Charles Stewart Parnell

The establishment of the Gaelic Athletic Association in November 1884 ushered in a sporting revolution in Ireland. Within four years it was by far the largest sports body in the country. Yet despite this remarkable initial success, the 1890s would witness its almost total disintegration. The accepted historiography has tended to concentrate disproportionately on the impact of idiosyncratic factors such as the Parnell split on the GAA’s fortunes at this time. Instead, this article argues that the effects of political dissension only represented the Association’s death knell. It contends that by 1890, the GAA was already in a virtual state of collapse due to the effects of economic recession, mass emigration and the impact of factors affecting other contemporary sports bodies such as poor administration, ill-defined playing rules and alcohol fuelled hooliganism.

This paper gives an overview of the development of the republican armed force tradition in Irish politics from the 1790s. It concludes that while Wolfe Tone and Emmet may have been inspirational, it was the experiences in politics and developments in political theory stemming from the 1840s Young Ireland movement that had the greatest impact. Though the 1848 rebellion led by William Smith O’Brien has often been derided by historians, it was a pivotal event which led directly to the foundation of Fenianism, which in turn led directly to the Land League revolution 1879-82 and indeed the 1916 Rising. The influence of James Fintan Lalor is highlighted as it was Lalor who came up an alternative formula to constitutional agitation arguing that England’s treatment of Ireland had given the Irish a moral right to a legal tabula rasa over both land ownership and constitutional claims. Cette étude propose un bilan de la tradition de la force armée républicaine dans la politique irlandaise depu...

The O’Shea trial and the ensuing fall of Charles Stewart Parnell occupy an epochal position in accounts of the sexual politics of Victorian Britain and the development of Irish nationalism. This article examines how the ‘Parnell myth’ came to serve (and was constructed from the outset) as a symbolic edifice within which anxieties concerning the relationship between Irishness and sexuality could be foregrounded and negotiated. In particular, it will analyse Timothy Healy’s influential post-split denunciations of Parnell, and the rhetoric of sexual contagion through which they were conducted, a campaign which set the discursive terms of twentieth-century mainstream Irish nationalism. Through an analysis of Healy’s post-split journalism, contemporary political memoirs by T.P. O’Connor, and a range of nineteenth-century medical and psychiatric texts, this article will highlight the ways in which discourses of sexual health were used to reshape Parnell’s public persona at the level of gender and ethno-national affiliation. In doing so, it will illustrate how a sensitivity to the history of medicine can enrich critical understandings of a crucial moment in the political and cultural history of Ireland, and shed fresh light on the vexed collocation of Irish identity and sexual purity which the Parnell split reinforced.

KEYWORDS: Charles Stewart Parnell, Timothy Healy, General Paralysis of the Insane, Congenital Syphilis, Sexual Health, Irish Nationalism

A review of O'Sullivan's groundbreaking study of the Gérôme-trained painter, ardent Fenian, and Special Artist (Illustrated London News, etc.) both to the Mahdi-led insurrection in Anglo-Egypt and Sudan as well as to the Land Wars in Ireland. O'Sullivan's research revealed how O'Kelly assumed multiple identities in Ireland, France, and the US.

This paper gives an overview of the development of the republican armed force tradition in Irish politics from the 1790s. It concludes that while Wolfe Tone and Emmet may have been inspirational, it was the experiences in politics and developments in political theory stemming from the 1840s Young Ireland movement that had the greatest impact. Though the 1848 rebellion led by William Smith O’Brien has often been derided by historians, it was a pivotal event which led directly to the foundation of Fenianism, which in turn led directly to the Land League revolution 1879-82 and indeed the 1916 Rising. The influence of James Fintan Lalor is highlighted as it was Lalor who came up an alternative formula to constitutional agitation arguing that England’s treatment of Ireland had given the Irish a moral right to a legal tabula rasa over both land ownership and constitutional claims.

Cette étude propose un bilan de la tradition de la force armée républicaine dans la politique irlandaise depuis les années 1790. Elle conclut que même si Wolfe Tone et Emmet furent des sources d’inspiration indéniables, ce sont les expériences politiques et les développements des théories politiques à partir du mouvement de la Jeune Irlande des années 1840 qui ont eu l’impact le plus important. Alors que la révolution de 1848 dirigée par William Smith O’Brien a souvent été minimisée par les historiens, ce fut en réalité un événement charnière qui eut pour conséquence directe la création du fenianisme qui a à son tour mené directement à la révolution de la Land League de 1879-1882 et par la suite à l’insurrection de 1916. L’influence de James Fintan Lalor est soulignée car celui-ci proposa une alternative à l’agitation constitutionnelle en affirmant que le traitement de l’Irlande par l’Angleterre avait donné aux Irlandais un droit moral à repartir sur de nouvelles bases juridiques, à la fois du point de vue de la propriété de la terre et des revendications constitutionnels.

In the aftermath of the Land War, Parnell’s fortunes were far from assured. Having courted Advanced Nationalist anti-English rhetoric along with his Land League associates, he had struck a secret deal with the United Kingdom government. This article examines the changing fortunes of Parnell following the Land War 1879-82 and the establishment of the more autocratic Irish National League. It shows the role of the Catholic Church in Irish politics and the Catholic hierarchy’s ability to ignore Rome and follow their flock in national political matters. The balancing of the competing forces of Advanced Nationalism and Catholic political representation at Westminster is examined. Furthermore, it shows through a historiographic analysis that concurrent with the rise of Parnellism events leading up to the 1885 general election cemented political sectarianism into the fabric of Irish politics.