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A Tragic Love Affair
It was love at first sight. That hot July in 1880 was to be the starting point of a long, complicated relationship. In 1881 the couple began living together for short periods of time. Katherine had found the type of companionship she had always longed for.....

The Sinking of the Lusitania
As the passengers on deck enjoyed a view of the Irish coastline, some noticed a slight disturbance on the mirror-calm sea off the starboard bow. The thin streak of white foam was generated by a torpedo as it sped toward the Lusitania. An explosion under the bridge of the ship was quickly followed by another and the bow of the ship began to dip into the sea......

A Tragic Love Affair


Charles Stewart Parnell	Kitty O'Shea

In 1886 Charles Stuart Parnell controlled the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminister. He had just accomplished the introduction of the First Home Rule Bill (which was defeated) and yet within five years his political career would be over. By 1889, his career was at a high point after an attempt to discredit him by means of the Pigott Forgeries failed. Richard Pigott admitted forging the letters which implicated Parnell in the Phoenix Park Murders. In 1882 Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Chief Secretary at that time and Thomas Henry Burke were stabbed to death while taking a walk through the Phoenix Park. Once proven to be innocent Parnell was regarded by the public as the 'Uncrowned King of Ireland'. However, his political fate was sealed by his liaison with Katherine O' Shea.

Katherine was born in 1845 in Essex, England. Her father, Sir John Page Wood was a clergyman and her mother Lady Emma was an artist and was regarded as a remarkable woman, both strong and dominant. Her mother gave birth to thirteen children (Katherine was the last) and eight were still alive in 1845. Although they lived well, they were in fact short of money. This was illustrated by the fact that her elder sister, Maria Wood married Sir John's uncle, Benjamin who was a very wealthy man. From then on the family called Maria, Aunt Ben. Katherine was educated at home by her father which was not unusual in Victorian times and while she often felt neglected by her mother, she was her father's pet.

In 1867 Katherine married Captain William Henry O'Shea but the marriage failed as he was constantly absent from the home, leaving Katherine to cope on her own. It is believed that he went on drinking and gambling binges, which eventually led to their bankruptcy. By 1875 they were effectively living apart.

Katherine was to meet her true love when she went to the House of Commons with her sister Anna. She describes their first encounter: "He came out, a tall, gaunt figure, thin and deadly pale. He looked straight at me, smiling and his curiously burning eyes looked into mine with a wonderful intentness." It was love at first sight. That hot July in 1880 was to be the starting point of a long, complicated relationship. In 1881 the couple began living together for short periods of time. Katherine had found the type of companionship she had always longed for. At the same time she gave Parnell "a genuinely passionate love, the atmosphere and comfort of a home, the feeling which he had lacked all his life - that there was one place at least where he could leave politics behind, lower his guard, and be at peace."

On 13th October 1881 Parnell was arrested and put in Kilmainham jail. Although it was politically opportune, he was privately devastated as Katherine was heavily pregnant with their first child. On 16th February 1882 she gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Claude Sophie but, sadly, the child died shortly after birth. Katherine was distraught and Parnell got out on parole to pay a secret visit to her. Between 1883 and 1884 Katherine gave birth to two healthy girls and the couple began living together permanently in 1886.

On Christmas Eve 1889 Captain O'Shea filed a petition for divorce from his wife and cited the nationalist leader as correspondent. Why did he choose to file at this point, almost 15 years after their separation? Apparently he had been aware since 1880 of the relationship between Parnell and Katherine but was awaiting an expected inheritance from Katherine's Aunt Ben, who had financially supported them in the past. However, when she died on 19th May 1889 she left her fortune to Katherine in such a way that Captain O'Shea was not legally entitled to a share. When aggrieved relatives decided to challenge the will, O'Shea joined with them.

According to Katherine he said that he would grant her a divorce and not challenge the will if she gave him a settlement $20,000; she refused. The case began on the 15th November 1890 and throughout the trial both Parnell and Katherine remained silent as they longed for it to be over. They believed that Parnell would not be found guilty of causing the breakdown of O'Shea's marriage but it was not to be. Despite the outcome Charles and Katherine were married on the 25th June 1891 at a Registry Office.

