Madam, - Exactly 175 years ago, on February 4th, 1830, Daniel O'Connell delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons. Charles Greville, clerk to the Privy Council, wrote in a journal entry dated February 5th that "O'Connell made his debut, and a successful one, heard with profound attention, his manner good and his arguments attended and replied to".
Writing to James Sugrue a few days later, O'Connell professed himself to be "exceedingly amused by the exhibitions of the human mind that surround me". He found that there was "more folly and nonsense in the House than anywhere out of it" and that a "low and subservient turn of thinking" and "a submission to authority which is to the last degree debasing" was also discernible there.
Happily, today's TDs possess none of the failings that O'Connell detected in his fellow MPs all those years ago. - Yours, etc.,
FRANK BOUCHIER-HAYES, Gortboy, Newcastle West, Co Limerick.