Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life

by Kitty O'Shea

I shall be in Dublin on Tuesday evening, and shall sleep at Morrison's that night, returning here next day.

From these quarries at Arklow Parnell supplied the Dublin Corporation with "setts" for many of the streets in Dublin. These setts (granite, pavement kerbing) were not turned out quickly enough by his men at first, so he tried the experiment of giving the men a share in the profits, and this he found answered well in keeping the supply up to the demand of the corporation.

Some of the polished granite work turned out by his men was beautiful, and a heavy granite garden vase and a Celtic cross appeared in the London (Irish) Exhibition and also in the Cork Exhibition.

1882-83 was a very anxious time for me, and the nervous tension caused by the agitation in the political world and the continual threatenings of violence, intrigue, and physical force, made privately to Parnell, against him and others, was so great that, by the end of '83, if I had not had my lover's health to care for I should myself have broken down altogether. As it was, there were days when the slightest sound or movement was an agony to me in the throes of neuralgia brought on by the overstrain of the nerves. But for his sake I concealed my misery of pain as well as I could, and in so doing won back a measure of health for myself, which would perhaps have been lost to me had I been able to give way to my "nerves."

During this time I attended the sittings of the House as often as I was able, going up to town as soon as I could leave my aunt for the night, so that I might hear Parnell if he spoke, and in any case drive home with him. We always drove home in a hansom cab, as we both loved the cool of the night or of the early morning air.

During these anxious days I did not let Parnell have one-half of the threatening and other worrying letters he received. He brought me his letters and parcels from the House, and from a London address he had, to be sorted out. I gave him those for his secretary's answering, any personal ones I thought he would wish to see, and just as many "threats" as I thought would make him a little careful of himself for my sake. The bulk of the "warnings," threats of murder, and invitations to murder I kept to myself, fearing that he would worry himself on my account and object to my continual "shadowing" of him, which I considered his chief protection. He always carried a revolver in his pocket during this time, and insisted on my being similarly provided when I drove home with him at night.

These precautions may appear fantastic in these later sober times, but they were very necessary during that time of lawlessness and unrest in Ireland, when the prophecy made by Parnell to me ere he finally decided to leave Kilmainham on the Treaty had become fact: "If I turn to the Government I turn away from them—and then?"

The force of his personality was carrying him through the seething of the baffled hatred he would not use, but not without a danger so real and so acute that many a time I was tempted to throw his honour to the winds and implore from the Government the protection he would have died rather than ask for himself. But I held on to the end till the sheer force of his dauntless courage and proud will broke down the secret intrigue of spleen that, held by him back from England's governance, would have revenged itself upon the holding hand, had it dared.

There was a lonely part of the road between London and Eltham after going through Lee, over a common where, to the right, was a deep ditch, and, beyond, the land of (the late) Mr. Blenkiorn, breeder of racehorses. There were no houses near in those days, and on moonlight nights we could see a long way on each side of a rather desolate bit of country. The moon which gave light also gave shadows, and more than once from some way off we saw the shadow of a man running behind the hedge on the way we had to pass. I always took the side of the hansom near the park, as I thought it would conceal to some degree the fact of Parnell's being there. I knew, too, that the fact of my being a woman was still some little protection, but I took the precaution of telling the driver to drive quickly and not stop for anyone at any lonely point in the road. Once, to my horror, when we were nearly over the common, I saw a man rise from the ditch and the glint of steel in the moonlight. The man driving saw it, too, and, with a lurch that threw us forward in the cab, he lashed his horse into a gallop. I could just see that the man threw up his arms as he staggered backwards into the ditch and a shot rang out; but nothing dreadful had happened after all. The man had obviously slipped as he sprang up the bank, and, in throwing up his arms to recover his balance, his pistol had gone off—for neither of ours had been discharged. So this exciting drive had no more serious consequences than the rather heavy price of the cabman's putting up in the village till day brought him renewed confidence in the safety of the London road.

Sometimes after a late sitting Parnell and I would get some coffee at the early coffee stalls for workmen on the way from London. In the early morning half-light, when the day was just beginning to break, we loved to watch drowsy London rubbing the sleep from her eyes, hastening her labouring sons upon their way to ease the later waking of their luxurious brothers. Parnell was always interested in manual labourers; he loved to watch them at work, and he liked to talk to them of their work and of their homes. A man with a hammer or a pick-axe was almost an irresistible attraction to him, and he would often get me to stand and watch the men engaged on a road or harbour work.