Once the Liberal Party became aware that Parnell had been declared the guilty party in a divorce trial they told the Irish Parliamentary Party that Parnell's leadership was not acceptable. Parnell insisted that he be allowed to keep his private and public lives separate but fearing that Home Rule would be postponed for a prolonged period of time, the party split and Parnell ceased to be leader. The tragedy was complete when Parnell died on 6th October 1891, aged just forty-five, in the arms of his wife. After his death Katherine suffered a nervous breakdown and disappeared from public life. She died in 1921 after spending her last years moving from rented house to rented house all over the south coast of England.

It is hard to believe the role the relationship between Katherine and Charles had on Irish history. When Parnell met Katherine his political career was at its height. Their affair was considered unacceptable and, once named in divorce proceedings, many of those who supported him now deserted him. One might conclude that it was the O'Shea divorce case alone that brought down Parnell. Nothing else at that time could have undermined his leadership. If the liaison never happened Parnell might have remained leader of the Home Rule Party for a longer period of time and he might have achieved Home Rule for Ireland. On the other hand, if Katherine had never met Parnell she might never have entered Irish history, maybe she would have resolved her differences with Captain O'Shea and her life would have been a lot different. As it remains some people blame her for Parnell's downfall while others see her both as a heroine and a remarkable woman of her time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lyons, F.S.L., (1971) Ireland since the Famine, Published by Weidefeld and Nicolson, Fontana;
Hartigan, M. and Fee, G., (1986) Ireland 1868-1970, Published by School and College Publishing, Dublin;
Tierney, Mark, (1988) Ireland since 1870, Published by C.J. Fallon, Dublin;
Bew, Paul, (1980) C.S. Parnell, Published by Gill and Macmillan Ltd., Dublin;
Mc Cartney, Donal, (1991) Parnell: The Politics of Power, Published by Wolfhound Press, Dublin.

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The Sinking of the Lusitania

The Lusitania docked in Cobh Harbour

In the early part of the twentieth century the only way to traverse the Atlantic was by ocean liner. It was a time of fierce competition between rival lines as passengers expected, not only a speedy crossing, but luxurious accommodations too. In 1903 the Cunard Line led by Lord Inver Clyde began construction on two fast and luxurious liners to challenge the German vessels that had held the 'Blue Riband' (the title given to the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing) since 1897. The resulting RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauritania would be a firm reassertion of British supremacy at sea.

Launched on the River Clyde in June 16, 1906, RMS Lusitania was a grand ship and the first of the two sister ships to be launched. At 785 feet in length and 31,550 gross tons, she was the largest liner afloat. Her maiden voyage took place September 7, 1907, and in October 1907 she captured the coveted Blue Riband from the German liner, Deutschland. The Lusitania and the Mauritania were declared by The New York Times "as unsinkable as ships can be" and the Lusitania was described as "the fastest and most powerful cruiser in the world".

When World War 1 began in the summer of 1914, no one foresaw the contours of the disaster ahead. As the land offensives ground to a halt and the casualties rose any romantic view of war quickly disappeared. At sea the war should have produced a series of almighty contests between the fleets of battleships, bristling with weaponry. However the German fleet, after one major encounter off the coast of Denmark (the battle of Jutland), retreated to port. For the remainder of the war the German naval strategy was to use their submarines (U-boats) in the Atlantic to starve the British into surrender. This type of submarine warfare would intensify to the level that Admiral Pohl could state that there would be a risk even to the crews of neutral ships. Although the British could claim command of the seas, they could not cope with German submarines. Operating from Kiel to Bremerhaven, the U-boats would sink over twelve million tons of allied shipping over the course of the war. But, the sinking of the Lusitania by U-20 on the 7th May 1915 brought about a dramatic turn in the Atlantic war.

