Collection available to Irish Origins or Total Access subscribers only.
Subscribers
New user?
The William Smith O'Brien Petition is list of over 80,000 names and places from 1848/9, the time of the Great Famine. It is a valuable census substitute for that time, as well as an important historical resource.
William Smith O'Brien (born 1803) entered politics in the 1820s, and sat in the House of Commons for Co. Clare, and later Co. Limerick.
In 1848 William Smith O'Brien was arrested in Ireland, on the grounds that he had traveled to Paris earlier that year in support of the leaders of the new French Republic. He was tried, but released when the jury failed to agree on a verdict. On 26th July 1848 the Irish Confederation Club was proclaimed illegal and warrants were issued for the arrest of the leaders of the Young Irelanders. On 29th July William Smith O'Brien led an abortive rising in Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary, otherwise known as 'the battle of Widow McCormack's cabbage patch'. He was arrested on 6th August 1848 and in a special sitting of the district court at Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, found guilty and sentenced to death.
The sentence caused great consternation among all segments of the Irish community. Between the finish of the trial in October 1848 and May 1849 various petitions in favour of clemency for William Smith O'Brien were collected around Ireland.
Between the finish of the trial in October 1848 and May 1849 various petitions in favour of clemency for William Smith O'Brien were collected around Ireland. Petitioners signed in support of Smith-O'Brien for many different reasons, some of them political, some religious and humanitarian. On 5th June 1849 Smith O'Brien's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life.
