell had little faith in the United Irish conspiracy or in their hopes of French intervention. He sat out the rebellion in his native Kerry. When in 1803, Robert Emmet faced execution for attempting to renew the insurrection O'Connell was scathing: as the cause of so much bloodshed Emmett had forfeited any claim to "compassion".

In the decades that followed, O'Connell practised private law and, although invariably in debt, reputedly had the largest income of any Irish barrister. In court, he sought to prevail by refusing deference, showing no compunction in studying and exploiting a judge's personal and intellectual weaknesses. He was long ranked below less accomplished Queen's Counsels, a status not open to Catholics until late in his career. But when offered he refused the senior judicial position of Master of the Rolls.

Family
In 1802, O'Connell married his third cousin, Mary O'Connell. He did so in defiance of his benefactor, his uncle Maurice, who believed his nephew should have sought out an heiress. They had four daughters (three surviving), Ellen (1805–1883), Catherine (1808–1891), Elizabeth (1810–1883), and Rickarda (1815–1817) and four sons, Maurice (1803–1853), Morgan (1804–1885), John (1810–1858), and Daniel (1816–1897). In time, each of the boys was to join their father as Members of Parliament. Despite O'Connell's early infidelities, the marriage was happy and Mary's death in 1837 was a blow from which her husband is said never to have recovered.

Church and state
O'Connell's personal principles reflected the influences of the Enlightenment and of radical and democratic thinkers some of whom he had encountered in London and in masonic lodges. He was greatly influenced by William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (public opinion the root of all power, civil liberty and equality the bedrock of social stability), and was, for a period, converted to Deism by his reading of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason.

By 1809, he had returned to the Church, "becoming thereafter more devout by the year". Yet in 1820s, he was still regarded by some as an "English rationalist utilitarian", a "Benthamite". For a time Jeremy Bentham and O'Connell did become personal friends as well as political allies.

At Westminster O'Connell played a major part in the passage of the Reform Act of 1832 and in the abolition of Slavery (1833) (an international cause in which he continued to campaign). He welcomed the revolutions of 1830 in Belgium and France, and advocated "a complete severance of the Church from the State". Such liberalism made all the more intolerable to O'Connell the charge that as "Papists" he and his co-religionists could not be trusted with the defence of constitutional liberties.

O'Connell protested that, while "sincerely Catholic", he did not "receive" his politics "from Rome". In 1808 "friends of emancipation", Henry Grattan among them, proposed that fears of Popery might be allayed if the Crown were accorded the same right exercised by continental monarchs, a veto on the confirmation of Catholic bishops. Even when, in 1814, the Curia itself (then in a silent alliance with Britain against Napoleon) proposed that bishops be "personally acceptable to the king", O'Connell was unyielding in his opposition. Refusing any instruction from Rome as to "the manner of their emancipation", O'Connell declared that Irish Catholics should be content to "remain forever without emancipation" rather than allow the king and his ministers "to interfere" with the Pope's appointment of their senior clergy.

Church and nation
In his travels in Ireland in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked on the "unbelievable unity between the Irish clergy and the Catholic population". The people looked to the clergy, and the clergy "rebuffed" by the "upper classes" ("Protestants and enemies"), had "turned all its attention to the lower classes; it has the same instincts, the same interests and the same passions as the people; [a] state of affairs altogether peculiar to Ireland". Such was the unity, O'Connell argued, the bishops would have sacrificed had they agreed to Rome submitting their appointments for Crown approval. Licensed by the government they and their priests would have been as little regarded as the Anglican clergy of the Established Church.

In most districts of the country, the priest was the sole figure, standing independent of the Protestant landlords and magistrates, around whom a national movement could be reliably built. But for O'Connell a weakening of the bond between priests and their people would have represented more than a strategic loss. In "the heat of combat", he would let slip his repeated emphasis on the inclusiveness of the Irish nation to suggest Catholicism itself as the nation's defining loyalty. Against the charge of political dictation from Rome, he declared not only that the Catholic Church in Ireland "is a national Church", but "if the people rally to me they will have a nation for that Church", and indeed that Catholics in Ireland are "the people, emphatically the people" and "a nation". For O'Connell's newspaper, the Pilot, "the distinction created by religion" was the one "positive and unmistakable" mark of separating the Irish from the English.

In 1837, O'Connell clashed with William Smith O'Brien over the Limerick MP's support for granting state payments to Catholic clergy. The Catholic Bishops came out in support of O'Connell's stance, resolving "most energetically to oppose any such arrangement, and that they look upon those that labour to effect it as the worst enemies of the Catholic religion".

Disavowal of violence
Consistent with the position he had taken publicly in relation to the rebellions of 1798 and 1803, O'Connell focused on parliamentary representation and popular, but peaceful, demonstration to induce change. "No political change", he offered, "is worth the shedding of a single drop of human blood". His critics, however, were to see in his ability to mobilise the Irish masses an intimation of violence. It was a standing theme with O'Connell that if the British establishment did not reform the governance of Ireland, Irishmen would start to listen to the "counsels of violent men".

O'Connell insisted on his loyalty, greeting George IV effusively on his visit to Ireland in 1821. In contrast to his later successor Charles Stewart Parnell (although like O'Connell, himself a landlord), O'Connell was also consistent in his defence of property. Yet he was willing to defend those accused of political crimes and of agrarian outrages. In his last notable court appearance, the Doneraile conspiracy trials of 1829, O'Connell saved several tenant Whiteboys from the gallows.

Abandonment of the Irish language
Irish was O'Connell's mother tongue and that of the vast majority of the rural population. Yet he insisted on addressing his (typically open-air) meetings in English, sending interpreters out among the crowd to translate his words. At a time when "as a cultural or political concept 'Gaelic Ireland' found few advocates", O'Connell declared: "I am sufficiently utilitarian not to regret [the] gradual abandonment [of Irish]... Although the language is associated with many recollections that twine round the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication is so great, that I can witness, without a sigh, the gradual disuse of Irish."

O'Connell's "indifference to the fate of the language", a decade before the Famine, was consistent with the policies of the Catholic Church (which under Cullen was to develop a mission to the English-speaking world) and of the government-funded National Schools. Together, these were to combine in the course of the century to accelerate the near-complete conversion to English.

There is no evidence to suggest that O'Connell saw "the preservation or revival or any other aspect of 'native culture' (in the widest sense of the term) as essential to his political demands".

The "Liberator"
To broaden and intensify the campaign for emancipation, in 1823, O'Connell established Catholic Association. For a "Catholic rent" of a penny a month (typically paid through the local priest), this, for the first time, drew the labouring poor into a national movement. Their investment enabled O'Connell to mount "monster" rallies (crowds of over 100,000) that stayed in the hands of authorities and emboldened larger enfranchised tenants to vote for pro-Emancipation candidates in defiance of their landlords.

The government moved to suppress the Association by a series of prosecutions but with limited success. Already in 1822 O'Connell had manoeuvred his principal foe, the Attorney General, William Saurin, into actions sufficiently intemperate to ensure his removal by the Lord Lieutenant. His confrontation with Dublin Corporation, equally unbending in its defence of the "Protestant Constitution", took a more tragic turn.

Outraged at O'Connell's refusal to retract his description of the corporation as "beggarly", one of their number challenged O'Connell to a duel. John D'Esterre (who happened to be a distant cousin of Mary O'Connell) had thought O'Connell might back down, for he had earlier refused a challenge from an opposing lawyer. The former royal marine was in any case confident of his aim. Recognising that his reputation would never be safe if he again demurred, O'Connell accepted. The duel took place on 2 February 1815 at Bishopscourt, Kildare. Both men fired. O'Connell, unharmed, mortally wounded D'Esterre. Distressed by the killing, O'Connell offered D'Esterre's widow a pension. She consented to an allowance for her daughter and this O'Connell paid regularly for more than thirty years until his death.

Some months later, O'Connell was engaged to fight a second duel with the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Robert Peel, O'Connell's repeated references to him as "Orange Peel" ("a man good for nothing except to be a champion for Orangeism") being the occasion. Only O'Connell's arrest in London en route to their rendezvous in Ostend prevented the encounter, and the affair went no further. But in 1816, following his return to faithful Catholic observance, O'Connell made "a vow in heaven" never again to put himself in a position where he might shed blood. In "expiation for the death D'Esterre", he is said thereafter to have accepted the insults of men whom he refused to fight "with pride". (Thomas Moore privately proposed that "removing, by his example, that restraint which the responsibility of one to another under the law of duelling imposed", was "one of the worst things, perhaps, O'Connell had done for Ireland", and had given his penchant for personal abuse free rein).

In 1828, O'Connell defeated a member of the British cabinet in a parliamentary by-election in County Clare. His triumph, as the first Catholic to be returned in a parliamentary election since 1688, made a clear issue of the Oath of Supremacy—the requirement that MPs acknowledge the King as "Supreme Governor" of the Church and thus forswear the Roman communion. Fearful of the widespread disturbances that might follow from continuing to insist on the letter of the oath, the government finally relented. With the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, invoking the spectre of civil war, the Catholic Relief Act became law in 1829. The act was not made retroactive so O'Connell had to stand again for election. He was returned unopposed in July 1829.

Such was O'Connell's prestige as "the Liberator" that George IV reportedly complained that while "Wellington is the King of England", O'Connell was "King of Ireland", and he, himself, merely "the dean of Windsor". Some of O'Connell's younger lieutenants in the new struggle for Repeal—the "Young Irelanders"—were critical of the leader's acclaim. Michael Doheny noted that the 1829 act had only been the latest in a succession of "relief" measures dating back to the Papists Act 1778. Honour was due rather to those who had "wrung from the reluctant spirit of a far darker time the right of living, of worship, of enjoying property, and exercising the franchise".

