author
Kitty O'Shea
1845–1921
Best remembered for her long relationship with Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell, she stood at the center of one of the biggest political scandals of late 19th-century Britain and Ireland. Her life later became part of the historical record through the memoir she wrote about Parnell and their years together.
1 Audiobook
Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life
by Kitty O'Shea
About the author
Born Katharine Wood, she was known as Katharine O'Shea during her first marriage and is often remembered as Kitty O'Shea. She came from an English political family and became closely linked with Irish public life through her relationship with Charles Stewart Parnell.
That relationship, kept private for years, became public during a divorce case in 1890 and badly damaged Parnell's political career. Because of that scandal, her name has remained tied to a turning point in Irish nationalist history as much as to her own life story.
After Parnell's death, she married him posthumously in public memory by taking the name Katharine Parnell, and in 1914 she published a memoir, Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life. She died in 1921, and today she is remembered both as a controversial public figure and as a firsthand witness to a major political drama.