Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Connell, Moritz
O'CONNELL, MORITZ, Baron O'Connell (1740?–1830), Austrian officer, son of O'Connell of Tarmon, co. Kerry, and his wife, the sister of Murty Oge O'Sullivan Beare (‘Murty Oge’ of Froude), was born about 1740, and christened Murty (recte Muircheartach), which he subsequently changed to Moritz, as better suited to German orthography. He was cousin and the lifelong friend of Daniel, count O'Connell [q. v.] The young kinsmen went to the continent together in 1762, and served the last two campaigns of the seven years' war on opposite sides, Murty as an Austrian officer in Marshal Daun's regiment of horse. He attracted the notice of the Empress Maria Theresa, who soon transferred him from his military duties to the imperial chamberlain's department. He held the office of imperial chamberlain for fifty-nine years, under the Emperors Joseph, Leopold, and Francis. O'Connell's letters in the second decade of the present century show that by that time he had been created a baron, and attained the rank of general in the Austrian army. He had married and had a daughter, as much trouble appears to have been taken to establish the ‘sixteen quarterings’ required to qualify her for an appointment about the imperial court. O'Connell died in Vienna, early in 1830, in his ninety-second year, leaving his property to a kinsman, Geoffrey O'Connell of Cork.
[Information and letters to Count Daniel O'Connell in Mrs. O'Connell's Last Colonel of the Irish Brigade, London, 1892; Ann. Reg. 1831, Appendix to Chronicle, pp. 254–5.]