Tenant Disenfranchisement and the Tithe War
Entry to parliament had not come without a price. With Jeremy Bentham, O'Connell had considered allowing George Ensor, a Protestant member of the Catholic Association, to stand as his running mate in the Clare election. But Ensor had objected to what he identified as the "disenfranchisement project" in the relief bill. Receiving its royal assent on the same day, the Parliamentary Elections (Ireland) Act 1829, brought the Irish franchise into line with England's by raising the property threshold in county seats five-fold to ten pounds. This eliminated the middling tenantry (the Irish "forty-shilling freeholders") who had risked much in defying their landlords on O'Connell's behalf in the Clare election, and reduced the overall electorate in the country from 216,000 voters to just 37,000.

Perhaps trying to rationalise the sacrifice of his freeholders, O'Connell wrote privately in March 1829 that the new ten-pound franchise might actually "give more power to Catholics by concentrating it in more reliable and less democratically dangerous hands". The Young Irelander John Mitchel believed that this was the intent: to detach propertied Catholics from the increasingly agitated rural masses.

In a pattern that had been intensifying from the 1820s as landlords cleared land to meet the growing livestock demand from England, tenants had been banding together to oppose evictions, and to attack tithe and process servers. De Tocqueville recorded these Whiteboys and Ribbonmen protesting: "The law does nothing for us. We must save ourselves. We have a little land which we need for ourselves and our families to live on, and they drive us out of it. To whom should we address ourselves?... Emancipation has done nothing for us. Mr. O'Connell and the rich Catholics go to Parliament. We die of starvation just the same."

In 1830, discounting evidence that "unfeeling men had given in favour of cultivating sheep and cattle instead of human beings", O'Connell sought repeal of the Sub-Letting Act which facilitated the clearings. In a Letter to the People of Ireland (1833) he also proposed a 20 per cent tax on absentee landlords for poor relief, and the abolition of tithes levied atop rents by the Anglican establishment—"the landlords' Church".

An initially peaceful campaign of non-payment of tithes turned violent in 1831 when the newly founded Irish Constabulary in lieu of payment began to seize property and conduct evictions. Although opposed to the use of force, O'Connell defended those detained in the so-called Tithe War. For all eleven accused in the death of fourteen constables in the Carrickshock incident, O'Connell helped secure acquittals. Yet fearful of embarrassing his Whig allies (who had brutally suppressed tithe and poor law protests in England), in 1838 he rejected the call of the Protestant tenant-righter William Sharman Crawford for the complete elimination of the Church of Ireland levy. In its stead, O'Connell accepted the Tithe Commutation Act. This did effectively exempt the majority of cultivators—those who held land at will or from year to year—from the charge, while offering those still liable a 25 percent reduction and a forgiveness of arrears, and did not, as feared, lead to a general compensating increase in rents.

The meaning of Repeal
O'Connell's call for a repeal of the Act of Union, and for a restoration of the Kingdom of Ireland under the Constitution of 1782, which he linked (as he had with emancipation) to a multitude of popular grievances, may have been less a considered constitutional proposal than "an invitation to treat".

The legislative independence won by Grattan's "Patriot Parliament" in 1782 had left executive power in the hands of the London-appointed Dublin Castle administration. In declining to stand as a Repeal candidate, Thomas Moore (Ireland's national bard) objected that with a Catholic Parliament in Dublin, "which they would be sure to have out and out", this would be an arrangement impossible to sustain. Separation from Great Britain was its "certain consequence", so that Repeal was a practical policy only if (in the spirit of the United Irishmen) Catholics were again "joined by the dissenters"—the Presbyterians of the North.

But for O'Connell, the historian R.F. Foster suggests that "the trick was never to define what the Repeal meant—or did not mean". It was an "emotional claim", an "ideal", with which "to force the British into offering something".

"Testing" the Union
O'Connell did prepare the ground for the "Home Rule" compromise negotiated between Irish-nationalists and British Liberals from the 1880s. He declared that while he would "never ask for or work" for anything less than an independent legislature, he would accept a "subordinate parliament" as "an instalment". But for the predecessors to Gladstone's Liberals, Lord Melbourne's Whigs, with whom O'Connell sought accommodation in the 1830s, even an Irish legislature devolved within the United Kingdom was a step too far.

Having assisted Melbourne, through an informal understanding (the Lichfield House Compact), to a government majority, in 1835 O'Connell suggested he might be willing to give up the project of an Irish parliament altogether. He declared his willingness to "test" the Union: "The people of Ireland are ready to become a portion of the empire, provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Britons if made so in benefits and in justice, but if not, we are Irishmen again." Underscoring the qualifying clause—"if not we are Irishmen again"—historian J.C. Beckett proposes that the change was less than it may have appeared. Under the pressure of a choice between "effectual union or no union", O'Connell was seeking to maximise the scope of shorter-term, interim, reforms.

O'Connell failed to stall the application to Ireland of the new English Poor Law system of Workhouses in 1837, the prospect of which, as de Tocqueville found, was broadly dreaded in Ireland. As an alternative to outdoor relief, the Workhouses made it easier for landlords to clear their estates in favour of larger English-export-oriented farms. O'Connell's objection was that the poor-law charge would ruin a great proportion of landowners, further reducing the wage fund and increasing the poverty of the country. That poverty was due not to exorbitant rents (which O'Connell compared to those in England without reference to Irish practice of sub-letting), but to laws—the Penal Laws of the previous century—that had prohibited the Catholic majority from acquiring education and property. The responsibility for its relief was therefore the government's. To defray the cost O'Connell urged, in vain, a tax on absentee rents.

But as regards the general conduct of the Dublin Castle administration under the Whigs, Beckett concludes that "O'Connell had reason to be satisfied, and "the more so as his influence carried great weight in the making of appointments". Reforms opened the police and judiciary to greater Catholic recruitment, and measures were taken to reduce the provocations and influence of the pro-Ascendancy Orange Order.

In 1840 municipal government was reconstructed on the basis of a rate-payer franchise. In 1841, O'Connell became the first Roman Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin since Terence MacDermott in the reign of James II. In breaking the Protestant monopoly of corporate rights, he was confident that town councils would become a "school for teaching the science of peaceful political agitation". But the measure was less liberal than municipal reform in England, and left the majority of the population to continue under the landlord-controlled Grand Jury system of county government. In view of Thomas Francis Meagher, in return for damping down Repeal agitation, a "corrupt gang of politicians who fawned on O'Connell" were being allowed an extensive system of political patronage. The Irish people were being "purchased back into factious vassalage."

Northern opposition
Conscious of their minority position in Ulster, Catholic support for O'Connell in the north was "muted". William Crolly, Bishop of Down and Connor and later Archbishop of Armagh, was ambivalent, anxious lest clerical support for Repeal disrupt his "carefully nurtured relationship with Belfast's liberal Presbyterians".

O'Connell "treasured his few Protestant Repealers". But to many of his contemporaries, he appeared "ignorant" of the Protestant (largely Presbyterian) then-majority society of the north-east, Ulster, counties. Here there was already premonition of future Partition. While protesting that its readers wished only to preserve the Union, in 1843 Belfast's leading paper, the Northern Whig, proposed that if differences in "race" and "interests" argue for Ireland's separation from Great Britain then "the Northern 'aliens', holders of 'foreign heresies' (as O'Connell says they are)" should have their own "distinct kingdom", Belfast as its capital.

O'Connell seemed implicitly to concede the separateness of the Protestant North. He spoke "invading" Ulster to rescue "our Persecuted Brethren in the North". In the event, and in the face of the hostile crowds that disrupted his one foray to Belfast in 1841 ("the Repealer repulsed!"), he "tended to leave Ulster strictly alone". The northern Dissenters were not redeemed, in his view, by their record as United Irishmen. "The Presbyterians", he remarked, "fought badly at Ballynahinch ... and as soon as the fellows were checked they became furious Orangemen".

Perhaps persuaded by their presence through much of the south as but a thin layer of officials, landowners and their agents, O'Connell proposed that Protestants did not have the staying power of true "religionists". Their ecclesiastical dissent (and not alone their unionism) was a function, he argued, of political privilege. To Dr Paul Cullen (the future Cardinal and Catholic Primate of Ireland) in Rome, O'Connell wrote:"The Protestants of Ireland... are political Protestants, that is, Protestants by reason of their participation in political power... If the Union were repealed and the exclusive system abolished, the great mass of the Protestant community would with little delay melt into the overwhelming majority of the Irish nation. Protestantism would not survive the Repeal ten years."

Conflict with the Chartists and trade unions
In 1842, all eighteen of O'Connell's parliamentary "tail" at Westminster voted in favour of the Chartist petition which, along with its radical democratic demands, included Repeal. But the Chartists in England, and in their much smaller number in Ireland, were also to accuse O'Connell of being unreliable and opportunistic in his drive to secure Whig favour.

When in 1831 workers in the Dublin trades created their own political association, O'Connell moved to pack it. The Trades Political Union (TPU) was swamped by 5,000 mostly middle-class repealers who by acclaim carried O'Connell's resolution calling for the suppression of all secret and illegal combinations, particularly those "manifested among the labouring classes". When in 1841 the Chartists held the first meeting of the Irish Universal Suffrage Association (IUSA), a TPU mob broke it up, and O'Connell denounced the association's secretary, Peter Brophy as an Orangeman. From England, where the Irish-born leader of Chartism Fergus O'Connor had joined the IUSA in solidarity, Brophy denounced O'Connell in turn as the "enemy of the unrepresented classes".

