Enigma: A New Life of Charles Stewart Parnell

by Paul Bew

Parnell is the most enigmatic figure in Irish history. An Anglo-Irish landlord from a distinguished and long-established Wicklow family, he became the most unlikely leader of Irish nationalism imaginable. None the less, from the late 1870s until his fall and death in 1891, he held the whole of Ireland spellbound. He established Home Rule for Ireland--previously a taboo subject in British politics--at the centre of Westminster affairs and effectively created the modern Irish state in embryo.

His fall was as dramatic as his rise. The affair with Mrs Katharine O'Shea, the mother of his three children, destroyed him. Paul Bew reinterprets this enigmatic man as one who was fundamentally conservative, who wished to reconcile his own landlord class to a new Ireland, and who acknowledged and accelerated the political demands of nationalist Ireland.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Ireland, Biography

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

A graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Paul Bew has been Professor of Irish Politics at Queen's University, Belfast since 1991. A leading commentator on Northern Irish politics, he is the author of many publications on Irish history and the politics of contemporary Ireland.

Reviews

[John Somers · Rating 4 out of 5]

16/20.

[Alexander Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. A must read for anyone interested in the past, present and future of Irish politics.

[Jean Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book about Parnell that builds on past works about him but gives some additional clarity. Interesting to learn that Parnell once spoke to US Congress to press the need for home rule for Ireland.