Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell (June 27 1846 – October 6 1891) was an Irish political leader and one of the most important figures in 19th century Ireland and the United Kingdom; William Ewart Gladstone thought him the most remarkable person he had ever met. A future Liberal Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, described him as one of the three or four greatest men of the nineteenth century, while Lord Haldane described him as the strongest man the British House of Commons had seen in 150 years.

The Piggott forgeries

In March 1887, Parnell found himself accused by the British newspaper The Times of support for the murders of the Chief Secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, T.H. Burke. Burke and Cavendish had been brutally stabbed to death on May 6 1882 in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Letters were published which suggested Parnell was complicit in the murders. However a Commission of Enquiry, set up to destroy Parnell, vindicated him, as did a libel action instituted by him, when it was revealed in February 1890 that the letters were in fact a fabrication created by Richard Piggott, an anti-Parnell journalist who promptly committed suicide. He then took The Times to court for libel and in an out court settlement they paid him £5,000 in damages.

Related Topics:
The Times - Murders - Chief Secretary for Ireland - Lord Frederick Cavendish - T.H. Burke - May 6 - 1882 - Phoenix Park - Libel - 1890 - Richard Piggott

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