Ostensibly, O'Connell's objection to labour and Chartist agitation was the resort to intimidation and violence. But his flexibility with regard to principle alienated not only working-class militants but also middle-class reformers. There was also consternation when, in 1836 O'Connell voted for an amending bill that would have 12-year-olds from the protection of shorter hours under the Factories Regulation Act. While it is clear that O'Connell's only purpose was to delay the return of a Tory ministry (in 1832 and 1833 he had intervened four times to raise the age, and was to do so again in 1839), his reputation suffered.

Karl Marx was of the view that O'Connell "always incited the Irish against the Chartists", and did so "because they too had inscribed Repeal on their banner". To O'Connell, he ascribed the fear that, drawing together national and democratic demands, the Chartist influence might induce his following to break "the established habit of electing place-hunting lawyers" and of seeking "to impress English Liberals".

The renewal of the campaign
In April 1840, when it became clear that the Whigs would lose office, O'Connell relaunched the Repeal Association, and published a series of addresses criticising government policy and attacking the Union.

The "people", the great numbers of tenant farmers, small-town traders and journeymen, whom O'Connell had rallied to the cause of Emancipation, did not similarly respond to his lead on the more abstract proposition of Repeal; neither did the Catholic gentry or middle classes. Many appeared content to explore the avenues for advancement emancipation had opened. The suspicion, in any case, was that O'Connell's purpose in returning to the constitutional question was merely to disconcert the incoming Conservatives (under his old enemy Sir Robert Peel) and to hasten the Whigs return (entirely the view of Friedrich Engels: the only purpose of Repeal for the "old fox" was "embarrass the Tory Ministers" and to put his friends back into office).

Meanwhile, as a body, Protestants remained opposed to a restoration of a parliament the prerogatives of which they had once championed. The Presbyterians in the north were persuaded that the Union was both the occasion for their relative prosperity and a guarantee of their liberty.

In the June–July 1841 Westminster elections, Repeal candidates lost half their seats. In a contest marked by the boycott of Guinness as "Protestant porter", O'Connell's son John, a brewer of O'Connell's Ale, failed to hold his father's Dublin seat.

The "Repeal election" 1841 (Source: 1841 United Kingdom general election--Ireland)

Against a background of growing economic distress, O'Connell was nonetheless buoyed by Archbishop John McHale's endorsement of legislative independence. Opinion among all classes was also influenced from October 1842 by Gavan Duffy's new weekly The Nation. Read in Repeal Reading Rooms and passed from hand to hand, its mix of vigorous editorials, historical articles and verse, may have reached as many as a quarter of a million readers.

Breaking out of the very narrow basis for electoral politics (the vote was not restored to the forty-shilling freeholder until 1885), O'Connell initiated a new series of "monster meetings". These were damaging to the prestige of the government, not only at home but abroad. O'Connell was becoming a figure of international renown, with large and sympathetic audiences in the United States and France. The Conservative government of Robert Peel considered repression, but hesitated, unwilling to tackle the Anti-Corn Law League which was copying O'Connell's methods in England. Assuring his supporters that Britain must soon surrender, O'Connell declared 1843 "the repeal year".

Tara and Clontarf 1843

At the Hill of Tara (by tradition the inaugural seat of the High Kings of Ireland), on the feast-day of the Assumption, 15 August 1843, O'Connell gathered a crowd estimated in the hostile reporting of The Times as close to one million. It took O'Connell's carriage two hours to proceed through the throng, accompanied by a harpist playing Thomas Moore's "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls".

O'Connell planned to close the campaign on 8 October 1843 with an even larger demonstration at Clontarf, on the outskirts of Dublin. As the site of Brian Boru's famous victory over the Danes in 1014, it resonated with O'Connell's increasingly militant rhetoric: "the time is coming", he had been telling his supporters, when "you may have the alternative to live as slaves or to die as freemen". Beckett suggests "O'Connell mistook the temper of the government", never expecting that "his defiance would be put to the test". When it was—when troops occupied Clontarf—O'Connell submitted at once. He cancelled the rally and sent out messengers to turn back the approaching crowds.

O'Connell was applauded by the Church, his more moderate supporters and English sympathisers. But many of the movement rank and file who had been fired by his defiant rhetoric were disillusioned. His loss of prestige might have been greater had the government not, in turn, overplayed their own hand. They sentenced O'Connell and his son John to twelve months for conspiracy, and O'Connell was imprisoned at the Richmond Bridewell.

When released after three months, the charges quashed on appeal to the House of Lords, O'Connell was paraded in triumph through Dublin on a gilded throne. But, approaching seventy years of age, O'Connell never fully recovered his former stature or confidence. Having deprived himself of his most potent weapon, the monster meeting, and with his health failing, O'Connell had no plan and ranks of the Repeal Association began to divide.

The Queen's Colleges controversy
In 1845, Dublin Castle proposed to educate Catholics and Protestants together in a non-denominational system of higher education. In advance of some of the Catholic bishops (Archbishop Daniel Murray of Dublin favoured the proposal), O'Connell condemned the "godless colleges". (Led by Archbishop McHale, the bishops issued a formal condemnation of the proposed colleges as dangerous to faith and morals in 1850). The principle at stake, of what in Ireland was understood as "mixed education", may already have been lost. When in 1830 the government proposed to educate Catholics and Protestants together at the primary level, it had been the Presbyterians (led by O'Connell's northern nemesis, the evangelist Henry Cooke) who had scented danger. They refused to cooperate in National Schools unless they had the majority to ensure there would be no "mutilating of scripture." But the vehemence of O'Connell's opposition to the colleges, was a cause of dismay among those O'Connell had begun to call Young Irelanders—a reference to Giuseppe Mazzini's anti-clerical and insurrectionist Young Italy.

When the Nation's publisher (and promoter of Irish in print) Thomas Davis, a Protestant, objected that "reasons for separate education are reasons for [a] separate life". O'Connell declared himself content to take a stand "for Old Ireland", and accused Davis of suggesting it was a "crime to be a Catholic".

Whigs and the Famine
Grouped around The Nation, which had proposed as its "first great object" a "nationality" that would embrace as easily "the stranger who is within our gates" as "the Irishman of a hundred generations," the dissidents suspected that in opposing the Colleges Bill O'Connell was also playing Westminster politics. O'Connell opposed the colleges bill to inflict a defeat on the Peel ministry and to hasten the Whigs' return to office.

The Young Irelanders' dismay only increased when at the end of June 1846 O'Connell appeared to succeed in this design. The new ministry of Lord John Russell deployed the Whigs' new laissez-faire ("political economy") doctrines to dismantle the previous government's limited efforts to address the distress of the emerging, and catastrophic, Irish Famine.

In February 1847 O'Connell stood for the last time before the House of Commons in London and pleaded for his country: "She is in your hands—in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. One-fourth of her population will perish unless Parliament comes to their relief". As "temporary relief for destitute persons", the government opened soup kitchens. They were closed a few months later in August of the same year. The starving were directed to abandon the land and apply to the workhouses.

The Peace Resolutions
After Thomas Davis's death in 1845, Gavan Duffy offered the post of assistant editor on The Nation to John Mitchel. Mitchel brought a more militant tone. When the conservative Standard observed that the new Irish railways could be used to transport troops to quickly curb agrarian unrest, Mitchel replied combatively that railway tracks could be turned into pikes and that trains could be easily ambushed. O'Connell publicly distanced himself from The Nation setting Duffy up as editor for the prosecution that followed. When the courts absolved him, O'Connell pressed the issue.

In 1847 the Repeal Association tabled resolutions declaring that under no circumstances was a nation justified in asserting its liberties by force of arms. The Young Irelanders had not advocated physical force, but in response to the "Peace Resolutions" Meagher argued that if Repeal could not be carried by moral persuasion and peaceful means, a resort to arms would be a no less honourable course. O'Connell's son John forced the decision: the resolution was carried on the threat of the O'Connells themselves quitting the Association.

Meagher, Davis and other prominent dissidents, among them Gavan Duffy; Jane Wilde; Margaret Callan; William Smith O'Brien; and John Blake Dillon, withdrew and formed themselves as the Irish Confederation.

In the desperate circumstances of the Famine and in the face of martial-law measures that a number of Repeal Association MPs had approved in Westminster, Meagher and some Confederates did take what he had described as the "honourable" course. Their rural rising broke up after a single skirmish, the Battle of Ballingarry.

Some of the "Men of 1848" carried the commitment to physical force forward into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)—Fenianism. Others followed Gavan Duffy, the only principal Young Irelander to avoid exile, in focussing on what they believed was a basis for a non-sectarian national movement: tenant rights.

In what Duffy hailed as a "League of North and South" in 1852 tenant protection societies helped return 50 MPs. The seeming triumph over "O'Connelism", however, was short-lived. In the South Archbishop Cullen approved the Catholic MPs breaking their pledge of independent opposition and accepting government positions. In the North William Sharman Crawford and other League candidates had their meetings broken up by Orange "bludgeon men".

Opposition to slavery in the United States

O'Connell championed the rights and liberties of people throughout the world including those of peasants in India, Maoris in New Zealand, Aborigines in Australia and Jews in Europe. He publicly criticised Pope Gregory XVI's treatment of Jews in the Papal States, and claimed Ireland as the "only Christian country . . . unsullied" by their persecution. It was, however, his unbending abolitionism, and in particular, his opposition to slavery in the United States, that demonstrated commitments that transcended Catholic and national interests in Ireland.

