Charles Stewart Parnell

Book excerpt: Parnell is one of the key figures of modern Irish history and also one of the most enigmatic. He was a wealthy Protestant landlord who led a largely Catholic land reform and nationalist movement. This biography attempts to resolve some of the apparent contradictions in Parnell's life and career. Charles Stewart Parnell is not just one of the key figures of modern Irish history: he is also one of the most enigmatic. He was a wealthy, Protestant landlord who led a largely Catholic land reform and nationalist movement. He was an apparently cold, aloof man whose political downfall was precipitated by his passionate love affair with another man's wife. He was not a great orator in a country that loves oratory, yet he dominated its public life as no man has done before or since. In this short biography, Paul Bew tries to resolve some of the apparent contradictions in Parnell's life and career. He argues that Parnell was fundamentally a constitutionalist and that his primary concern was the survival of his own landlord class, safely integrated into a new Ireland. Other books by Paul Bew Northern Ireland Northern Ireland Chronology.