Katharine Parnell | |
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Born | Katharine Wood 30 January 1846 Braintree, Essex, England |
Died | 5 February 1921 75) | (aged
Spouses | |
Children | 5 |
Katharine Parnell (née Wood; 30 January 1846 – 5 February 1921), known before her second marriage as Katharine O'Shea and popularly as Kitty O'Shea, was an English woman of aristocratic background whose adulterous relationship with Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell led to a widely publicised divorce in 1890 and his political downfall.
Katharine was born in Braintree, Essex, on 30 January 1846, the daughter of Emma Caroline Wood and Sir John Page Wood, 2nd Baronet (1796–1866), [1] and granddaughter of Sir Matthew Wood, [2] a former Lord Mayor of London. She had an elder brother who became Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood and was also the niece of both Western Wood MP (1804–1863) and Lord Hatherley, Gladstone's first Liberal Lord Chancellor.
In 1867, Katharine married Captain William O'Shea, a Catholic Nationalist MP for County Clare from whom she separated around 1875. [3] Katharine first met Parnell in 1880 and began an affair with him. Three of Katharine's children were fathered by Parnell; the first, Claude Sophie, died early in 1882. The others were Claire (born 1883) and Katharine (born 1884). Captain O'Shea knew about the relationship. He challenged Parnell to a duel in 1881 and initially forbade his estranged wife to see him, although she said that he encouraged her in the relationship. However, he kept publicly quiet for several years. Although their relationship was a subject of gossip in London political circles from 1881, [4] later public knowledge of the affair in an England governed by "Victorian morality" with a "nonconformist conscience" created a huge scandal, as adultery was prohibited by the Ten Commandments.
Out of her family connection to the Liberal Party, Katharine acted as liaison between Parnell and Gladstone during negotiations prior to the introduction of the First Irish Home Rule Bill in April 1886. Parnell moved to her home in Eltham, close to the London-Kent border, that summer. [5]
Captain O'Shea filed for divorce in 1889; his reasons are a matter for speculation. He may have had political motives. Alternatively, it was claimed that he had been hoping for an inheritance from Katharine's rich aunt whom he had expected to die earlier, but when she died in 1889, aged 97, her money was left in trust to cousins.[ citation needed ] After the divorce the court awarded custody of Katharine O'Shea and Parnell's two surviving daughters to her ex-husband.
Katharine's November divorce proceedings from Captain O'Shea, in which Parnell was named as co-respondent, led to Parnell being deserted by a majority of his Irish Parliamentary Party and to his downfall as its leader in December 1890. Catholic Ireland felt a sense of shock when Katharine broke the vows of her previous marriage by marrying Parnell on 25 June 1891. [4] With both his political life and his health essentially ruined, Parnell died in her arms of pneumonia [6] at the age of 45 on 6 October 1891 in Hove, less than four months after their marriage.
Katharine published a biography of Parnell in 1914 as "Katharine O'Shea (Mrs. Charles Stewart Parnell)". [7]
Though to her friends she was known as 'Katie', Parnell's enemies and the press called her "Kitty O'Shea". At that time 'kitty', as well as being a common short form of Catherine/Katherine/Katharine, was also a slang term for a prostitute. She lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity and is buried in Littlehampton, West Sussex, England.
Her daughter by Parnell, Claire O'Shea (1883–1909), married Bertram Sydney Osmund Maunsell, and their only son, Assheton Clare Bowyer-Lane Maunsell (1909–34), died of enteric fever while serving with the British Army in India. Katharine’s other daughter by Parnell, Katharine O'Shea (1884–1947), married Arthur Moule of the East Lancashire Regiment; she died in an asylum. [8]
Henry Harrison, who had acted as Parnell's bodyguard and aide-de-camp, devoted himself after Parnell's death to the service of his widow, Katharine. From her he heard a different version of the events surrounding the divorce from that which had appeared in the press, and this was to form the basis of his two books defending Parnell published in 1931 and 1938. They had a major impact on Irish historiography, leading to a more favourable view of Parnell's role in the O’Shea affair. [9]
In the film Parnell (1937), O'Shea was played by Myrna Loy. Phyllis Calvert played her in Parnell for Play of the Week (1959). In the television miniseries Parnell and the Englishwoman (1991), she was played by Francesca Annis.
Timothy Michael Healy, KC was an Irish nationalist politician, journalist, author, barrister and a controversial Irish Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. His political career began in the 1880s under Charles Stewart Parnell's leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and continued into the 1920s, when he was appointed as the first governor-general of the Irish Free State.