For his Repeal campaign, O'Connell relied heavily on money from the United States, but he insisted that none should be accepted from those engaged in slavery (a ban extended from 1843 to all those emigrants to the American South who in daring to "countenance the system of slavery" he could "recognise as Irish no longer"). In 1829 he had told a large abolitionist meeting in London that "of all men living, an American citizen, who is the owner of slaves, is the most despicable". In the same Emancipation year, addressing the Cork Anti-Slavery Society, he declared that, much as he longed to go to America, so long as it was "tarnished by slavery", he would never "pollute" his foot "by treading on its shores".

In 1838, in a call for a new crusade against "the vile union" in the United States "of republicanism and slavery", O'Connell denounced the hypocrisy of George Washington and characterised the American ambassador, the Virginian Andrew Stevenson, as a "slave-breeder". When Stevenson vainly challenged O'Connell to a duel, a sensation was created in the United States. On the floor of the House of Representatives the former U.S. president, John Quincy Adams spoke of a "conspiracy against the life of Daniel O'Connell".

In both Ireland and America, the furore exasperated supporters. Young Irelanders took issue. Gavan Duffy believed the time was not right "for gratuitous interference in American affairs". This was a common view. Attacks on slavery in the United States were considered "wanton and intolerable provocation". In 1845 John Blake Dillon reported to Thomas Davis "everybody was indignant at O'Connell meddling in the business": "Such talk" was "supremely disgusting to the Americans, and to every man of honour and spirit". Joining O'Connell's British critic Thomas Carlyle, Irish Protestant John Mitchel took this dissent a step further: to Duffy's disgust, Mitchel positively applauded black slavery. In the United States, fearful that it would further inflame anti-Irish nativist sentiment, Bishop John Hughes of New York urged Irish Americans not to sign O'Connell's abolitionist petition ("An Address of the People of Ireland to their Countrymen and Countrywomen in America").

O'Connell was entirely undaunted: crowds gathered to hear him on Repeal were regularly treated to excursions on the evils of human traffic and bondage. When in 1845, Frederick Douglass, touring Britain and Ireland following the publication of his Life of an American Slave, attended unannounced a meeting in Conciliation Hall, Dublin, he heard O'Connell explain to a roused audience: I have been assailed for attacking the American institution, as it is called,—Negro slavery. I am not ashamed of that attack. I do not shrink from it. I am the advocate of civil and religious liberty, all over the globe, and wherever tyranny exists, I am the foe of the tyrant; wherever oppression shows itself, I am the foe of the oppressor; wherever slavery rears its head, I am the enemy of the system, or the institution, call it by what name you will.

I am the friend of liberty in every clime, class and colour. My sympathy with distress is not confined within the narrow bounds of my own green island. No—it extends itself to every corner of the earth. My heart walks abroad, and wherever the miserable are to be succored, or the slave to be set free, there my spirit is at home, and I delight to dwell.

The black abolitionist, Charles Lenox Remond said that it was only on hearing O'Connell speak in London (the first international Anti-Slavery Convention, 1840) that he realised what being an abolitionist really meant: "every fibre of my heart contracted [when I] listened to the scorching rebukes of the fearless O'Connell". In the United States William Lloyd Garrison published a selection of O'Connell's anti-slavery speeches, no man having "spoken so strongly against the soul-drivers of this land as O'Connell". In the 1846 The Liberty Bell, an abolitionist gift book published annually by the Friends of Freedom, Margaret Fuller celebrates "Dan. O'Connell, of the Order of Liberators," comparing him to the biblical Daniel, who was able "to brave the fiery furnace, and the lion's den, and the silken lures of a court, and speak always with a poet's power."

It was as an abolitionist that O'Connell was honoured by his favourite author, Charles Dickens. In Martin Chuzzlewit, O'Connell is the "certain Public Man", revealed as an abolitionist, whom otherwise enthusiastic friends of Ireland (the "Sons of Freedom") in the United States decide they would have "pistolled, stabbed—in some way slain".

Death and commemoration
Following his last appearance in parliament, and describing himself "oppressed with grief", his "physical power departed", O'Connell travelled on a pilgrimage to Rome. He died, age 71, in May 1847 in Genoa, Italy of a softening of the brain (Encephalomalacia). In accord with his last wishes, O'Connell's heart was buried in Rome (at Sant'Agata dei Goti, then the chapel of the Irish College), and the remainder of his body in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, beneath a round tower. His sons are buried in his crypt.

Lack of a successor
In leading the charge against the Young Irelanders within the Repeal Association John O'Connell had vied for the succession. But Gavan Duffy records that the Liberator's death left no one with "acknowledged weight of character, or solidity of judgement" to lead the diminished movement out beyond the Famine: such, he suggests, was the "inevitable penalty of the statesman or leader who prefers courtiers and lackeys to counsellors and peers".

John O'Connell opposed Duffy's Tenant Right League, and eventually accepted, in 1853, a sinecure position as "Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper" at Dublin Castle.

Reputational controversy
An article appearing in The Times on Christmas Day, 1845 created an international scandal by accusing O'Connell of being one of the worst landlords in Ireland. His tenants were pictured as "living in abject poverty and neglect". The Irish press, however, was quick to observe that this was a description of famine conditions and to dismiss the report as a politically motivated attack. However, to manage his property O'Connell had employed a kinsman, John Primrose, who had a reputation as a strict agent.

Eulogies and interpretation
Calling O'Connell an "incarnation of a people", Honoré de Balzac noted that for twenty years his name had filled the press of Europe as no man since Napoleon. Gladstone, an eventual convert to Irish Home Rule, described him as "the greatest popular leader the world has ever seen". Frederick Douglass said of O'Connell that his voice was "enough to calm the most violent passion, even though it were already manifesting itself in a mob. There is a sweet persuasiveness in it, beyond any voice I ever heard. His power over an audience is perfect".

O'Connell's oratory is a quality to which James Joyce (a distant relative) plays tribute in Ulysses: "a people", he wrote, "sheltered within his voice." Other Irish literary figures of the independence generation were critical. For W.B Yeats found O'Connell "too compromised and compromising" and his rhetoric "bragging". Seán Ó Faoláin sympathised with the Young Irelanders but allowed that if the nation O'Connell helped call forth and "define" was Catholic and without the Protestant north it was because O'Connell was "the greatest of all Irish realists".

Michael Collins, Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 until his assassination in August 1922, was damning. He saw O'Connell as "a follower and not a leader of the people". Urged on by "the zeal of the people, stirred for the moment to national consciousness by the teaching of Davis, he talked of national liberty, but he did nothing to win it". O'Connell's aim had never risen above establishing the Irish people as "a free Catholic community".

The predominant interpretation of O'Connell in the last generation may be that of a liberal Catholic, as portrayed in Oliver MacDonagh's 1988 biography. This builds on the view of the historian Michael Tierney who proposes O'Connell as a "forerunner" of a European Christian Democracy. His more recent biographer Patrick Geoghegan has O'Connell forging "a new Irish nation in the fires of his own idealism, intolerance and determination", and becoming for a people "broken, humiliated and defeated" its "chieftain".

Memorials
After the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, Sackville Street, Dublin's principal thoroughfare, was renamed in his honour. His statue (the work of John Henry Foley) stands at one end of the street, the figure of Charles Stewart Parnell at the other.

O'Connell Streets also exist in Athlone, Clonmel, Dungarvan, Ennis, Kilkee, Limerick, Sligo, and Waterford. A Daniel O'Connell Bridge, opened in 1880, spans the Manuherikia River at Ophir in New Zealand.

A set of Irish postage stamps depicting O'Connell were issued in 1929 to commemorate the centenary of Catholic emancipation.

There is a statue of O'Connell outside St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia. Derrynane House, O'Connell's home in Kerry, has been converted into a museum honouring the Liberator.

Feature Film
O'Connell's life is the subject of a 2022 feature film produced by Red Abbey Productions titled The Liberator.

Biographies

 * Kinealy, Christine (2011), Daniel O'Connell and the Anti-Slavery Movement, London: Pickering and Chatto.
 * Luby, Thomas.Clarke (1880). Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell, Dublin: Cameron & Ferguson.
 * Macken, Ultan (2008), The Story of Daniel O'Connell. .Dublin: Mercier Press.
 * MacDonagh, Oliver (1991), O'Connell: The Life of Daniel O'Connell, 1775–1847, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
 * 8 vols: Vol. I. 1792–1814 Vol. II. 1815–1823 Vol. III. 1824–1828 Vol. IV. 1829–1832 Vol. V. 1833–1836 Vol. VI. 1837–1840 Vol. VII. 1841–1845 Vol. VIII. 1846–1847
 * O'Ferrall, Fergus (1991). Daniel O'Connell (Gill's Irish Lives Series), Dublin: Gill & MacMillan.
 * Trench, Charles Chenevix (1984), The Great Dan, London: Jonathan Cape Ltd.
 * Tierney, Michael, ed. (1949), Daniel O'Connell: Nine Centenary Essays, Dublin: Browne and Nolan
 * 8 vols: Vol. I. 1792–1814 Vol. II. 1815–1823 Vol. III. 1824–1828 Vol. IV. 1829–1832 Vol. V. 1833–1836 Vol. VI. 1837–1840 Vol. VII. 1841–1845 Vol. VIII. 1846–1847
 * O'Ferrall, Fergus (1991). Daniel O'Connell (Gill's Irish Lives Series), Dublin: Gill & MacMillan.
 * Trench, Charles Chenevix (1984), The Great Dan, London: Jonathan Cape Ltd.
 * Tierney, Michael, ed. (1949), Daniel O'Connell: Nine Centenary Essays, Dublin: Browne and Nolan
 * Tierney, Michael, ed. (1949), Daniel O'Connell: Nine Centenary Essays, Dublin: Browne and Nolan

title: Daniel O'Connell


text:
Talk:Washington Consensus

Latin America section
An edit with information provided by academic sources was labeled as WP:SYNTH. This is not the case and the former edit appears to be WP:PUFF regarding the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez. WMrapids (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Your last changes remove information that is important to understand the context of Venezuela and the Caracazo (in other words, the background where these policies took place):

 * Venezuela's international reserves were only US$300 million at the time of Pérez' election into the presidency
 * The increase was supposed to be implemented on 1 March 1989, but bus drivers decided to apply the price rise on 27 February, a day before payday in Venezuela
 * Lack of timely intervention by authorities, as the Caracas Metropolitan Police was on a labour strike
 * The privatization ended Venezuela's monopoly over telecommunications and surpassed even the most optimistc predictions, with over US$1,000 million above the base price and US$500 million more than the bid offered by the competition group
 * By the end of the year, inflation had dropped to 31%, Venezuela's international reserves were now worth US$14,000 million and there was an economic growth of 9% (called as an "Asian growth"), the largest in Latin America at the time.

