Just two weeks after the end of the divorce proceedings between Katharine and William O’Shea, the Irish Parliamentary Party assembled in Committee Room 15 of the Palace of Westminster, for the most fateful meeting in Charles Stewart Parnell’s career.

The backlash from the divorce and the revelations that emerged about Parnell’s behaviour, left Gladstone feeling that continuing his association with Parnell would fatally undermine the chances of his Liberal Party winning re-election. Paradoxically, that meant that the hopes for Irish Home Rule, which required the formation of a Liberal government, depended on his distancing himself from its most powerful champion. So in Committee Room 15, the Irish Parliamentary Party had to decide whether, to achieve its aim, it had to remove from its leadership the very man who’d brought that aim so close to realisation.

The explosive effect of this destructive paradox would be devastating for the Irish Parliamentary Party and for Parnell himself.

Illustration: Parnell addressing a crowd during the Kilkenny North by-election, from The Illustrated London News, 27 December 1890.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.