In San Francisco, he formed friendships with artists and influential men who joined with him in presenting and promoting theatrical productions and in publishing books and newspapers.

A dedicated family man in America, O'Connell never lost his Irish poet's sense of overarching sadness joined with keen pleasure in the sensations of the physical world.

Young O'Connell attended Belvedere College, a Jesuit school in Dublin, but was called home at the deaths of his mother and sister in a coach accident.

[4] His best work includes "The Thrust in Tierce,"[6] a short story written for the Overland Monthly, and a yearly Christmas piece, "quaint, grotesque or poetical"[5] usually describing the serio-comic antics of would-be San Francisco aristocrats with little claim to fame.

[9] O'Connell was the first member to formally announce an upcoming "Jinks" (literary and musical performance)—his turn at host, or "Sire", of an evening's entertainment took place 30 November 1872 with the stated theme of "Tom Moore and Offenbach.

[1] With his adroit editing, O'Connell helped make famous the "Town Crier" column for the San Francisco News Letter, written by Ambrose Bierce, then by Ashton Stevens.

"[4] The poetry displays O'Connell's sense of sunt lacrimae rerum, that there will be tears with trials, and it expresses his bittersweet joy in life's evanescent pleasures.

In 1891, he published The Inner Man: Good Things to Eat and Drink and Where to Get Them, a collection of anecdotes and advice for the epicurean who finds himself in the San Francisco area, and a cautionary description of common 19th century food adulterants such as chemical dyes and powdered lead.

[13] O'Connell wrote the libretto for a romantic opera entitled Bluff King Hal, working with fellow Bohemian Club member Humphrey John Stewart who composed the music.

The New York Times published an obituary and printed a quatrain by the Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon incorrectly stating that it was one of O'Connell's: Life is only foam and bubbles;Two things stand like stone—Kindness in another's troubles,Courage in your own.

Harrison wrote of his flair for swordsmanship and his pleasure in fishing, and noted that during any of these activities, O'Connell could be seen pausing to write down on a scrap of paper an idea for a story.

[3] Harrison wrote that she "lingered here only long enough to say farewell to her many friends, and then joined her husband in the land that is hidden from material eyes, where love and life are one.