 * It should be interesting to know about more the content that is perceived to be WP:PUFF, as most of this content is related to the situation in the country and the impact of the policies, instead of Carlos Andrés per se. Ironically, one of the popular terms to refer to his policies group, "The Economic Package", which carries a strong and negative connotation, was also removed. The current version states all of the negative effects of the reforms, including the Caracazo, as well as those regarded as the positive ones.

 * The main problem with the contributions is the use only of single academic papers, instead of bibliographical sources or news reports, which usually does not represent a general or common point of view, which bring due weight concerns- Not only that, but taking a look at the sources I can also see neutrality and verifiability problems. With the former, for instance, Carlos Andrés Pérez's cabinet is compared to Pinochet's Chicago Boys, and with the latter, at some point it is stated that during the Caracazo Hugo Chávez Frías was one of the few disobedient officers who firmly ejected to take part in the repression, when Chávez actually was bedridden with smallpox at the time (funnily enough, the author quotes himself for this claim). One of this issues actually affects the article, with one of the last changes: Powerful business groups and US-educated economists would persuade Pérez to liberalize the economy. Not only is this loaded language, but contradicts the experience and testimonies from his ministers, who actually adviced Pérez with a gradual approach instead of a shock terapy, and the common knowledge that one of Pérez's key flaws was his terrible political communication. This can be seen from the documentary Cap 2 Intentos, from historian and filmmaker Carlos Oteyza, to scholar Mirtha Rivero, who is already quoted in the article. Regarding the WP:SYNTH issue, one of the statements said that Economic nationalism and clientelism was prominent in Venezuela as a result of the two-party hegemonic system established by the Puntofijo Pact. None of this is mentioned later in the section and is unclear how it is related to the content at hands, besides also having loaded language.

 * Speaking of which, I also wanted to ask: the recent changes say that corruption increased in Venezuela as a result of Pérez's policies. How is this stated in the sources? I did not find it in any of them, and I find it really interesting because, arguably, the worst corruption scandals before the Bolivarian Revolution also happened before El Gran Viraje: the Sierra Nevada affair, the Jeeps scandal, and most famously, RECADI, which brought inmense fraud to the financial system and it was a currency control program, the very opposite of what the Washington Consensus is! Moreover, they also hold responsible the reforms of the 1994 banking crisis, where other authors would point out the important state intervention in the preceding years, which caused fiscal deficit and debt, and point out to several previous bank failures in the years before: Banco de los Trabajadores in 1982, Banco de Comercio in 1985 and Banco Nacional de Descuento in 1986.

 * I could provide references for the last arguments, but for the time being I want them to be examples on how the last changes can be problematic. Per WP:BRD, as the proponent of the changes, the onus is on you to prove why these changes are adequate. I'm all ears regarding the thoughts on this insight. Regards, --NoonIcarus (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Washington Consensus


text:
Talk:Paul von Hindenburg/Archive 1

2003-2006
Can someone reduce the size of that photo please. - PMelvilleAustin 06:59, 12 January 2003 (UTC)

 * This article needs a serious rewrite. There's hardly anything about Ludendorff or the operations on either front.  If no one objects, I'll try to put something together in a day or two. Mackensen 03:15, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Edited as per World Book Encyclopedia etc etc. PMA 11:09, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * This article is very poorly written, choppy, lots of one-sentence paragraphs. Given the importance of Hindenburg in interbellum Germany, and as the person who made Hitler back down (temporarily), his historical role should be fleshed out better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.245.30.82 (talk • contribs) 19:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

 * It'd be helpful to explain what a junker is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tjc (talk • contribs) 14:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

 * A car costing less than $300? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sca (talk • contribs) 20:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Lights
I think (and originally put it in) that the fact that the lights at the grave are switched off is an interesting information, as it puts Hindenburg into perspective, but I think that to add that this has been because of a lack of respect (whatever that means) is POV, superfluous, and also wrong (or at least, I would think so; I think it is mainly a PC issue). Clossius 08:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Concur. Mackensen (talk) 08:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Can you clarify why it was done? ("PC issue" doesn't do that) PMA 16:05, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Sure I could, but I don't think that's germane to the issue here, which is why I put the remark in parentheses. The fact of switching the lights off is clear and verifiable; what the motives of the church chapter were, if any, would be an imputation unless they had written public records, which I doubt (or original research, which is un-wiki). What is clear is that switching off the lights wasn't for the lack of respect, because this would imply not caring, and to switch the lights off in this chapel (the only place in the entire church - and it also prevents you from seeing the coats of arms of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order) implies that there is a purpose here. Clossius 18:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Then at least include the fact that no one now knows what the motives were in the article. When I read this I imeadiadely started searching the talk section for more info. Bertus 10:36, 7 April 2005 (UTC)

Poznań is a Polish city
Let's me clarify things:
 * Poznań was called Poznań for the last 1000 years
 * Poznań was in Poland for the last 1000 years
 * There was not such thing as Posen for the last 1000 years
 * Posen was the name used by Prussians during their occupation of Poland
 * Posen was the name used by Nazis during their occupation of Poland
 * Posen was never used by Polish or English people, and should not be used in the English Wikipedia
 * I have nothing against the usage of Posen in the German Wikipedia, but the German editors/speakers should decide what name to use

Thank you for you attaention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.244.138.110 (talk • contribs) 05:46, 10 December 2004 (UTC)

 * Please stop arguing over stupid things. Many sites including Polish sources acknoledge the fact that Poznan was called Posen during Paul von Hidenburg's birth. --Masterhomer 08:03, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Encarta has "Hindenburg was born in Posen (now Poznań, Poland)" GeneralPatton 08:12, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * It was called Posen then and should still be called Posen now, [personal attack deleted Kelly Martin 16:37, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.214.87 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 19 June 2005 (UTC)

Party membership
Does anyone know if Hindenburg was ever an actual member of a political party, or, in particular, if he was a member of a party at the times he stood for election in 1925 and 1932? I've been working on some other articles about Weimar politics and this information is a bit of a gap. Iota 22:49, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * No, he wasn't, he made a point of being "above" parties. This (basically anti-democratic) stance was part of the image and of his popularity as well. Of course, he was supported by a voting coaltion, the "Reichsblock", basically the right-wing and centrist parties (1925). The German Wiki article on the 1925 elections is quite good (but not the one on 1932). Clossius 16:43, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I've started articles on the two elections: German presidential election, 1925, and German presidential election, 1932, but they're based largely on what I could glean from the two German Wikipedia articles and from elsewhere on the 'pedia. So if you find yourself wandering in that direction it would be great if you could correct any obvious errors or omissions. Iota 17:47, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Some comments:
 * Though the idea of a president being "above parties" stems from a animosity against political i-parties and might become problematic, it's not necessarily anti-democratic. The Weimar Constitution certainly considered the President's role to be above party politics. Though Hindenburg's predecessor Ebert remained a member of the SPD, he did not act as a SPD-President and cooperated mainly with non-SPD governments.
 * Hindenburg was elected president in 1925 as the candidate of the parties right of the centre, that only put him up in the 2nd round of the ballot against Wilhelm Marx of the Centre Party (standing also for Social Democrats and Left-Liberals) and the Communist Ernst Thälmann.
 * In his 1932 re-election Hindenburg however was supported by the parties of the centre-left (Right- and Left-Liberals, Social Democrats, Centre Party) against Hitler and again Communist Thälmann.
 * Str1977 00:03, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Noble Title
Did he possess any title (such as Freiherr)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.229.96.77 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
 * No, his family didn't carry any additional titles. Mackensen (talk) 23:04, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I thank you, sir. Were any peerages specifically created for him by the Kaiser? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.229.216.92 (talk • contribs) 02:17, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Revival of the Monarchy
Is he had decided to, could he have, as President of Germany, restored the Kaiser to the throne? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.229.255.136 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

 * No, unless he was willing to break his oath of office. Legally it would have been possible only by changing the constitution, requiring 2/3 of both the Reichstag and the Reichsrat.
 * Str1977 00:13, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

 * I thank you for your information, sir. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.229.225.178 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

 * You're welcome. (Please sign your name with four tildes, next time.)
 * Str1977 23:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

point of view
I thought this was a great article. Concise, interesting and at just the right level of detail. However, I think there are a few things that ought to be phrased in an NPOV. I think the most glaring one is this:
 * Hindenburg was not a charismatic man, but he did possess a ablility to impress people. However, beneath the facade of strength and power that Hindenburg projected, was a well-meaning, but weak-willed and not particularly intelligent man who was highly dependent upon the advice on others to make decisions.

