Irish politician, born in Avondale, Co Wicklow, E Ireland. He studied at Cambridge, and in 1875 became an MP, supporting Home Rule, and gained great popularity in Ireland by his audacity in the use of obstructive parliamentary tactics. In 1879 he was elected president of the Irish National Land League, and in 1886 allied with the Liberals in support of Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. He remained an influential figure until 1890, when following his affair with Katharine O'Shea, he was cited as co-respondent in a divorce case, and forced to retire as leader of the Irish nationalists.
Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish political leader and one of the most important figures in 19th century Ireland and the United Kingdom;
Family background
Charles Stewart Parnell was born in County Wicklow, of gentry stock. He was the third son and seventh child of John Henry Parnell, a wealthy Anglo-Irish landowner, and his American wife Delia Stewart, daughter of the American naval hero, Commodore Charles Stewart (the stepson of one of George Washington's bodyguards). Commodore Stewart's mother, Parnell's great-grandmother, belonged to the Tudor family and so could claim a distant relationship with the British Royal Family. John Henry Parnell himself was a cousin of one of Ireland's leading aristocrats, Lord Powerscourt, and also the grandson of a Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Irish House of Commons, Sir John Parnell. Thus, from birth, Charles Stewart Parnell possessed an extraordinary number of links to many elements of society; Yet it was as a leader of Irish nationalism that Parnell established his fame.
The young Parnell studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge and in 1874 became high sheriff of his home county of Wicklow. The following year he entered parliament as member for County Meath, supporting the Home Rule party.
Member of Parliament
Charles Stewart Parnell was first elected to the House of Commons, as a Home Rule League MP, in 1875. Parnell soon associated with the more radical wing of the party, which included Joseph Biggar (MP for Cavan from 1874), Edmund Dwyer Gray (MP for Tipperary from 1877), F. The question of Parnell's closeness to the IRB, and whether indeed he ever joined the organisation, has been a matter of academic debate for a century. The evidence suggests that later, following the signing of the Kilmainham Treaty, Parnell did take the IRB oath, possibly for tactical reasons.
What is known is that IRB involvement in the League's sister organisation, the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, led to the moderate Butt's overthrow from its presidency (even though he had founded the organisation) in 1877 and the election of Parnell in his place.
Leader
Parnell was never a great speaker in the House but his organisational, analytical and tactical skills earned wide praise, helping to take on the British organisation's presidency. In the April 1880 general election twenty-seven supporters of Parnell's were returned as MPs, outnumbering the support base of Shaw. In May 1880 Parnell was elected chairman of the party.
New style, new party, new rules
Parnell fundamentally changed the Home Rule League. In 1882 he changed its name to the Irish Parliamentary Party and in 1884 imposed a strict party oath obliging its MPs to vote en bloc. The creation of a strict party whip and formal party structure was unique in politics. The Irish Parliamentary Party is generally seen as the first modern British political party, its efficient structure and control contrasting with the loose rules and informality found in the main British parties, who came to model their party structures on the Parnellite model.
Candidate selection
A central aspect of Parnell's reforms was to ensure that professional selection of candidates took place. Previously candidates had often emerged in ad hoc arrangements, had little commitment to the party and either didn't bother to go to the House of Commons at all (some citing expense, given that MPs were unpaid and the journey to Westminster was both costly and arduous) or if they did, regularly voted against their own party. Parnell's new selection procedure, and the party oath, ensured that the party ran candidates who were committed to taking the seats and voting with their party on all occasions.
The changes impacted on the nature of candidates chosen. Under Butt, the party's MPs were a mixture of Catholic and Protestant, landlord and others, Whig, Liberal and Tory, often leading to disagreements in policy that meant that MPs split in votes. Under Parnell, the number of Protestant and landlord MPs dwindled, as did the number of Tories seeking election. The disappearance of Protestant landowners and Tories from the IIP made it easier for Parnell to ensure the party voted as a block in the House of Commons.
