As dramatic as a good novel, this is the first intimate biography of Katie 'Kitty' O'Shea, the woman whose scandalous love affair with the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell altered the course of Irish history.
'Excellent... I suspect this book tells us all we can ever know about Charles Parnell and Katharine O'Shea. If it hasn't solved some of the mysteries about Katharine's relationships with her husband, Captain William O'Shea, and Parnell, no one else is likely to get any closer to doing so.' Garret FitzGerald, Guardian
At the end of the nineteenth century, Charles Stewart Parnell, MP, was the only man who both the English government and Irish radicals believed could secure Home Rule for Ireland. But when Parnell met and fell in love with 'Kitty' O'Shea, a married woman, the course of Parnell's life - and Ireland's history - were radically changed. Parnell's naming as co-respondent in Kitty's divorce (and also as the father of three of her children) triggered the most notorious scandal of the Victorian era.
Elisabeth Kehoe's vivid biography introduces us to a woman who bears little resemblance to her reputation as home-wrecker and historical catastrophe. Combining rigorous research with an intimate understanding of her subject, Kehoe recreates the boisterous character and courageous actions of a vastly underestimated woman. From this book emerges, for the first time, the real Katie O'Shea: a gifted woman who influenced the politics of her time with an acuity and sensitivity sorely lacking in her Irish lover.
'Katie, as she was always known, was an exceedingly well-connected woman, cultivated, intelligent and astute... Thoroughly researched and filled with a wealth of social detail.' John Campbell, Independent
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£12.99
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