I don't know if this is the widely held opinion in Germany, or in historical circles today. I have a feeling that this is summarizing one of his biographers. A reference, such as "According to Smith," would be welcome, but I don't feel capable of making the changes myself. —Joke137 18:57, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Blackmail
I note there is nothing here about the suborning of Hindenburg through his son Oskar, over their taxation irregularities at  Neudeck  , nor the  gift of a further 5000 acres , parallel to the blackmail of 1933. Famekeeper 09:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Emperor?
Hindenburg, old and confused, thought he was meeting the emperor and called Hitler "Your Majesty".

Which emperor was this, in 1934? The article on German Empire says it ended in 1918. sjorford (?!) 11:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Which is why they mention that he was old and confused. Somewhat senile people may lose track of the day that they're in. He thought he was meeting Kaiser Wilhelm II. And, most likely, he thought it was still World War I or pre-War. Homagetocatalonia 11:06, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Ah, I see. it was just the phrase "the emperor" that threw me; perhaps this can be rephrased? sjorford (?!) 13:15, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Hindenburg as hunter and His Coat of Arms
Does anybody know of Hindenburg as a hunter? His coat of arms is on a hunting dagger/hirschfanger. Can anybody explain what his coat of arms signifies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonydon (talk • contribs) 18:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Answer: part 1. I do not. part 2. Usually they signify nothing beyond the ego and fantasy of a family in bygone days. p.s. Hope you don't mind my rewriting your question (it was a little awkward). Dr. Dan 01:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Forgery of "Prophesy"
The purported letter of Ludendorff to Hindenburg regarding Hitler seemed so preposterous, that I wrote to Sir Ian Kershaw, questioning it. It actually seemed incongruous that such a letter would have escaped historians and the history of the period for so long. Sir Ian Kershaw admitted to me that it was a forgery, and he has eliminated it from his book Hitler Hubris 1889-1936. He also told me that he has had difficulty from removing it from the German translation. I deleted it from Wikipedia, since it's not only a major inaccuracy, but simply false.Dr. Dan 17:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Thank you; I didn't realize that it was a forgery. Please note that mine putting in the quote was an good faith edit, I simply assumed that because it was in Ian Kershaw's book, it must have been legitimate. Thanks for correcting this matter.A.S. Brown 01:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Your welcome. We all fall victim to these errors. Even famous historians need to be questioned and challenged from time to time. As I truly like Wikipedia, I want to keep it scholarly, accurate, and unbiased. Best wishes. Dr. Dan 02:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

 * How did he come to print it in the first place? PMA 16:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Essay?
Is this an essay or an encyclopedia article about a person? The latter doesn't need a "Conclusion"--85.49.227.84 23:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Ambiguity, birthplace, wife
"He was not charismatic, but he did possess an ability to impress people." -- This statement seems contradictory and lacks a clear meaning. Do we mean he was an imposing presence, but not a compelling speaker? Imposing but phlegmatic?

Regarding Posen/Poznan: The city was internationally recognized as part of Prussia and then Germany from the second partition of Poland in 1793 until the changes wrought by the Versailles Treaty in 1919; its reincorporation into Germany during the Nazi occupation was not internationally recognized. Therefore, I made it: "Hindenburg was born in Posen, Prussia (since 1919 Poznań, Poland)...."

I don't think the earlier history of Poznań is relevant to this article, and certainly the sort of nationalistic fumings from both sides seen above are irrelevant. Readers who wish to explore the ethnographic history of the area can consult the entry on Poznań.

Does anyone know anything about Hindenburg's wife? We say only that he was a "widower" and was buried with his wife at Tannenberg and again in Marburg.

Sca 19:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Paul von Hindenburg/Archive 1


text:
Maurice Gibb

Maurice Ernest Gibb (22 December 1949 – 12 January 2003) was a British musician and songwriter. He achieved worldwide fame as a member of the pop group Bee Gees. Although his elder brother Barry Gibb and fraternal twin brother Robin Gibb were the group's main lead singers, most of their albums included at least one or two songs featuring Maurice's lead vocals, including "Lay It on Me", "Country Woman" and "On Time". The Bee Gees are one of the most successful pop-rock groups of all time.

Gibb started his music career in 1955 in Manchester, England at the age of five joining the skiffle-rock and roll group the Rattlesnakes, which later evolved into the Bee Gees in 1958 after spending three years in Manchester when they moved to Australia. They returned to England, where they achieved worldwide fame. In 2002, the Bee Gees were appointed as CBEs for their "contribution to music". Following Gibb's unexpected death in 2003, his son collected his award at Buckingham Palace in 2004.

Maurice Gibb's earliest musical influences included the Everly Brothers, Cliff Richard, and Paul Anka; the Mills Brothers and the Beatles were significant later influences. During the Bee Gees' temporary break-up in 1969–1970, Maurice released his first solo single, "Railroad", but his first solo album, The Loner, has never been released.

1949–1958: early years and the Rattlesnakes
Maurice Ernest Gibb was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, on 22 December 1949, the son of Hugh Gibb, a drummer, and his wife Barbara (née Pass). He was the fraternal twin of Robin Gibb, and was the younger of the two by 35 minutes. At that time, he had one sister, Lesley, and one additional brother, Barry (another brother, Andy, would be born in 1958).

In January 1955, the Gibb family moved back to their hometown in Manchester, England. Around that time, Gibb and his brothers were heard harmonising by their parents. Also in 1955, he started his music career when he joined the skiffle/rock-and-roll group the Rattlesnakes with his brothers and two friends, Paul Frost and Kenny Horrocks, who were their neighbours. The group's first major appearance was on 28 December 1957 when they performed at a local Gaumont cinema where children were invited to sing between films. They had planned to sing along to a 78 rpm record which Lesley had just been given as a Christmas present, but on the way Gibb dropped and broke it, so they sang live. The audience were pleased by their singing, which may have been the song "Wake Up Little Susie" by the Everly Brothers.

1958–1969: a trio to a quintet, Robin's absence and temporary breakup
When Gibb was eight years old, he emigrated to Redcliffe, in Queensland, Australia, with his family. Shortly afterward, he and his brothers formed the Bee Gees. By January 1963, the Gibbs moved to Sydney. The group's first single was "The Battle of the Blue and the Grey" but it failed to chart. Around 1963, the Gibb brothers worked with Judy Stone, Johnny Devlin and Jimmy Hannan. By 1964, Gibb made his first appearance as an instrumentalist on the beat-influenced "Claustrophobia". Also in 1964, the Gibb brothers worked with Johnny Devlin and Trevor Gordon. Around 1965, the Gibb brothers worked with Trevor Gordon, Michelle Rae and Noeleen Batley.

In 1966, the three Gibb brothers wrote their first song, "The Storm". Also that year, Gibb began his career as the guitarist and bassist for the band; at around the same time he recorded his first solo composition, "All by Myself", on which he also played guitar. Around 1966, the Gibb brothers worked with Bip Addison, Sandy Summers, Anne Shelton, Vince Melouney, April Bryon, MPD Ltd, Ray Brown and the Whispers, Ronnie Burns, Lori Balmer, Marty Rhone, Vyt, Python Lee Jackson, Dennis Knight, Barrington Davis, Jenene and Jon Blanchfield. Their second album, Spicks and Specks (1966), included "Where Are You", Gibb's first solo writing credit to be released.

In March 1967, the Gibb brothers worked with Billy J. Kramer recording "Town of Tuxley Toymaker, Part 1". Around the same time, Colin Petersen and Vince Melouney joined the Bee Gees. In the middle of 1967 Bee Gees' 1st was released. The album was praised by the critics who compared it to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which was released weeks earlier. AllMusic's Bruce Eder wrote that Gibb's Mellotron on "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You" 'was close in the spirit of the Moody Blues and was opened by a Gregorian chant.' The band's first number 1 single in the UK, "Massachusetts" was released in September 1967. In early 1968, the Horizontal was released. In August 1968, the Marbles released their first and only successful hit "Only One Woman" a song co-written by Gibb. In the middle of 1968, the band's third international LP Idea included the song "Kitty Can", which features Gibb's high harmony vocal, with Barry Gibb singing low harmony. In early 1969, they released Odessa, which features Gibb's solo vocals on "Suddenly" and "I Laugh in Your Face". On 19 March 1969, the same day that Robin Gibb announced his plans as a solo artist, Gibb and his bandmates recorded and later released "Tomorrow Tomorrow".

Maurice and Barry alone comprised the Bee Gees on the 1969 album Cucumber Castle during Robin's absence as a soloist. They sang the hit "Don't Forget to Remember" (which reached number two on the UK chart while Robin's first solo single, "Saved by the Bell", also reached number two) and follow up singles; "IOIO" and "Tomorrow, Tomorrow" with Barry taking lead and Maurice providing harmony vocals, but the duo version of the group enjoyed dwindling success. A supergroup in 1969 called the Fut was formed at a Tin Tin session and they recorded "Have You Heard the Word" while Gibb was still a Bee Gee, and released later as a single, the band consisting of Gibb on vocals/bass/guitar, Steve Kipner and Steve Groves on vocals with Billy Lawrie also providing background vocals. "Have You Heard the Word" features Gibb impersonating John Lennon, and Beatles fans thought that it was a lost Beatles song which had not been previously released. In 1985, Yoko Ono attempted to register the song as a Lennon composition.

On 1 December 1969, Maurice and brother Barry announced to the world that the Bee Gees had broken up.

1970–1979: first solo project and Bee Gees' reunion
In April 1970 Gibb released his first solo single, "Railroad" backed with "I've Come Back". His debut solo album, The Loner, has not yet been released. All of the songs on the album feature guitar work by Stone the Crows' Leslie Harvey. In May 1970 the album Sing a Rude Song was released in the UK with Gibb singing lead vocals on the three songs on the album. By 1976, New Blood Records issued Bee Gees Information which was credited to Gibb and features four songs from The Loner, but was only a limited edition for fan club, although the EP has no title but the picture sleeve of that has the club name ("Bee Gees Information") in large letters. In 1970, he formed a supergroup the Bloomfields with Billy Lawrie and they recorded a short version of "The Loner", which was released as a single in 1972 on Pye Records and intended for the film Bloomfield.