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom from 1875 to 1891, Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882, and then of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1882 to 1891, who held the balance of power in the House of Commons during the Home Rule debates of 1885–1886. He fell from power following revelations of a long-term affair, and died at age 45.
The Nationalist Party was a term commonly used to describe a number of parliamentary political parties and constituency organisations supportive of Home Rule for Ireland from 1874 to 1922. It was also the name of the main Irish nationalist Nationalist Party in Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1978.
Events from the year 1891 in Ireland.
The Daily Irish Independent was an Irish newspaper launched in the 1890s to promote the pro-Parnellite cause following the split in the Irish Parliamentary Party over Parnell's continuing leadership. The party had split following the revelation that Parnell had been involved in a long-running relationship with Katharine O'Shea, the wife of a fellow MP, and was the father of most of her children.
The Kilmainham Treaty was an informal agreement reached in May 1882 between Liberal British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone and the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. Whilst in gaol, Parnell moved in April 1882 to make a deal with the government, negotiated through Captain William O'Shea MP. The government would settle the "rent arrears" question allowing 100,000 tenants to appeal for fair rent before the land courts. Parnell promised to use his good offices to quell the violence and to co-operate cordially for the future with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles and measures of general reform. Gladstone released the prisoner and the agreement was a major triumph for Irish nationalism as it won abatement for tenant rent-arrears from the Government at the height of the Land War.
The Irish National Federation (INF) was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in 1891 by former members of the Irish National League (INL), after a split in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) on the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell had refused to resign his leadership of the party after being named in divorce proceedings against Katharine O'Shea by the former MP William O'Shea. In the aftermath of the divorce, William Ewart Gladstone, leader of the Liberal Party, had declared that he would not work with Parnell, damaging the parliamentary alliance between the IPP and the Liberals.
Richard Power was an Irish nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as member of the Home Rule League and the Irish Parliamentary Party represented Waterford City from 6 February 1874 until his death at the early age of 40, in 1891.
Captain William Henry O'Shea was an Irish soldier and Member of Parliament. He is best known for being the ex-husband of Katharine O'Shea, the long-time mistress of the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell.
Captain Henry Harrison was an Irish politician. He served as MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party represented Mid Tipperary from 1890 to 1892. He later served as a Royal Irish Regiment officer with the New British Army in World War I, was an extensive writer, and proponent of improved relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Sir Henry Campbell was an Irish nationalist politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for South Fermanagh from 1885 to 1892, private secretary to the Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell from 1880 to 1891, and Town Clerk of Dublin from 1893 to 1920.
Charles James Patrick Mahon, known as the O'Gorman Mahon or James Patrick Mahon, was an Irish nationalist journalist, barrister, parliamentarian and international mercenary.
Parnell is a 1937 American biographical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring Clark Gable as Charles Stewart Parnell, the famous Irish politician. It was Gable's least successful film and is generally considered his worst, and it is listed in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. The movie addresses the adulterous relationship that destroyed Parnell's political career, but its treatment of the subject is highly sanitized in keeping with Hollywood content restrictions at the time.
Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet was a British Whig politician, Lord Mayor of London from 1815 to 1817, and from 1817 until his death in 1843 a reformist Member of Parliament.
Western Wood was a British businessman and a Liberal Party politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1861 to 1863.
The 1891 County Carlow by-election was a parliamentary by-election held for the United Kingdom House of Commons constituency of County Carlow on 7 July 1891. It arose as a result of the death of the sitting member, James Patrick Mahon.
Parnell and the Englishwoman is a British television miniseries which aired on BBC Two in four hour-long episodes from 9 to 30 January 1991, and RTÉ One from 10 to 31 January 1991. The story is based on an episode in the life of Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell and is based on Hugh Leonard's historical novel of the same name. The series was also shown on Masterpiece Theatre in the United States.
Benjamin Wood was a British Whig politician. He was Member of Parliament for Southwark from 24 January 1840 until his death in 1845
Lady Emma Caroline Wood was a British novelist and artist. She wrote more than a dozen novels, at least one under the pen name C. Sylvester.
The Rev. Sir John Page Wood, 2nd Baronet (1796–1866) was an English cleric, magistrate and radical Whig, closely associated with the return in 1820 to the United Kingdom of Queen Caroline of Brunswick, and her private secretary at that period.
Harrison 'did more than anyone else to uncover what seems to have been the true facts' about the Parnell-O'Shea liaison.