Ireland's misfortune

"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 entirely changed for ever. Parnell's naming as corespondent in Kitty's divorce (and also as 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 relation 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, bound by very considerable financial and social restrictions, who none the less influenced the politics of her time with an acuity and sensitivity sorely lacking in her Irish lover."--BOOK JACKET.