The Bee Gees reunited on 21 August 1970. Maurice later began taking a few lead vocals on a Bee Gees tracks in the 70s such as "Lay It on Me", "Country Woman", "On Time" and "You Know It's For You".

1980–2003: continuous solo works and later years
In 1981, he recorded some instrumental tracks for his unreleased instrumental album Strings and Things, including "Image of Samantha", which seems refer to his daughter Samantha.

In 1982, Gibb appeared at the San Remo Festival and performed "Wildflower", a Bee Gees' song on which he provided lead vocals from Living Eyes. In 1983, Gibb re-recorded "On Time" at the same time as "Hold Her in Your Hand". By February 1984, he collaborated with arranger Jimmie Haskell for the film soundtrack of A Breed Apart, recorded at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. By March, he recorded "Miami, A Musical Score", this song was later used for a promotional film in Miami. His second single "Hold Her in Your Hand" was only issued in UK, Australia and South Africa. In September 1986, the Bee Gees began writing and recording songs for their upcoming album ESP. on which Maurice took lead vocal on the song "Overnight".

Gibb composed and recorded the instrumental "The Supernaturals" in July 1985; it was later dubbed on the film of the same name, and he also appeared on the film doing a cameo appearance. On 24 April 2001, The Bee Gees released their 23rd and final studio album, This Is Where I Came In, which included his compositions, "Walking on Air" and "Man in the Middle".

Death
Gibb died at the age of 53 suddenly at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, on 12 January 2003, following surgery for a twisted intestine, which caused him to go into cardiac arrest. His wife and children were with him when he died.

A private funeral was attended by about 200 family and friends, including Michael Jackson and Harry Wayne Casey. After the service, his body was cremated. Journalist and family friend Jennifer Valoppi said, "It was emotional, there was humor. Everybody talked about how this was a man who really celebrated life and so this was a celebration of his life." Nat Kipner, who managed the Bee Gees early in their career in Australia in 1966, also attended the service. Barry and Robin Gibb told the BBC about Maurice's death, "The fact that they had to operate on Maurice during the shock of cardiac arrest is very questionable." Barry said, "None of the sequence of events have yet made sense to us."

Robin Gibb spoke to Mojo magazine about Maurice's death in 2003: "We were kids together, and teenagers. We spent the whole of our lives with each other because of our music. I can't accept that he's dead. I just imagine he's alive somewhere else." Barry and Robin ceased performing as a group for a time, but later decided to perform occasionally under the Bee Gees banner before twin brother Robin died at the age of 62 of liver and kidney failure from colorectal cancer on 20 May 2012.

Influences
Gibb's influences were the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, Cliff Richard, Paul Anka and the Mills Brothers. According to Gibb, he listened to the Beatles' early records when he was a child and was later influenced by Paul McCartney's bass guitar-playing. Talking about the song "Have You Heard the Word" by the Fut, on which Gibb sang and played bass, he said that "We were just getting ready to do some tracks and we were just doing nothing and I was fartin' around on the bass. I was a big Paul freak. He was a great teacher for me." Gibb added that "I could play every bass lick he [McCartney] played", especially "Michelle", saying that its bass-line was "really tasteful stuff, and way ahead, way ahead of his time".

Recognition

DJ Paul Gambaccini said: "Maurice was the talented multi-instrumentalist, I mean here is a guy who played keyboards, guitar, bass and percussion."

Bruce Eder of AllMusic declared the track "Back Home" had "the loudest guitar ever heard on a Bee Gees record".

In the reunited Bee Gees from 1987 onward, Gibb was the group's resident expert on all technical phases of recording, and co-ordinated musicians and engineers to create much of the group's sound.

Instrumentalist
He contributed both lead and rhythm guitars and Hammond organ on the debut Bee Gees album The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs (1965) and then commenced his bass playing on the following album Spicks and Specks (1966). He focused on bass and keyboards after the joining of guitarist Vince Melouney in 1967.

Besides bass and guitar, he occasionally played lead guitar including "Country Woman" (1971) and three 2 Years On (1970) tracks: "Back Home", "Lay It on Me" and "Every Second, Every Minute".

As for keyboards, he only played piano at both live performances and studios. The songs "Words" (1968), "Lonely Days" (1970) and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (1971) were the frequent numbers at the group's concerts. He played harpsichord on "I Can't See Nobody" (1967), Mellotron on "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You" (1967) and Moog synthesizer on "Sweet Song of Summer" (1972) all in studio only.

From 1966 to 1974, his main instrument in both studio and live was bass, while he also focused on guitar and keyboards in studio. From 1975 to 1979, he primarily played bass and guitar, creating distinctive syncopated funk bass lines which provided the foundation for the band's driving disco sound. From 1987, he generally played keyboards or synthesizers, but still played bass or guitar occasionally.

His first and only drumming for the Bee Gees was on Cucumber Castle track "My Thing" (1969).

He once used the guitar given by John Lennon on the song "She Keeps On Coming" (2001). In a continuity link for the song on the Top Of The Pops 2 special, in support for the album This Is Where I Came In Robin mentioned Lennon's guitar and Maurice confirmed it was his Epiphone. Some articles say it was Lennon's acoustic guitar on the song "This Is Where I Came In".

Vocals
On average, Maurice sang lead on one or two songs for each album and he was the lead vocalist on some Bee Gees tracks including "On Time", "Lay It on Me", "Closer Than Close", and his last song "Man in the Middle". His first composition is "All by Myself" recorded in 1966 but not released until 1970 on Inception/Nostalgia. On the Bee Gees' live performances of "Nights on Broadway", Maurice sang falsetto rather than Barry who originally sang falsetto on the studio recording. He also showcases his vocal talent on his unreleased LP The Loner.

His comic personality shone on stage during Bee Gees concerts when the brothers would perform an acoustic medley. Many times, Maurice would mock Robin while he was singing or pretend he was bored during the song "Holiday" (Maurice did not sing on the original record), among other things.

Songwriting
As a songwriter, Gibb contributed primarily to melody, with his brothers writing the lyrics that they would sing on the finished song (for the most part). It is difficult to identify his contributions because the songs were so shaped to the singer, but his brothers' continued writing collaboration with him on solo projects shows how much they relied on him. He was sometimes known as "the quiet one" for his less obvious contributions to the group, but privately he was a good teller of stories, who immensely enjoyed talking with fans. His reputation as a mild-mannered, stabilising influence with two very ambitious brothers continued through his life.

Studio collaborations
In 1966, Gibb became a session musician in Australia for other artists including Bip Addison, Anne Shelton, April Bryon, Barrington Davis and singer Jon. Around 1969, Gibb worked with his next-door neighbour, Beatle Ringo Starr, and the result was the track "Modulating Maurice" but it was not released. Gibb played piano on the track "Saved by the Bell" as well as bass on "Mother and Jack" both songs performed by Robin Gibb for his first solo album.

Around 1970, Gibb played piano on George Harrison's song "Isn't It a Pity" as a part of his first triple solo album, All Things Must Pass. In the recording studio he met Genesis' Phil Collins, Phil Spector, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Harrison. In 1971, he produced Lulu's 1971 song "Everybody Clap", which features Gibb on guitar, Leslie Harvey on guitar, former Manfred Mann and Cream member Jack Bruce on bass, and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham on drums. Bonham and his wife, Pat Philips became friends with Gibb and Lulu. Also in that year, he played bass on Billy Lawrie's 1973 song "Freedom". Future Wings and former Thunderclap Newman guitarist Jimmy McCulloch played guitar on that song, and McCulloch suggests that it was recorded at around the same time as Lulu's "Everybody Clap", with Stone the Crows' Maggie Bell providing backing vocals. On 17 January 1972, Gibb produced, with Billy Lawrie, "Baby Come on Home", released as a single also in that year. In April 1972, Gibb produced Jimmy Stevens' album Don't Freak Me Out (called Paid My Dues in US). The same year, Gibb produced Drift Away, an album released by Bob Saker and Mike Berry; it includes a cover version of "On Time". In 1973, Gibb produced and played bass on Jimmy Stevens' unreleased numbers with musicians Alan Kendall, Jimmy McCulloch, Pete Willsher, Zoot Money and singer Paul Jones. In August 1973, Gibb participated on Andy Gibb's first recording session, performing two new songs.

In 1978, Gibb produced with Steve Klein the Osmonds' album Steppin' Out, which features a cover version of the Bee Gees' "Rest Your Love on Me". Also in 1978, Gibb composed "The Love That Was Lost", with Blue Weaver on keyboard and arranged by Mike Lewis, who also arranged for the disco group KC and the Sunshine Band. In 1980, Gibb co-wrote with Tim Rice "Last Affair of the Heart", which was recorded by Elaine Paige at AIR Studios in London along with "Secrets" and "Carried Away". In 1982, Gibb took part in Barry's original demo recording of the song "Eyes That See in the Dark", a song intended for Kenny Rogers' album of the same name. In August 1982, Gibb wrote and recorded "Spirit of the Snow" and intended for the film A Christmas Carol. Gibb worked with Robin on his three albums How Old Are You? (1983), Secret Agent (1984) and Walls Have Eyes (1985). Gibb co-wrote "Shine, Shine" with his brother Barry and keyboardist George Bitzer, the song later became a Top 40 for Barry in the US. In 1985, Gibb sang background vocals on Larry Gatlin's songs "Indian Summer", available on Gatlin's album Smile with Gatlin and Roy Orbison on lead vocals; another track "Didn't We Call It (Falling in Love)" was not released. In 1986, Gibb produced Carola's album Runaway. Also in 1986, Gibb participated on the Bunbury songs "Up the Revolution", "Fight (No Matter How Long)", "Bunbury Afternoon" and "Seasons".

