On a windswept heath, three witches prophesy to an aghast Daniel O' Connell. Coloured lithograph by h.b. (unknown artist), 1843.

h

26 July 1843

1 print : lithograph, with watercolour

Wellcome Collection

The three witches, from Shakespeare's tragic play Macbeth, stand in profile and say "Dan - thou shalt be king hereafter". Compositionally they are derived from Henry Fuseli's painting of the three witches or James Gillray's etching "Wierd-sisters ministers of darkness; minions of the moon", 1791. In 1843 O'Connell was holding meetings to promote the repeal of the Acts of Union, 1800, and to re-establish the Irish Parliament and the Kingdom of Ireland: the witches predict that, like Macbeth, he would try to seize the throne