The construction of Lusitania had been financed by generous loans from the British government. In return, the British Admiralty could requisition Lusitania or her sister ships in times of war. Although at the onset war in 1914, the Lusitania, Mauritania and the newer Aquitania were officially requisitioned for war duties, the Lusitania was allowed to continue her regular transatlantic passenger services.

On May 1st 1915 a large crowd turned out to watch the Lusitania set sail from New York harbour. The passengers included of large numbers of American citizens travelling to Ireland. In addition there were rumours, spread by German agents, that the ship was carrying high explosives destined for the British war effort.

On Thursday evening, May 6th, the Lusitania received a message from Queenstown (now Cobh, Co.Cork) that there had been submarines in the area. On board lifeboats were taken out as a precaution. Just twelve miles south-west of the Old Head of Kinsale Lighthouse, off the coast of Ireland, the Lusitania entered into a war zone and the two thousand passengers and crew on board the Lusitania had now come under great threat. In the next eighteen minutes Lieutenant Walter Schwieger (Captain of the U-20 submarine) would bring death, woe and desolation to those on the Lusitania.

As the passengers on deck enjoyed a view of the Irish coastline, some noticed a slight disturbance on the mirror-calm sea off the starboard bow. The thin streak of white foam was generated by a torpedo as it sped toward the Lusitania. An explosion under the bridge of the ship was quickly followed by another and the bow of the ship began to dip into the sea. The captain of the Lusitania, Turner, desperately tried to steer the ship north, towards land, but found her unresponsive. As panic-stricken passengers came out on deck and the ship began to sink, Turner calmly give orders to his crew. Horrified husbands and fathers watched tearfully as lifeboats, into which the women and children had been placed, capsized once in the ocean. As the ship's bow dipped to make its final death plunge the stern rose out of the water exposing the brass propellers. Shrouded in smoke and steam the ship sank. Finally, the water flattened and calmed which left a glass-like finish over the tomb of the Lusitania.

While the living cried out for help, the dead drifted by. The steamship Heron and two trawlers gathered up the dead and returned to Queenstown with over 100 bodies. In the following days, temporary morgues were established to handle the increasing number of recovered bodies giving Queenstown the title, 'town of death'. In total, 1,198 lives were lost on the Lusitania. Of the drowned, 127 were Americans, 79 were children including 39 infants under the age of two years. Just 200 corpses were recovered from the sea while the remainder were never found.

The sinking of the Lusitania shocked the United States. President Woodword Wilson was so affected by the news that he went into seclusion for two days, seeing and talking to no one but family and White House staff. After the sinking, the outpouring of acrimony from the US took the German High Command by surprise. The skilled British propaganda machine did much to inflame public opinion in America against Germany. Aware that this was a perfect opportunity to incite the US into the war on their side, the sinking was loudly proclaimed as 'Demonical' and the German Kaiser was branded as the 'Lord of Torture and Bloodshed'. While the Germans expected as much from a belligerent like Britain, the volume and vehemence of the American protests took them off guard. There were calls for 'action' and the U-boatmen were vilified as murderers and pirates. Nevertheless, even the most indignant shied away from demanding war and indeed, President Wilson declared that there was such a thing as being "too proud to fight". It was the German's failure to realise this fact, and press home their advantage, that was at the heart of Germany's mistake.

In conclusion the sinking of the Royal Mail Ship Lusitania by U-20 on May 7, 1915 was, arguably, one of the most notorious milestones of World War I. Popular history sees the sinking of the Lusitania as the start of the U-boats' attack on British shipping. Some historians assert that it was the most publicised tragedy of the First World War, a 'major catastrophe' that shifted American opinion sufficiently for it to seriously entertain the possibility of entering the war. However, by far the most serious consequence of the sinking was the reaction of the Germans themselves. Appalled at the vehemence of the American reaction to the sinking, the Kaiser called a halt to unrestricted submarine warfare in British waters. Consequently, for the better part of two years, Britain enjoyed a respite from an all-out U-boat offensive, giving her some time to recoup her losses and build up both merchant and naval shipping tonnage, as well as eventually goad the U.S. into the War. This mistake would ultimately cost Germany World War I.

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