Frank Hugh O'Donnell

", O'Donnell caused uproar by denouncing "the principle and the system which have lain at the root of the international and intercolonial policy of England, from the days when Elizabeth, the Infamous, chartered for profit two of the first ships which opened the African slave trade...".

His remarks caused the chairman of the meeting, Professor Thomas Moffett, to prevent O'Donnell from continuing his speech, stating that "such an epithet ought not to be applied to any predecessor of our present gracious Queen."

O'Donnell regarded such action as an unwarranted restriction on his freedom of speech, and in a letter published in the local press gave an early example of his high-flown literary style: "I hold that Debating Societies are the nurseries of independent thought, and the training schools of sober criticism.

In 1877, O'Donnell secured a more permanent election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as MP for Dungarvan, County Waterford; he held the seat until 1885, when the constituency was abolished.

He was a prominent obstructionist[2] and claimed credit for inventing the tactic of obstructionism which was to yield such results for the Home Rule League under Charles Stewart Parnell.

Its aim was Home Rule for India, 'Mr O'Donnell's grand passion in politics was a confederation of all the discontented races of the Empire under the lead of the Irish party.

His Paraguay on Shannon (1908) is an amusing but serious critique of unethical practices by the Catholic clergy in local politics, education, and their involvement in the Congested Districts Board that was financed by Parliament in order to improve the depressed economy of western Ireland.

After careful investigation, O'Donnell accused members of the Catholic clergy of illegally diverting Government money earmarked for economic development into new Cathedrals, parish churches, and other ecclesiastical building projects.