But in his brain O'Connell pitied the old man for his wasted years in the darkness of ignorance in which so many of the villages of Ireland seemed to be buried.
O'Connell belonged to the "Young Ireland" movement.

They wanted to bring the searchlight of knowledge into the abodes of darkness in which the poor of Ireland were submerged.

To the younger men it seemed the priests were keeping the people from enlightenment.

And until the fierce blaze of criticism could be turned on to the government of cruelty and oppression there was small hope of freeing the people who had suffered so long in silence.

O'Connell was in the front band of men striving to arouse the sleeping nation to a sense of its own power.