At length he took up the question of real urgency, the Ministerial elections, and moved that the General Committee be instructed to obtain candidates, and make arrangements for securing the election of Repealers, wherever it was possible. He would not, however, sanction vexatious opposition, which could not serve the cause. A voice—one of those anonymous warnings which often interpret the popular will in a critical crisis—cried out "Dungarvan." "Yes," O'Connell continued, "certainly 'Dungarvan.' If they could get a Repealer elected, they would, of course, do so. If necessary, he would go himself to Dungarvan for the purpose, but he would not sanction vexatious or bootless opposition." Dungarvan was a constituency where the Repealers had a majority of nearly two to one, and the defeat of Shiel, who was still loved by the people, would have marked in a signal manner the depth of the National sentiment. The writ had already been issued, but the committee, who were ordered to consider the question, was not called together till four days later, and when it met O'Connell expressed his fear that it was too late to find a candidate. There were several men in the room who were candidates a little later, among them his son Daniel and Thomas Meagher. John Augustus O'Neill, a conspicuous Old Irelander, admitted on a subsequent occasion that he would gladly have stood if he had been asked. To bring the matter to an issue, one of the Young Irelanders proposed that O'Connell's relative, Captain Broderick, then present, should be despatched to Dungarvan, and aided with all the influence of the Association, but that experienced gentleman, who knew the state of the case, declined to stand. The committee, after a long contest, adjourned, and before it reassembled Shiel was member for Dungarvan.
There were other Whig elections pending, but after the experience of Dungarvan the hope of winning them was faint. In Dundalk, where Monahan, the Whig Attorney-General was a candidate, the Nationalists vehemently demanded a Repeal candidate from the Association, and at length O'Connell's youngest son was sent to them; but it marks in a signal manner the effect produced on the public mind by the Dungarvan transaction, that he came back to
