Yesterday’s march, which started near Parnell Square, passed by the Monument to 19th century Irish nationalist politician Charles Stewart Parnell on O’Connell Street in Dublin. I took the above picture on the way there, before the march.
I was an undergraduate student at Magdalene College, Cambridge, which just happens to be where Charles Stewart Parnell studied, although I hasten to add that we weren’t contemporaries. There is an annual Parnell Lecture at Magdalene in his honour; an annual Coles lecture is yet to be established.
Parnell was reportedly one of the most charismatic, capable and influential Parliamentarians of his era. He led the Irish Parliamentary Party at the forefront of moves for Home Rule for Ireland. He also had a splendid beard:
His career was cut short by scandal in the form of an adulterous relationship with Kitty (Katherine) O’Shea, whom her husband divorced in 1889 naming Parnell in the case, and whom he married after the divorce. (Kitty, that is, not her husband.) They were not to enjoy life together for long, however, as Parnell died in 1891 of pneumonia in the arms of his wife at their home in Brighton (Hove, actually).
In the Dark 