LOVE STORY PARNELL AND MRS. O'SHEA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 118, 20 May 1914, Page 7

LOVE STORY PARNELL AND MRS. O'SHEA

CHALLENGE TO A DUEL EXTRAORDINARY REVELATIONS. (By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright.) LONDON, 19th May. Mrs. Parnell's book tells a remarkable love story. Parnell held that tho marriage bond did not bind when love had ceased. At^the end of 1880, he was addressing Mrs. O'Shea as "my dearest wife," After a debate in the House of Cmmons, he drove to Eltham, where his love was living, talked until daylight, and slept until 4 in the afternoon, when he went again to the House of Commons. Mrs. O'Shea'a husband, in June of 1881, visited Eltham without the customary invitation, and challenged Parnell to a, duel. The book provides an extraordinary revelation of Parnell's stratagems and to prevent the discovery of his intrigue. He used false names, employed cyphers, and once livnd for a whole fortnight at Mrs. O'Shea's house without the servants suspecting his presence. ' While in Prison at Kilmainham he wrote her letters in invisible ink, and when he learnt that a baby was about to be born secured his release on parole for a week to attend a "nephew's funeral," and went to Mrs. O'bhea's immediately. While Mrs. O'Shea was upstairs with her dying child, Parnell and •Captain O'Shea sat below, talking Irish politics far into the night. When Parnell stole in at daybreak to bid goodbye beiore returning to piison, Mrs. O'Shea put the dying child into his arms. When Parnell heard of the Phoenix Park mvi deis, he said that he would resign. Mrs. O'Shea replied : "No, you are not a coward." Parnell read Piggott's letters in the Times with unconcern, and was with difficulty persuaded to deny them. The book reveals the close subterranean relationship which existed between Parnell and Gladstone, while openly fighting each other in the House of Commons. Mrs. O'fShea states that she acted as a go-between — commencing in May, 1882— for ten years. Gladstone knew of her relations with Parnell, and took ad. vantage of it to keep in touch, but changed his attitude after the divorce case, in deference to the Nonconformist conscience. SECRET HISTORY Mr. William O'Brien recently stirred up trouble by publishing in the Cork Free Press two pages oi secret history bearing on the Parnell divorce. Included was a letter irom Parnell to him, containing this passage :— "lf this case is ever fully gone into a matter which is exceedingly 'doubtful, you may rest assured that it will be shown that the dishonour and disci edit have not been upon my side." Mr. O'Brien says Pavnell afterwards told him that "the whole complexion of the case would have been changed if he had given evidence as to his relations with Captain O'Shea, that ho had piessed upoti Sir Frank Lockwood (Mrs. O'Shea's counsel), in the strongest manner that he should be examined, and that upon one occasion he md Sir Frank Lockwood had almost come to blows upon that point. . . Many years after, when 1 met Sir Frank Lockwood, he said with a grave face, '1 am afraid Parnell was badly treated. 1 have some remorse myself.' " -If Parnell had been allowed to testify, Mr. O'Brien says, "the fault would have re mained, but the Irish leader would have been shown to be rather the victim than the destroyer of a happy home, and the divorce would never have taken place." The late Captain O'Shea's only son promptly wrote to The Times, protesting agfrinst the "scandalous insinuations" by "a Mr. William O'Brien/' of whom he had never pieviously heard. His mother, Parnell's widow, had written to him: — "I quite agree with you as to the insult to myself, your father's memory, and, above all, to my late husband, Mr. Parnell, that is contained in the unwarrantable interpietation Mr. O'Brien has put upon the letter of my husband's he has published, and 1 now propose, with your consent, to publish as soon as possible the letters of my late husband, which, as you know, 1 had left directions should be published after my death. The Pall Mall Gazette recalled that Mi. O'Biien had probably the unique experience of being knocked down with his own portrait. In 1888 a Cork working men's club had their member painted by Mr. H. J. 'J haddeus. When he sided against Parnell they wheeled the picture to his hotel, stormed his room, and threw it at his head.