Parnell and his ‘queen’
QUESTION Who named Kitty O’Shea the ‘uncrowned queen of Ireland’ and why? KITTY O’Shea, the mistress of Charles Stewart Parnell, was given her nickname of the ‘uncrowned queen of Ireland’ by Parnell himself, because of his overwhelming love for her and the influence she had on him.
Even though she never visited Ireland during her liaison with Parnell, her relationship with him had a deeply divisive effect on Irish public opinion and the subsequent Parnellite split had a devastating effect on Irish politics.
Katharine Wood was born in Essex in 1846 and in 1867, she married Captain William O’Shea, a Catholic nationalist MP for Co. Clare. They had two children.
The marriage proved rocky and in the summer of 1880, Parnell and Katharine O’Shea met for the first time at the Palace Yard in Westminster. Captain O’Shea had actually encouraged the two to meet, as he wanted to know Parnell better in order to further his own political career.
At that stage, Parnell was the uncrowned ‘king’ of Irish politics, as he strove to achieve Home Rule for Ireland.
The affair developed rapidly; by October 1880, Parnell was calling her his ‘love’, and by December that year, his ‘dearest wife’, even though she was still married to Captain O’Shea, from whom she was separated.
Later, in private, as a joke between the two of them, Parnell started calling her ‘Queenie’, part of the jesting between the couple that she was the uncrowned and hidden queen of the uncrowned king of Ireland .
In February 1882, Katharine had a daughter by Parnell, Claude Sophie, but the baby only lived for two months. Katharine went on to have two more children by Parnell – Claire and Katharine.
In 1881, Captain O’Shea had challenged Parnell to a duel over the affair, but it never happened. It wasn’t until December 1889 that Captain O’Shea filed for divorce, which was granted in November 1890. News of the affair had been commonplace in political circles in London from 1881 onwards and during the 1880s it crept into the public consciousness.
What Parnell and Katharine O’Shea had done was a huge break from strict Victorian morality.
Parnell’s enemies started calling her Kitty O’Shea, because Kitty was then a fashionable term for prostitute. The affair also had a hugely divisive effect on the campaign for Home Rule in Ireland. The split between supporters of Parnell and his enemies had a hugely divisive impact on Irish politics and had a dampening effect on the quest for independence for the next two decades.
As for Parnell and his mistress, they finally got married on June 25, 1891, but their joy was shortlived. Less than four months later, at their house in Hove, near Brighton, Parnell died in Kitty’s arms. He was just 45, his political career cut short at a young age.
Before his body was taken to Glasnevin for burial she placed on his breast an envelope with the rose that he had given her the first time they met. She didn’t come to Dublin for the funeral.
Kitty O’Shea lived for another 30 years, until 1921, but she never set foot in Ireland, a country whose history she had contributed so much to changing. So, in a way, she was indeed the uncrowned queen of Ireland.
Pauline Gaffney, via email. QUESTION What is a bezoar stone? Does it have medical properties? A BEZOAR is a rock-hard hairball or gallstone from the stomach of an animal such as a goat or llama. It usually takes the form of a reddish stone. The name is derived from two Persian words meaning ‘against’ and ‘poison’ and bezoar was thought from medieval times to be a powerful antidote to poisoning and as a curative medicine up to the 19th century.
The bezoar could be taken orally, rubbed over the body or worn. Several bezoar stones were discovered among the cherished items reclaimed from the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which was salvaged in 1985. In his Complete Herbal, Nicholas Culpeper, an English apothecary, proscribed: ‘Take of Pearls prepared, Crab’s eyes, red Coral, white Amber Hart’s-horn, oriental Bezoar, of each half an ounce, powder of the black tops of Crab’s claws, the weight of them all, beat them into powder, which may be made into balls with jelly, and the skins which our vipers have cast off, warily dried and kept for use.’
Culpeper remarks that ‘four, or five, or six grains is excellently good in a fever to be taken in any cordial, for it cheers the heart and vital spirits exceedingly, and makes them impregnable’.
Rather than having any genuine medical benefit, their popularity appears to have been based on folk memory alone. Charles XI, the 16th-century king of France, was a great believer in the bezoar. To prove it had no medicinal benefit, the renowned French barber surgeon Ambroise Paré proposed a cruel experiment.
A cook condemned to death for stealing silver cutlery was given a choice: strangulation or take a deadly poison and then be cured by the King’s bezoar stone.
The cook took the latter option and was given a large dose of the corrosive poison bichloride of mercury. Despite being treated with the bezoar stone, the cook reportedly suffered from vomiting, pain, bloody diarrhoea and kidney failure for seven hours before dying. The king ordered Paré to burn his stone.
The bezoar stone lives on in popular culture, featuring in the Harry Potter stories. When Ron Weasley was poisoned, Harry saved him with a bezoar. Rachel Matheson, Norfolk.
QUESTION People oft say ‘I’m as happy as Larry’. But who was Larry?
‘HAPPY as Larry’ is thought to be of Antipodean origin. The earliest published reference is from New Zealand writer G.L. Meredith in 1875: ‘We would be as happy as Larry if it were not for the rats.’
Another early citation is from Tom Collins (pen name of Australian writer Joseph Furphy), in Barrier Truth, 1903: ‘Now that the adventure was drawing to an end, I found a peace of mind that all the old fogies on the river couldn’t disturb. I was as happy as Larry.’
Some believe the original was Larry Foley (1847-1917), ‘father of Australian boxing’. It is, however, probably linked to ‘larrikin’, a stylishly dressed urban hooligan (think Peaky Blinders). The word was probably derived from the English dialect larrikin or larrie. Ian Bradshawe, Canterbury.
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