Committee Room 15

On 2 May 1888 Mary Gladstone, daughter of the Liberal Party leader, watched in admiration as Charles Stewart Parnell skilfully parried questions put to him by the most distinguished lawyers in the state.

She recorded in her diary: 'Parnell before Commission. Attorney-General’s manner odious in cross-examination. Insolent, ungentlemanlike, treating Parnell like dirt. He [Parnell] really exhibited all the fruits of the Spirit…His personality takes hold of one, the refined delicate face, illuminating smile, fire-darting eyes, slightly tall figure.'

The Conservative government had appointed a special commission of three judges to investigate charges made in The Times that Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, had approved of the murders in Dublin’s Phoenix Park in 1882.

In a blaze of publicity the commission sat no fewer than 128 times, examined 445 witnesses and asked 150,000 questions. Then in February 1890 Parnell triumphed: the letters supposed to have been written by him, were found to be forgeries. The forger, Richard Piggott, fled to Spain and, in a Madrid hotel room, shot himself.

Parnell was now at the height of his power and influence. Known widely as ‘The Uncrowned King of Ireland’, he had created the most disciplined party ever to sit at Westminster; he had persuaded the Liberal Party to champion Irish Home Rule; and now he had humiliated his Conservative detractors. But there was a dark cloud on the horizon.

On Christmas Eve 1889 Parnell had been served with papers naming him as correspondent in a suit for divorce filed by Captain William O’Shea. Indeed for the past eight years Parnell had been in a relationship with O’Shea’s English wife, Katherine. He had fathered three of her children, two of whom survived. O’Shea, not a convinced home ruler, had been foisted by Parnell on the constituents of Co Galway in 1886. But this had not been enough to placate the Captain.

At first Irish Party MPs seemed unconcerned and they re-elected Parnell as their leader. But the divorce trial revealed unedifying details…how Parnell had adopted false names, disguised himself, and shinned down fire-escapes in efforts to conceal his relationship.

Mary Gladstone now changed her opinion of the Uncrowned King: '…and he had lived the life of lies all these years! A heartbreaking revelation! Blot out his name!'

Her 83-year-old father, W E Gladstone, observed that he had known 11 Prime Ministers and that every single one of them had been an adulterer. But he had to listen to the Nonconformists, the core support of the Liberal Party he led. The Methodist Times declared that if the Irish kept Parnell as leader they would be branded as '…an obscene race utterly unfit for anything except a military dictatorship.'

Gladstone allowed a letter he had written to the Irish Party to be published. In it he observed of Parnell: '…his continuance at the present moment in the leadership…would render my retention of the leadership of the Liberal Party…almost a nullity.'

Archbishop Croke of Cashel wrote in despair: 'I have flung him away from me forever. His bust which for some time has held a prominent place in my hall I threw out yesterday.'

But the Catholic hierarchy for the present hesitated to make public condemnation. It was Gladstone’s letter which persuaded 31 Irish MPs to call a special meeting of their party. After all, without Gladstone as leader, the Liberals might drop the demand for Home Rule.

The Irish Party gathered round the huge horseshoe table in Committee Room 15 at Westminster on 1 December 1890. Parnell saw with dismay that a team of shorthand reporters from the Freeman’s Journal were there with pencils poised. For six days Parnell, sitting in the chair, defended himself tenaciously. Tempers flared. One MP shouted: 'Crucify him!'

At one point it was feared that Parnell would produce a revolver from his pocket to shoot his ablest critic, Timothy Healy. Healy declared that Parnell’s power had completely gone: 'Place an iron bar in a coil and the bar becomes magnetised. The party was that electric coil, there stood the iron bar. The electricity is gone and the magnetism with it.'

When Parnell’s supporter, John Redmond, observed that Gladstone was now master of the party, Healy hissed venomously: 'Who is to be the mistress of the party?'

His face contorted with emotion, Parnell rose and held his clenched fist inches from Healy’s face, declaring: 'Better appeal…Better appeal to that cowardly little scoundrel there who dares in an assembly of Irishmen to insult a woman.'

That Saturday afternoon in Committee Room 15, on 6 December 1890, Parnell’s fate was sealed. Forty-five MPs withdrew, leaving Parnell with only 28 supporters. The party he had built was sundered. It would remain shattered for years to come. And, as for Parnell, he had less than a year to live.