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Francis Crozier and O'Connell’s chariot

In early September of 1844, Francis Crozier was between jobs, having gotten a year’s leave from the Admiralty, and was just beginning to plan his upcoming trip to France and Italy. In the meantime, however, he was spending some time in Dublin with his family. 

This meant he was in just the right place at the right time (or, as he may have felt, the wrong place at the wrong time) to experience a historic event: the parading of Repeal politician and statesman Daniel O'Connell through the streets of Dublin on a huge gilded chariot.

(Illustrations taken from the Illustrated London News.)

The ‘chariot’, 3 metres high and 4.5 metres long, was specially made for O’Connell’s glorious re-entry into the city, and modelled on the triumphal cars of ancient Rome. It was upholstered in purple silk and blue wool and adorned with gilded mouldings and decorative overlays, depicting shamrocks and stylised classical foliage. The sides showed Hibernia with the increasingly familiar national iconography of harp, round tower and wolfhound. On the back was a representation in gold of a harp surmounted by the word ‘Repeal’, summarising O’Connell’s campaign for repeal of the Act of Union. (x)

In May of that year, O'Connell and his son had been found guilty on conspiracy charges and sentenced to a year in prison. They’d appealed the verdict to the House of Lords, and their appeal was granted on September 4th, 1844. They were released after serving three months in Richmond Bridewell penitentiary.

On Saturday, September 7th, O'Connell was paraded through the streets of Dublin on his gilded throne-chariot, drawn by six “splendid grey horses” and surrounded by “a crowd of around 200,000 citizens.” Several guilds were also represented in the long parade, as well as town council and corporation members and the Lord Mayor. Their route took them from the penitentiary (now the Griffith Barracks Multi-Denominational School) to O'Connell’s home on Merrion Square. 


 If the Crozier house, which was located at 2, Sandford Place, was near where we find Sandford Parish Church today, this was a bit of a walk away. But the crowd clearly made itself felt throughout the city, because on Monday, September 9th, Francis Crozier wrote to James Clark Ross:

What think you the decision of the house of Lords, it has been & is considered here a great victory for Dan – Such a set of Ruffians as were perading [sic] about here on Saturday they say that they Dans people may now do anything as he can get them clear – 

I did not see one drunk man nor one that looked the least like a gentleman although I suppose he has many adherents that are so by both

Whether Crozier happened to catch sight of O'Connell and the triumphal procession itself isn’t clear, but as he gives no description of the spectacle, he may not have. Accounts in the Illustrated London News bear his latter assertion out: “It is a fact worthy of notice, that there was not, in the immense assemblage, a single individual intoxicated; each guild was followed by a temperance band […],” and though excitement continued through the evening, “everything passed off with the utmost quiet.”


Leinster (which includes Dublin) was a stronghold for O'Connell and the Repeal movement, but the movement had met resistance in the predominantly Protestant, largely Presbyterian, Ulster. For his own part, though he had publicly stressed common cause and appreciation for Protestant Repealers, O'Connell had privately expressed disdain for the Presbyterian support for the United Irishmen, and for Protestantism in Ireland itself.

Crozier, an Ulsterman and a Protestant, was evidently not very impressed with “Dan” O'Connell and his followers, nor with the handling by the House of Lords:

I must confess that I think the house of Lords have signed their own death warrant as a house of appeal by leaving the case in the hands of a few mountebank political Lords.

A quotation of unclear origin which is often attributed to Sophia Cracroft states that Francis Crozier was an “indifferent speller” and a “horrid radical”. If she did say (or write) that, it’s difficult to know what sort of radicalism she had in mind.

At the time of Francis’ and his siblings’ baptisms in the late 18th century, the Crozier family belonged to the Banbridge First Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church—but had, as one of “only four or five” Presbyterian families in town, taken the minority position of not supporting the United Irishmen. Later, Francis’ brother Graham became a vicar in the Church of Ireland. Overall, the Croziers come off as fairly solidly establishment. And while we don’t know much about Francis Crozier’s politics and he may have espoused views Sophia Cracroft would find radical, we do know that he was—unsurprisingly, given his origins—not a Repealer. 

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