O'Shea, Katherine (1845–1921)

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O'Shea, Katherine (1845–1921)

English woman whose love for Charles Stewart Parnell ended in scandal and disgrace. Name variations: Kitty O'Shea; Katherine O'Shea Parnell. Born Katherine Wood on January 30, 1845, at Bradwell, Essex, England; died on February 5, 1921, at 39 East Ham Road, Littlehampton, Sussex, England; daughter of Sir John Page Wood; married Captain William H. O'Shea (1840–1905, a politician and adventurer), on January 24, 1867 (divorced 1891); married Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), in June 1891; sister-in-law of Anna Parnell (1852–1911); children: (with Parnell) three, including daughters, Clare and Katie (both born between 1882 and 1884).

The effervescent Kitty O'Shea was born in 1845 in Bradwell, Essex, England, daughter of Sir John Page Wood. In 1867, age 22, she married the extravagant Captain William O'Shea of the 18th Hussars. When his father would no longer pay his bills, William sold his commission in the Hussars and bought a partnership in an uncle's bank in Madrid, where he and Kitty settled. William soon quarreled with his uncle, however, and the couple picked up stakes and moved to Hertfordshire, England, where William started a stud farm. It was soon bankrupt. He then managed a sulphur mine in Spain for 18 months until it failed. It was Kitty's wealthy Aunt Ben, Mrs. Benjamin Wood, who had kept them going. In 1875, when her aunt, then 83, was newly widowed, Kitty became her companion. Aunt Ben installed her in a house near her own in Eltham, Kent, and provided her with a handsome allowance. William, who had lodgings in London, saw Kitty on his rare visits to Eltham. In 1880, he joined the Irish Party and was elected member of Parliament for Clare.

In 1880, Kitty O'Shea met Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Protestant who had fought for land reform and Irish Home Rule and was the beloved and respected leader of his predominantly Catholic country. By then, Kitty had been living apart from her husband for almost five years. The illicit liaison between Parnell and O'Shea, a poorly kept secret from the start, eventually would destroy Parnell's career. Most political insiders knew of the affair, and Captain O'Shea—although claiming later that he had not known—almost certainly knew and expected to benefit from it politically. Parnell's and O'Shea's relationship was nothing if not domestic; Parnell established a study and lab for himself at her home in Kent by 1882, and he and O'Shea would eventually have three children, including two daughters, Clare and Katie Parnell .

Despite this new-found (and short-lived) domestic tranquility, Parnell's political life in the 1880s became quite tumultuous. The agitation by the Land League, of which Parnell was president, seriously unnerved the ruling British authorities, and Parliament passed the Protection of Person and Property (Ireland) Act in early 1881 as a coercive measure. Becoming desperate, the British government had Parnell and other leaders of the League arrested in October 1881 on suspicion of treasonable activities. The Kilmainham treaty, under whose terms Parnell and the others were released, was not agreed to until the following May. On May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish, England's chief secretary for Irish Affairs, along with his under secretary, was stabbed to death while walking in Phoenix Park, Dublin. The public outrage in England over these assassinations was immense, and Parliament promptly passed an extremely harsh crimes bill for Ireland.

As the decade wore on, the question of land reform and tenant rights became increasingly subordinated to the issue of Home Rule, for which a bill was defeated in 1886. Parnell's popularity soared in Ireland throughout this time. One interesting measure of how well he was beloved came through the public disclosure of Parnell's finances: once the people of Ireland realized how indebted their leader was, they promptly set up a subscription fund for him and raised over £37,000.

A hero in Ireland, Parnell was seen as a villain in England. In 1887, the London Times published a series of articles on "Parnellism and Crime," featuring several forged but damaging letters supposedly written by Parnell. The troubles caused by these articles did not abate for over two years—at which point Captain O'Shea filed for divorce. O'Shea named Parnell as a co-respondent in the suit and portrayed him as the most sordid of adulterers. The fact that Parnell considered himself, for all intents and purposes, married to the woman whom Captain O'Shea had abandoned years ago was lost amid patently false stories of Parnell beating hasty retreats from the O'Shea home by slipping down fire escapes.

The divorce created an enormous scandal, but Parnell's countrymen did not immediately abandon him. The outcry in England, however, was so great that other Irish leaders were privately informed that they could expect no cooperation in Parliament—and no hope of Home Rule—as long as Parnell was one of them. Perhaps reluctantly—no one is sure—Parnell was condemned by the country that had once hailed him as its uncrowned king. In late 1890 and early 1891, candidates for Parliament supported by Parnell were defeated, and Parnell began to recede from the Irish political scene. He married Kitty O'Shea at Steyning, near Brighton, on June 25, 1891, and only a little over three months later, on October 6, he died in her arms.

The reaction to the divorce was certainly what cost Parnell his political leadership, but it should be remembered that at the time there was deep-rooted opposition in England to both Parnell and Home Rule. It is quite possible to see the moral outrage directed at Parnell's personal life as, for the most part, a convenient way to eliminate his political threat to the order of the British Empire. Nevertheless, his long-standing relationship with Kitty O'Shea was in direct contradiction to the morality of his day. His death so soon after the scandal makes his political fall appear particularly tragic; in his passing, Ireland lost one of its great leaders. Though from that time on Kitty O'Shea experienced chronic emotional breakdowns, she lived to be 76, dying on February 5, 1921, at 39 East Ham Road, Littlehampton, Sussex.