Balance of power
Parnell's unified Irish block came to dominate British politics, making and unmaking Liberal and Conservative governments in the mid-1880s as it fought for home rule (internal self government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) for Ireland. In the mid 1880s, Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone committed his party to support for the cause of Irish Home Rule, introducing the First Home Rule Bill in 1886. However the measure failed to pass the British House of Commons, following a split between pro- and anti-home rulers within the Liberal Party.
Though home rule was a central demand of the Irish Parliamentary Party, it also campaigned for Irish land reform.
Parnell was elected president of the Land League on 21 October 1879.
The association with the Land League led various members, including John Dillon, Tim Healy, William O'Brien and Parnell himself to serve periods in prison.
In 1882, Parnell dissolved the Land League, and founded the National League to campaign on broader issues.
The Piggott forgeries
In March 1887, Parnell found himself accused by the British newspaper The Times of support for the murders of the Chief Secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, T.H. Letters were published which suggested Parnell was complicit in the murders. Parnell then took The Times to court and the newspaper paid him £5,000 damages for in an out-of-court settlement. When Parnell entered parliament, after he was vindicated, he received a standing ovation from his fellow MPs led by Gladstone. The 35-volume report did not clear Parnell's movement of criminal involvement however. Parnell.
Mrs Katharine O'Shea
Parnell was viewed as an Irish national hero, referred to as the Uncrowned King of Ireland, a term originally coined to describe Daniel O'Connell. However Parnell's triumph was shortlived, when it was 'revealed' (though it had been widely known among politicians at Westminster) that Parnell had been the long term partner, and father of three of the children, of Katharine O'Shea, also known subsequently as Kitty. After the divorce Katharine became Parnell's wife. Under pressure from the religious wing of the Liberal Party, Gladstone reluctantly indicated that he could not support the Irish Parliamentary party as long as Charles Stewart Parnell remained its leader.
Divorce was forbidden under Catholic doctrine and most of Parnell's supporters were Roman Catholics. As co-respondent, Parnell was legally the cause of the divorce. Parnell's reputation was high but the scandal crippled this support. It would have been far easier for Parnell if it had happened a few years earlier.
Parnell refused to resign, leading to a party split between Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites. At a party meeting, Parnell challenged Gladstone's intervention with the question, "Who is the master of the party?"; The fact that it was Tim Healy who so vehemently opposed Parnell was seen as the ultimate humiliation: Healy had been one of Parnell's strongest supporters and had referred to Parnell as 'the Uncrowned King of Ireland'.
See also: Diocese of Meath
Personal politics
Parnell's personal political views remained an enigma. Andrew Kettle MP, Parnell's right hand man, who shared a lot of his opinions, wrote of his own views:
I confess that I felt [in 1885], and still feel, a greater leaning towards the British Tory party than I ever could have towards the so-called Liberals.
Historians believe that Parnell, and Tim Healy, shared that viewpoint.
Death
Parnell was deposed as leader and fought a long and bitter campaign for re-instatement. On 27 September Parnell addressed a crowd in pouring rain at Creggs on the Galway–Roscommon border and contracted pneumonia. Such was his reputation that his gravestone carries just one word in large lettering: PARNELL.
Overall assessment
Charles Stewart Parnell is regarded as one of the most extraordinary figures in Irish and British politics.
Over a century after his death he is still surrounded by public interest. Historians speculate as to whether, had Parnell lived, home rule would have been achieved a decade earlier, and whether the granting of home rule earlier would have meant that there would have been no Easter Rising, no Irish War of Independence and no independent Ireland.
The scale of Parnell's impact can be seen in the fact that parties from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have tried to claim him as "one of their own", as more recently have some in Sinn Féin.
Ultimately what is clear is that the O'Shea divorce scandal and Parnell's death changed the shape of late nineteenth century politics. For generations of Irish people Parnell, like Michael Collins later, came to be seen as the "lost leader", against whose mythical reputation no later leader who lived a normal lifespan and who faced the practicalities of governance that Parnell never faced, could hope to win.
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