The British & Irish Lions and Munster lock missed last weekend’s opening win over Scotland with a chest infection but comes straight back into the side to face Warren Gatland’s men.
Dan Tuohy, who was a late call up for O’Connell against Scotland, resumes his place on the bench with the skipper the only alteration to the pack that started against Scotland.
The only other change to the side sees Gordon D’Arcy replace Luke Marshall at inside centre.
D’Arcy will partner Brian O’Driscoll in the Irish midfield for the 53rd time on Saturday with Conor Murray and Jonathan Sexton named as the half-back pairing.
The back-three which provided two of Ireland’s tries against Scotland is retained with Rob Kearney at full-back and Dave Kearney and Andrew Trimble on the wings.
“Man for man, they are a very big side and we are going to have to be fairly smart about the way we play,” said Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt when asked for his views on Wales.
“There are one or two things we will try to implement on Saturday but we’ll have to assess post-match whether they have worked or not.
“We have a six-day turnaround so we trained for an hour on Tuesday, for an hour on Thursday, and we have the captain’s run on Friday.
“The first three days after the Scotland match were largely used for recovery as the match was played at a reasonably high tempo – we’ve just been keeping a lid on things training-wise.
“I know they’ve been outspoken about some scrum decisions and that’s one of the things they will look to strengthen.”
Ireland side to face Wales: 15 Rob Kearney 14 Andrew Trimble 13 Brian O’Driscoll 12 Gordon D’Arcy
11 Dave Kearney 10 Jonathan Sexton 9 Conor Murray, 1 Cian Healy 2 Rory Best 3 Mike Ross 4 Devin Toner 5 Paul O’Connell 6 Peter O’Mahony 7 Chris Henry 8 Jamie Heaslip.
Replacements: Sean Cronin, Jack McGrath, Martin Moore, Dan Tuohy, Tommy O’Donnell, Isaac Boss , Paddy Jackson, Fergus McFadden.
