Captain William Henry O'Shea (1840 – 22 April 1905) was an Irish soldier and Member of Parliament. 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 popularly as Kitty O'Shea, was an English woman of aristocratic background whose adulterous relationship with Irish ...

, 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 (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom from 1875 to 1891, Leader of the Home Rule Leag ...

Life

Born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

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

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

. 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 Gaol Kilmainham Gaol () is a former prison in Kilmainham, Dublin. It is now a museum run by the Office of Public Works, an agency of the Government of Ireland. Many Irish revolutionaries, including the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising (Patrick Pea ...

where he was being held on suspicion of "treasonable practices", the

President of the Board of Trade The president of the Board of Trade is head of the Board of Trade. A committee of the His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, it was first established as a temporary committee of inquiry in the 17th centur ...

Joseph Chamberlain Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal Party (UK), Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually was a leading New Imperialism, imperial ...

, 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 i ...

, O'Shea abstained from voting on the First Irish Home Rule bill 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 nati ...

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