One of Gibb's last recordings was on the demo of "I Cannot Give You My Love" on which he played keyboards with his brother Barry taking the lead vocals. The song was intended for Cliff Richard.

Personal life
Gibb met Scottish pop singer Lulu through Colin Petersen in 1967. Lulu recalls about Maurice, "I thought Maurice was cute, so I said, 'In that case, tell him to stop talking about me and take me out', He did just that, I never expected much to come from this, but in fact our relationship grew, after a fashion. Going steady is quite the wrong way to describe what was happening between us. Going unsteady might better sum up the way we fell in and out with each other". According to Lulu, she, Maurice and Robert Stigwood watched Pink Floyd at the Saville Theatre in London on October 1st, 1967. Later, after his relationship with Lulu had become public knowledge, he said: "Lulu and I met on the Top of the Pops TV show three months ago, and then at the Saville Theatre in London last month".

Later in 1968, Lulu was seen in public with Davy Jones of the Monkees; Jones was also a friend of Maurice. As Gibb recalled, "Davy Jones was a good friend of mine, I broke it off with Lulu over the phone and Davy called me up and said 'I am going to ask Lu to dinner with some friends, is that all right?' I said, 'Yes, I am not going out with her anymore, have a ball' and threw the phone down. They then took so many photos of them and made it look like a six-month romance, but she had only been out with him that one night, she did not even want to go out. She phoned me the next day and she was crying, saying she was sorry". Maurice later regretted not accepting her apology. "We just grew up, that's all," Maurice admitted. "We were miserable apart and when we started going out again, it got so that I didn't want to be with anyone. I used to phone her up from Los Angeles about twice a day. Then she'd call me back. We used to make about 90-minute calls".

In the same year, Gibb was seen in public with Hungarian singer Sarolta Zalatnay, but he later insisted: "I'm not a Casanova and it's all most unfortunate. I've never been publicised to be available. Because of the stories of my affairs with Lulu and Sarolta, the fans feel, 'Oh, we won't bother about Maurice because he's always got a steady girl'.

Gibb and Lulu married on 18 February 1969 and separated in 1973. Their careers and his heavy drinking forced them apart and they divorced, childless. Gibb later said they both drank: "We didn't have any responsibilities, we'd just party."

In her autobiography, Barbara Windsor claimed to have had a brief affair with him.

Family
He married his second wife, Yvonne Spenceley Gibb, on 17 October 1975. They had two children. Their marriage lasted until his death. Maurice's alcoholic nadir came in 1991, when he pulled a gun on his wife and children after a month-long bender. They left him and immediately went to brother Barry's house, refusing to come back until he had done something about his drinking. Maurice went into rehab, calling Yvonne and telling her he was going to stay because he wanted to stop drinking. She said that that was the call she had been waiting for.

Substance abuse and recovery
Gibb said he had "battled the booze" since the 1970s. John Lennon introduced him to his favourite drink, scotch and coke: "If he had given me cyanide, I would have drunk the cyanide, I was so in awe of the man." He would go out drinking with his neighbour, Ringo Starr. According to Barry, it got to the point where he became unreliable, and he would have to feel this way along the wall prior to going onstage. One factor in Maurice's recovery was the active intervention of his brothers, who had recently lost their youngest brother Andy. In an interview, Maurice acknowledged that his final years of alcohol abuse had been driven by his failure to reach Andy before his death, and his subsequent guilt. After rehab, Maurice started to rediscover his family again, spending quality time with them. To celebrate this, he and Yvonne renewed their wedding vows in 1992. The ceremony was attended not only by many members of their families but many of the friends Gibb made while at the rehabilitation centre. Maurice would remain sober until his death.

Legacy
Maurice Gibb was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 as a member of The Bee Gees.

Wyclef Jean recorded "Jive Talkin'" in 2005 and Sheryl Crow recorded "To Love Somebody" in 2005 as a tribute for him. A tribute to Gibb, entitled Souls Stick Around: A Tale of the Black Hills and Maurice Gibb, was published as an eBook on Amazon.com in March 2012 by Bee Gees fan and author Dawnette Owens.

A recording studio at Chorlton High School, one of the schools the brothers attended, commemorates Gibb. In honouring Gibb, his brother Barry Gibb noted: "Mo was a real McCartney bass freak, as a lot of us were. He would pick up on all the things that McCartney would [do]. Maurice was very good on different instruments, you know. Good lead guitarist, good bass player, good keyboard player. He was versatile. He loved playing bass more than anything else, I think, at that time."

Discography

 * Unreleased albums

 * Singles

title: Maurice Gibb


text:
Talk:List of musicians in the second wave of punk rock

Deleting bands
67.38.161.126, any chance you could quit deleting bands without discussing them here first? -- Zoe

 * I deleted all bands without Wikipedia articles. There's no point of just listing band names if people can't click on them to find information about them.Spylab 12:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Spylab

Third Wave punk?
Shouldn't Sum 41, The Ataris, AFI, Alkaline Trio, Box Car Racer, Good Charlotte, Green Day, Long Beach Dub Allstars, New Found Glory, The Offspring et al. be in a list of third wave punk musicians? -- Jimregan

 * Probably, but for the sake of simplicity I'd vote to keep them as 'second wave' as in, they wern't part of the original 'wave' of 'punk' bands (e, Pistols, Clash, Damned, etc)... I think this is probably good enough as far as these lists go, otherwise we'll end up with no end of seperate pages for each 'wave' of punk with endless arguements over who should be in what wave... Just my thoughts, anyway... quercus robur 22:45 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Well, I bring this up, because AFAIR when Green Day's Dookie and The Offspring's Smash came out, they were referred to as the third wave. I suppose, if it's wide spread enough, it's appropriate to have a third wave page, otherwise it's not. -- Jimregan 06:04 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * I'm a little late to the conversation, but I agree that the likes of Green Day, the Offspring, and Blink-182 belong in the Third Wave group. Any old school punker scoffs at these pogo-stickers. vudu 01:24, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * There aren't enough "third-wave" punk bands to justify making a whole list of them. I see some of the "third wave" bands have been put in this list already, anyway. --Guess Who 00:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

 * I'm another person chiming in for the creation of a 'third wave' list (and I think there are enough bands to warrant it). To stop arguments a braver person than me should come up with a year at which point a band becomes 'third wave'. MagicBez 00:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I disagree with the creation of a Third Wave of Punk list. The term third wave punk has never been used in widespread way. The only music genre I can think of that people have used the term third wave with is ska. Any attempt to split punk rock into several waves would be arbitrary and not very meaningful.Spylab 12:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)Spylab

I think it's pretty obvious that the third wave came in the wake of Bad Religion's album Suffer, which completely reinvigorated the West Coast punk scene and set the stage for Green Day, Rancid, Offspring, NOFX, and others that have defined the third wave... All those bands were in their formative stages when Suffer was released. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.102.97.164 (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The main article on punk music refers to the third wave as the "revival". The third wave "revival" bands should be removed from the second wave page to reflect this distinction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.230.153.212 (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

 * The main article considers the second wave to begin in roughly 1977, when punk emerged from London and New York to reach a wider underground audience. Everything after that is broken into numerous sub-movements. I think it's safe to say that -- because every scene was its own fragmented, discontinuous organism -- sorting the history of punk into tidy little categories is impossible. There were few singularly pivotal moments by which those divisions could be drawn. There's also a problem with many of the better-known bands on this list in that they've been around for as much as 20 years and have gone through several different sounds, so it doesn't make sense to pigeonhole them into these categories. Besides, punk bands are generally classified more by their style and place of origin than by their era. I think this list should be nominated for deletion.Ibadibam (talk) 19:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Dead Kennedys
Why are the Dead Kennedys on this list? They formed in 1978, so surely are part of the first wave, not second wave (by the definition used on this page). I'd also question how the Pixies can in any way be considered a punk band, when they're closer to the pop than punk side of rock (that's not a criticism, I love the Pixies!) ShaneKing 07:20, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I don't really like this list because it's so loosely defined. You've got the Circle Jerks (formed in 1979) in the same "wave" as Rancid (formed in 1991). Seems weird to me. Deepfryer99 (talk) 16:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Alphabetization
I fixed many of the links and decided to list bands with their full names in alphabetical order (i.e. adding the at beginning of "The Vandals"). Also, where were you guys on the Queers and Screeching Weasel?--TheGrza 03:29, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

 * When you alphabetise a list of musicians you really shouldn't put all the bands whose names begin with 'the' under the 'T' section. I'm pretty sure that's a generally recognised rule for these things. The Vandals should be in the 'V' section. MagicBez 00:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Blink 182
This list is a complete joke, bands that have nothing to do with each other are stuffed into the same "wave" Turbonegro aren't related to bands like Blink 182 in anyway, and Blink 182 don't belong in any "wave" of punk rock lists. - Deathrocker 00:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Green Day
Sometimes they are punk, sometimes there not. Do they deserve to be second wave?--Nimrod1234 13:42, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Green Day fit into the pop punk genre for sure. Someone should make a final decision about whether they belong on this page, because having them added and deleted almost every day (mostly by anonymous users with no explanation) is rediculous. Spylab 18:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)Spylab
 * I think that a new book by Mojo called "Punk: the Whole Story" having a chapter on Green Day after the chapter on Black Flag is rationale enough. WesleyDodds 14:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)