Each year at the Parnell Summer school (and the Spring Day) deals with a current topic of interest – in recent years the Irish media and education in Ireland have been considered. But space is also left for one or two papers annually devoted to further investigations of Parnell, Parnellism or of the period when ‘The Uncrowned King of Ireland’ was in his pomp. A number of those papers has now been collected by Professor Pauric Travers of St.Patrick’s, Drumcondra and Professor Donal McCartney (professor emeritus UCD) in a new volume Parnell Reconsidered and published by UCD Press.

In the words of the UCD Press website:

‘Among the questions reconsidered are what Parnell understood by Home Rule; his attitude to separatism and his position in the nationalist spectrum; his extraordinary relationship with Gladstone; the context and significance of his famous ne plus ultra speech delivered at Cork in January 1885 and his defiant manifesto ‘To the Irish people’, issued after the O’Shea divorce scandal; and the role of the United Ireland newspaper in his career and his sometimes troubled relationship with the Press generally. New and revealing perspectives are offered on Parnell’s attitude to religion; the impact of scandal on his career and reputation; the telling of national myth and the challenge to male authority presented by Anna Parnell and the Ladies Land League; the role of Paris in Parnell family history; and the part played by the drink trade in the nationalist movement and Parnell’s skilful response to conflicting demands in this area.’

The essay on the Parnellite newspaper United Ireland, entitled ‘Mr.Parnell’s rotweiler’ was written by yours truly and is a rather more pithy version of a Trinity College PhD thesis. It could also stand as an abstract of a book on the subject of William O’Brien’s newspaper that will be published by Irish Academic Press in 2014.

My thanks to Pauric and Donal for being wonderful, patient editors and to Donal for reading the damn thesis before it was submitted.

Link to UCD press website here