Christine Kinealy has brought together in one volume all the abolitionist activities of the “Liberator” Daniel O’Connell. Following the valuable work already written by scholars such as Bruce Nelson, Maurice Bric, and Angela Murphy, Kinealy synthesizes O’Connell's career in the antislavery movement on both sides of the Atlantic and agrees with his greatest admirers that he was a consistent opponent of slavery in its various forms and indeed a supporter of racial equality in its fullest sense. In his own rhetorical question in supporting the rights of “Negroes” in the British Isles, Africa, and the Americas—“Am I not a man and a brother?” to all black human beings—Kinealy believes that “his resounding and consistent response had always been ‘yes’” (168).

Kinealy begins her work by examining O’Connell's early connections with the antislavery movement in the 1820s when he was a prominent supporter of the efforts to end slavery in the British Empire. His status as an important politician in British and Irish affairs had been recognized through his election to Parliament and subsequent achievement of “Catholic Emancipation” in 1829. His involvement in the antislavery crusade, however, gave him an increased international reputation. Indeed, Kinealy makes a strong case that by the 1830s he was as much a star of the movement as the old stalwarts William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson. His presence at meetings always created a stir, and his speechmaking on behalf of the cause was always impressive. Friends and foes alike gave him copious coverage in the press. Kinealy clearly shows O’Connell as a leading enlightenment voice in this growing romantic era. He was out of step, for example, with the Young Ireland movement, who wanted him to concentrate on Irish issues, specifically repeal of the Union with Britain, rather than “interfering” in foreign matters. They also felt that he was too close to English factions, some of them opposed to repeal, and too alienating of friends such as those in America who owned slaves but were strong supporters of the repeal cause.

Kinealy pays a lot of attention to O’Connell's run-ins with the American repeal movement, especially when O’Connell called on the Irish in America to support abolition or be “no longer” recognized as Irish by O’Connell and his movement. Here she covers a lot of the ground more deftly dealt with in the recent book by Angela Murphy (American Slavery, Irish Freedom, 2010) that Kinealy does cite. The only major difference is Kinealy's emphasis on the consistency of O’Connell's antislavery stance, despite his initial refusal to adhere to the calls of other abolitionists that he refuse to accept money from repeal associations in the United States with connections to slavery and slaveholders. A more cynical view might be that O’Connell was “having his cake and eating it too” in being opposed to slavery but accepting of American funds, no matter what their source.

Kinealy is more critical of O’Connell in the Liberator's falling out with William Lloyd Garrison over religion. Garrison's “irreligious” views, and disinclination to moderate them for the public, led to some strident criticism from O’Connell. For all his enlightenment values he was still a devout Roman Catholic and resented Garrison's criticisms of organized religion. One question that Kinealy does not explore enough, however, is why O’Connell, who was so close to many evangelical Protestants on the slavery issue, did not lobby harder for their support in his Repeal movement. As historians such as Kevin Whelan and Donald Akenson have suggested, O’Connell's sectarianism meant he did not campaign seriously in the north of Ireland. His strident criticism of the United Irelanders of the 1790s, many of whom were opponents of slavery, is also an avenue that needed more exploration. O’Connell had of course despised the violence surrounding the movement and its leaders in the 1798 rebellion (and Robert Emmet's failed attempt in 1803), and his pacifism played a role in his condemnations. Why then did he endorse a potential war with the United States over the issue of slavery in Texas?

The final chapters examine O’Connell's antislavery legacy after his death in 1847. In the run up to and during the American Civil War, his name and speeches against the “peculiar institution” enjoyed a revival in the abolitionist movement, especially in the United States. Those abolitionists including Garrison and others such as Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass kept his memory alive beyond emancipation. Ironically, back in Ireland and Britain, his antislavery activities were downplayed and almost forgotten (as was his failed repeal campaign), and he was instead “increasingly remembered as the champion of Catholic Emancipation” (161) and little else. Kinealy has enhanced O’Connell's reputation as an abolition champion who must be paid serious attention in any examination of the abolitionist movement in the United Kingdom and Europe as a whole. On the other side of the Atlantic, his importance is less clear. Some factual errors by Kinealy on, for example, the dates of John Brown's raid (which she has occurring in the 1840s) and Abraham Lincoln's assassination (listed as before Robert E. Lee's surrender when it was five days after), highlight that she is on stronger ground on the British and Irish story. If O’Connell had lived into the 1860s, his role may have been a much larger one. Nonetheless, Kinealy's work in this book valuably brings together O’Connell's very active career against human bondage and for racial equality in the nineteenth-century Atlantic World. All scholars interested in this continued world of intellectual, economic, and political connections will find this book very useful.