Parnell And His Times

The run-up to Irish independence (1910-1920) was driven by the need to come to terms with Parnell's defeat and death.

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) wrote remarkably little about himself, but he has attracted the attention of many writers, politicians, and scholars, both during his lifetime and ever since. His controversial and provocative role in Irish and British affairs had him vilified as a murderer in The Times, and afterwards dramatically vindicated by the Westminster Parliament. It cast him as a romantic hero to the young James Joyce, and a self-serving opportunist to the journalists of the Nation. Parnell has been the subject of court cases, parliamentary enquiries and debates, journalism, plays, poems, literary analysis and historical studies. For the first time all these have been collected, catalogued and cross-referenced in one volume, an invaluable resource for scholars of late nineteenth century Ireland and Britain. Divided into fifteen chapters, including a biographical sketch, the volume contains information on manuscript and archival collections, printed primary sources, Parnell's writing, Parnell's speeches in the House of Commons and outside Parliament, contemporary journalism, contemporary writing, and contemporary illustrations on Irish affairs, and a substantial list of scholarly work, including biographies, books, articles, chapters, and theses. This volume offers readers a clear record of the substantial material already available on Parnell, and in doing so offers resources to future research in this area.

Dublin, March 1874. Charles Stewart Parnell, only twenty-six years old, speaks in public for the first time as a candidate for Ireland's Home Rule Party. Hesitant and nervous, he stumbles through his speech to the sound of booing and leaves the platform humiliated. He vows that in future he will find his voice – and make it heard. Within three years of this speech, Parnell made the House of Commons unworkable; within six years he had destroyed the landlords in Ireland; and within a decade he controlled the House of Commons and put English Prime Ministers in and out of government at will. Parnell: A Novel charts the life of this most enigmatic and remarkable of men, as seen through the eyes of his loyal secretary James Harrison. From the Houses of Parliament to the blighted villages of the West of Ireland, from the courtrooms of the Royal Courts of Justice to the cells of Kilmainham Gaol, this is the story of how the character of one man could alter the fate of two nations.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2020 ‘A uniquely strange and wonderful work of literature’ Philip Hoare ‘An exciting new voice’ Mark Cocker, author of Crow Country

Charles Stewart Parnell is the most enigmatic figure in Irish history. An Anglo-Irish landlord from a distinguished Wicklow family, he became the most unlikely leader of Irish nationalism imaginable. He hated the colour green. He was not a dynamic speaker. He was cold and aloof and lacked the popular touch. None the less, from the late 1870s until his fall and death in 1891, he held the whole of Ireland spellbound. He established Home Rule for Ireland – previously a taboo subject in British politics – at the centre of Westminster affairs and effectively created the modern Irish state in embryo. His fall was as dramatic as his rise. The affair with Mrs Katharine O'Shea, the mother of his three children, destroyed him. Ever since his fall and his premature death in 1891, Parnell has remained a remarkably potent symbol, particularly in times of crisis and conflict in Ireland. The myth has obscured the man and makes it difficult for us to see Parnell as he really was. Paul Bew presents a completely original interpretation of this fascinating and enigmatic man.