Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell , known as “the king without crown of Ireland”, born in Avondale (County of Wicklow) the June 27th 1846 and died in Brighton the October 6th 1891, is a politician Irish, figurehead of the Nationalisme.

Large the famine which took place between 1845 and 1849 cost the life more than one million Irishman and caused a large wave of emigration the ten following years. This disaster resulted in to make become aware with the Irish people that the British government had given up it for this period when it needed him and which it was to take his destiny in hand.

A middle-class big family

Charles Stewart Parnell was the third child of a family which included/understood six of them. His/her father, John Henry Parnell, were a rich person landowner of Avondale. His/her mother, Untied Stewart, American, was the girl of a hero of the American navy, the commander Charles Stewart. The mother relationship with the British royal family. John Henry Parnell was itself the cousin of one of the principal Irish aristocrats, Lord Powerscourt.

Consequently, Charles Stewart Parnell was related to the various categories of the company: with the Church of Ireland (primarily made up of Unioniste S), he was member, with the aristocracy by his/her cousins, Powerscourt, with the American combatants of the Guerre of American independence, and the Guerre of 1812 (where the Congrès of the United States had granted his/her grandfather a gold medal of courage), and even, in a remote way, with the royal family. However, it is as a leader of Irish nationalism that it builds his reputation.

The Parnell young person studied with the Magdalene College of Cambridge and, in 1874, became Sheriff county of Wicklow.

Its entry at the Parliament

Parnell was elected for the first time at the Parliament in the county of Meath, in April 1875, then it joined the Irish independence party, the Home Rule Party, directed by ISOC Butt. Parnell was only 29 years old when it made its entry at the Parliament.

He had studied especially in England, and, later, he fell in love with English, Mrs. O' Shea. However, it seems that he scorned all the English. At its entry at the Parliament, Parnell expressed its feelings anti-English by adopting the company of obstruction of Joseph Biggar, with the House of Commons. This tactic, which amounted making extremely long and tedious speeches on any subject which arrived at the Room, attracted to them new voices in Ireland, and the obstructionists became very popular.

October 21st 1879, with Dublin, Davitt founded the Irish National Land League (the League for an Irish national territory), with Parnell, which became the president about it. The main objectives of the league were to ensure the ground tenants an equitable revenue, with a fixed establishment, and without tax. The long-term objective was to make it possible to the peasants to reach the land ownership. The Land League became soon a very popular movement, which learned to the Irish peasants the means of asserting their rights.

Parnell was convinced that to solve the question of the grounds was to be the first step towards a autonomy of the Ireland. At the time of a speech with Ennis, the September 19th 1880, Parnell declared: “When a man took a farm of another which was returned, you must avoid it in the streets of the village, you must avoid it in the shops, you must avoid it in the park and on the place of the market, and even instead of worship, by leaving it only, by putting it of “moral forty”, by isolating it from the remainder of its country as if he were leprous our ancestors, you must show him your dislike for the crime which he committed. ” This type of “moral forty” was carried out in the fight against the captain Boycott, the manager of the Comté of Mayo, which was insulated by the inhabitants, until its nerves released.

The chief of the Irish nationalist movement

Parnell, although poor speaker with the House of Commons, appeared a skilful organizer. Since 1880, it replaced Isaac Butt and William Shaw with the presidency of the Irish Parliamentry Party, in the past Home Rule Party. Under its presidency, Irish Parliamentry Party became probably the first political training organized professionally of all the Great Britain and the Ireland. It founded the professional recruitment of the candidates, with delegates elected within the party, which had up to that point been characterized by its lack from unit.

Parnell became the unchallenged leader of the Irish nationalist movement during the years 1880 - 1882; it was called then the “king without crown of Ireland”. He accepted considerable financial supports, coming from the the United States. (Parnell went to the the United States with John Dillon in 1880 and collected there more: 26000 pounds).

Agitation around the question of the grounds grows, starting waves of violence. Parnell and other chiefs, of which John Dillon, Tim Healy and William O' Brien, were stopped in October 1881, and the authorities were based on a new law voted by the British government, “Coecition Act”, to fight the league. The first liberal minister William Ewart Gladstone found finally an agreement with Parnell in March 1882, by the treaty “Kilmainham”, of the name of the prison where Parnell was retained. The prisoners were released, agitation stopped and the policy of reform of the grounds started with the Land Act of 1881 could continue. To the release of Parnell, and in order to mark a new era of peace, Lord Frederick Cavendish was sent in Ireland as a secretary as a chief. But, the day of its arrival, he was assassinated, like his under-secretary, in the Phoenix Park by members of a secret society, the Invincible ones. Parnell condemned the murders and, in spite of this reverse, the attitude of Gladstone remained unchanged.

