Captain William Henry O'Shea (1840 – 22 April 1905) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

soldier and

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

. He is best known for being the ex-husband of

Katharine O'Shea Katharine Parnell (née Wood; 30 January 1846 – 5 February 1921), known before her second marriage as Katharine O'Shea, and usually called Katie O'Shea by friends and Kitty O'Shea by enemies, was an English woman of aristocratic background ...

, the long-time mistress of the Irish nationalist leader

Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of the ...

Life

Born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, O'Shea was a captain in the 18th Hussars of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. Around 1880, his wife, Essex born Katharine O'Shea, entered into a relationship with the Irish nationalist leader

, with whom she had three children. O'Shea, who was already separated from his wife, knew of the relationship. In 1882 when the Liberal Government was secretly negotiating with Parnell for the terms of his release from Kilmainham prison where he was being held on suspicion of "treasonable practices", the President of the Board of Trade

Joseph Chamberlain Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the Cons ...

chose O’Shea as its intermediary, unaware of Parnell's affair with Mrs O’Shea or of the fact that the newly born first child of their liaison was dying. O’Shea spent 6 hours negotiating with Parnell in the prison, extracting the surprising concession that Parnell would tacitly support the Government after his release. It has been suggested that O’Shea won this concession, which reflected well on him, by threatening Parnell with public exposure of his affair with Mrs O’Shea. In 1886, following insinuations of the Parnell affair and O'Shea's complicity in it appearing in the

Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...

, O'Shea abstained from voting on the

Irish Home Rule bill The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the e ...

and resigned his parliamentary seat the following day. However, he only filed for divorce on 24 December 1889 after his wife's aunt, from whom he was expecting a large inheritance, died earlier that year leaving her estate in trust for his wife (thus allegedly violating the terms of O'Shea's marriage contract). However, that will was overturned upon appeal, and the aunt's legacy was shared among Katharine O'Shea's siblings. After the divorce the two surviving children of Parnell and Katharine O'Shea were given into Captain O'Shea's custody. O'Shea was MP for Clare from 1880 to 1885 and Galway Borough for a short period in 1886. Although supported by Parnell, he was never a member of the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish national ...

References

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External links

* * 1840 births 1905 deaths 18th Royal Hussars officers 19th-century Irish people Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Clare constituencies (1801–1922) Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Galway constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1880–1885 UK MPs 1885–1886 {{Ireland-UK-MP-stub