“With Every Wish to Reconcile”: The Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Charles O’Conor of Belanagare (1796) and Religious Enlightenment in Ireland

The Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Charles O’Conor, of Belanagare, Esq., M.R.I.A. (Dublin, 1796) is a first and so far the only book-length biography of the celebrated historian, antiquarian, and champion of Catholic emancipation, Charles O’Conor of Ballinagare (1710–1791). The author, the grandson and namesake of the great man, Dr. Charles O’Conor (1764–1828), portrayed his kinsman as the embodiment of Irish Catholicism, the ancestral faith that lay at the heart of Irish civilization and a religion that truly conformed to the Enlightenment ideals of peace, tolerance, and learning.