The unified Irish block of Parnell managed to dominate the British political scene, in the middle of the years 1880, making and demolishing the liberal governments and conservatives, in order to lead to the recognition of a self government of Ireland within the the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the “Rule Home” (which one could translate by “autonomy”). At that time, the chief of the liberal party, William Ewart Gladstone urged his party to support the cause of “Irish Home Rule”, by proposing the first law in this direction in 1886, the “Home Rule Bill”, which met a sharp opposition on behalf of the Conservateur S, which saw there a treason towards the empire, like towards the loyal supporters and the Protestants of Ireland. Gladstone lost its station at the time of the general elections of 1886, becoming thus the first, in Great Britain, with being beaten on the question of autonomy. That marked a capital turning in the relations between the Great Britain and the Ireland: for the first time, an important political party had fought in the long term to grant a self government to the Ireland.

The Piggot forgeries

In March 1887, a series of letters, published in The Times under the accusing title “the parnellism and the crime”, showed Parnell to be implied in the murder of Lord Frédérick Cavendish and its under-secretary, H.T. Burke, which had taken place on May 6th 1882. The Times published facsimiles of letters signed with the hand of Parnell, of which one seemed to excuse or close the eyes on the murders that he at the time had publicly condemned. Immediately, Parnell déonça its letters like forgeries. The government created a special subcommittee to examine the loads in its opposition and its party. The commission sat during nearly two years. In February 1889, one of the witnesses, Richard Piggott, acknowledged to have counterfeited the letters; he flees shortly after with Madrid, where he committed suicide. Parnell was completely bleached, and The Times paid an important amount of money to him, of compensation. This business remained under the name of “Piggot Forgeries” (the Piggot forgeries).

In the last months of 1889, the popularity of Parnell reached its apogee. It accepted thus a standing ovation with the House of Commons, was presented to crowd with Edinburgh and was accepted with Harwarden by Gladstone.

Mrs O' Shea

In December 1889, whereas the popularity of Parnell reached its zenith, it was revealed (although the facts were known politicians of Westminster) that Parnell maintained since years a connection with Catherine O' Shea (generally called Kitty O' Shea), wife of a member of Parliament, the captain Willie O' Shea, with whom she was in authority divorces, and whom together, they had had of the children. Parnell was not defended, and the majority of people regarded this new charge as a calumny. However, this time, information was exact.

Mrs. O' Shea and Parnelle had met in 1880 and had immediately started a connection. The couple O' Shea was in divorce pending and, since 1886, Parnell and Catherine O' Shea lived together. There is no doubt about the fact that the captain was with the current of the relation between Parnell and his wife. The reasons for which the captain O' Shea awaited December 1889 to ask for the divorce are not established. According to an assumption, he hoped for a large heritage, coming from the uncle of his wife, suffering, but who was long in trespassing. With his death, the uncle left the totality of his fortune with Catherine, in a certain manner so that her husband cannot benefit from it. It is said that the captain O' Shea would have made blackmail with his wife to obtain 20 000 pounds, but she refused to pay. It is after that he asked a lawsuit.

The lawsuit for divorce created sensation in Great Britain and Ireland. The politicians of all edges were convinced that the Irish leader was going to withdraw public life, at least for a short moment. However, Parnell, too proud, did not show any intention to be withdrawn. The chief of the liberal party, Gladstone, under the pressure of the religious current of his party, was in the obligation to announce that it could not support any more the Irish Parliamentry Party as long as Parnell would remain its leader. A meeting of the party even had to be cancelled, during the first week of December 1890. The refusal of Parnell to give up its station caused a rupture inside the party, between the parnellites and the antiones. Forty-four members followed Justin McCarthy, the vice-president, and joined again an alliance with the liberal party, while twenty-seven others remained at the sides of Parnell.

At the time of a meeting of the party, where Parnell had rétorqué with the intervention of Gladstone: “Which is the Master of the party? ”, a famous deputy, Tim Healy answered him: “Which is the mistress of the party? ”

Its last defeats

Parnell had lost the head of its party, but he refused to accept the verdict: he made countryside at the time of three bys-election in Ireland, in 1891, but its candidate was each time beaten. Thereafter, it engaged an all-out war, against its detractors but ends up becoming exhausted.

It Maria with Catherine, shortly after her divorce, on June 25th 1891, with Steyning, in the Western Sussex. A little later probably because of the enormous tension, due to the meetings which followed one another, he died, with Brighton, on October 6th 1891. He had only forty-five years then. Although it was Anglican, it was buried in the largest cemetery roman catholic of Dublin, Glasnevin.

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