Katherine O`Shea: her life in time
by
Pamela Kelly
Riversdale Community
Collage
Class: 4B
After the defeat of the first Home Rule
bill in 1886, Charles Stewart Parnell remained in control of the home rule party.
However in 1887 an attempt to discredit him was made by means of the Piggott forgeries.
Fortunately for Parnell, the attempt to discredit him was unsuccessful as Richard
Piggott broke in court and gave a full confession of forging them in1889. Richard
admitted to forging the letters which implied that Parnell approved of the
Katharine was born in 1845 in
‘’In many ways Katharine’s childhood was idyllic” She was educated at
home which was not at all unusual in these Victorian times by her father .While
she often felt neglected by her mother, as she didn’t pay Katherine very
much attention, she was her fathers pet.
Katharine first met Captain William Henry
O’Shea when she went to visit her brother Franks regiment accompanied by her
older sister Anna. When she met O’Shea she did not their She did not appear to
be impressed with him on this occasion and they did not meet again until 1867
were they then decided to get married. The marriage did not work in the end as
her husband was constantly absent from home, leaving Katharine to cope with life
on her own. It’s believed that Captain O’Shea went on a drinking and gambling
binge which eventually led to their bankruptcy. In 1875 they separated and
began to live apart. Captain O’Shea moved to a
Katharine was yet to find her through love. Katherine
first met Parnell when she went to the House of Commons with her sister Anna.
And was quite taken by him, she describes their first encounter: ‘’He came out,
a tall, gaunt figure, thin and deadly Pale. He looked straight at me, and began
to smile and his curiously burning eyes looked into mine with a wonderful
intentness. ” Undoubtedly it was
love at first sight. One hot day in a July month in 1880 was to be the starting
point in a long and intensely complicated relationship. In 1881 Katherine and Parnell
began living together for short periods of time. Katherine then realized that
she had finally found the type of companionship she had always longed for. At
the same time Katherine gave Parnell ‘‘a genuinely passionate love, the
atmosphere and comfort of home, the feeling Parnell had lacked all his life as
there was no one place in the world
where he could leave his work and politics behind, lower his guard, and be at
peace.”
On
On Christmas Eve 1889, however
‘‘Captain O Shea filed a petition for divorce from his wife, citing the nationalist
leader co-respondent. ”However, it was wondered why they waited so long to file
the divorce. On December 30th 1889 a statement was made in the
Freeman’s Journal ‘‘Captain O` Shea was always aware that he [Parnell] was
constantly there [Mrs. O `Sheas house at Eltham] in his absence from 1880 to
1886, and since 1886 he has known that Mr.
Parnell resided constantly at their home in Ethlam from 1880 to 1886.” It
believed that the real reason for the delay on their divorce was that Katherine
was to inherit a great sum of money from her Aunt Ben at the event of her
death. Katherine in the past had always relied on Aunt Ben for financial
support.
On
When the Liberals got word that Parnell
was found to be the guilty party at the outcome of the trial they sent a man
named Justin Mc Carthy to warn him to
retire from the world of Politics would
then be prosponed for a prolonged period of time.’ Parnell would not resign and
insisted that he be allowed to keep his private life separate from his
political life.” The Home Rule party then split in two: for and against Parnell.
He then fought to continue to remain leader of the party which proved to be
unsuccessful. Around this time his health also failed him. ‘‘But death was
nearer than anybody thought and on 6th of October 1891, aged only forty-five,
he died at
After the death of Parnell Katherine suffered
a nervous breakdown and disappeared from public life. She then died in 1921
after spending the last few years of her life moving from rented house to
rented house all over the south coast of
It’s amazing and quite had hard to
believe that the relationship between Katherine and Parnell such a significant
role in Irish history.
Short questions
Q1. Review One source I used for this essay was a book known as Parnell: The Politics of power.
this book was edited by Mc Cartney in 1991.Although this book is of Parnell’s
life it has a chapter entitled Katherine O’ Shea and C. S Parnell which was
written by a novelist named Mary Rose Callaghan .this book was a good source as
it told a lot about Katherine and her life previous to Captain Parnell and
about her life after his death. I did find this particular book useful as it
had a lot of useful material I could use in my project as it mainly consisted
of the facts I needed instead of a book that carries a lot of rubbish that
would not be necessary in my project.view
Q2. Bibliography
Boylan, Henery. A dictionary of Irish Biography, Gill&Macmillan,
Golden bridge
Q3. Skills
I learned many skills whilst doing this essay and improved in many more
how to go out and find information I might need in order to do this essay also
my typing, reading and spelling skills improved as I had to use computers for
searching on the internet then I had to type up my essay. I improved in my
reading also as I had to read many books and pages I acquired relating to my
topic. I improved in my spelling as there was a lot of writing to do and to
have the correct spelling was much easier than to have to keep changing until I
found the right one.
Q4. How the essay was completed
The first step was when I was told about the essay in class was what it meant
and how much of a percent it was worth for my Leaving Cert and how much work I
would have to do in order to get the marks I wanted. I was then given one week
to think about my topic and to do this I visited the school’s library and the
local library to find books that would help me choose the right topic for me. I
then got books such as a Dictionary of Irish
biography I then went on to the
internet at home and in school and got information from Microsoft incarta I
then read the books and got more information from the internet and was finally
able to start the plan for my essay I then began to write the first draft to do
this I added pieces from different books
checked all dates were accurate I then proceeded in typing my essay
using Microsoft word after I had finished putting in all the information I had
I printed my essay made changes and corrections. When I then felt happy with my
essay I re typed my essay I printed the new copy and put it up on the school
website.