Parnell Commission
The Parnell Commission, officially Special Commission on Parnellism and Crime, was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.
Background
On 6 May 1882 two leading members of the British Government in Ireland, Chief Secretary for Ireland
In March 1887, The Times published a series of articles, "Parnellism and Crime", in which Home Rule League leaders were accused of being involved in murder and outrage during the land war. The Times produced a number of facsimile letters, allegedly bearing Parnell's signature and in one of the letters Parnell had excused and condoned the murder of T.H. Burke in the Phoenix Park.
In particular the newspaper had paid £1,780 for a letter supposedly written by Parnell to
Also on 18 April the Perpetual Crimes Act had its second reading and debate in the Commons. It appeared to nationalists that it was more than coincidental that the Times article on the letter was published on the same day and was obviously intended to sway the debate.[2]
The Commission
After considerable argument, the government eventually set up a Special Commission to investigate the charges made against Parnell and the Home Rule party. The commission sat for 128 days between September 1888 and November 1889. In February 1889, one of the witnesses, Richard Pigott, admitted to having forged the letters; he then fled to Madrid, where he shot himself. Parnell's name was fully cleared and The Times paid a large sum of money by way of compensation after Parnell brought a libel action. His principal lawyer was Charles Russell, who later become Lord Chief Justice. Russell also wrote an influential book about the case.
In an out-of-court settlement Parnell accepted £5,000 in damages. While this was less than the £100,000 he sought, the legal costs for The Times brought its overall costs to £200,000.
The Commission did not limit itself to the forgeries, but also examined at length the surrounding circumstances, and in particular the violent aspects of the
- Nationalists were pleased that Parnell had been heroically vindicated, in particular against The Times which had become a supporter of the high Lord Salisbury.
- Unionists conceded that Parnell was innocent, but pointed to a surrounding mass of sworn evidence that suggested that some of his MPs had condoned or advocated violence in such a way that murders were inevitable. They also made much of the fact that Pigott had formerly been a Nationalist supporter and was clearly deranged.
Historiography
A balanced and up-to-date overview of the "Parnellism and Crime" affair is given by
References
Sources
- Primary
- Special Commission to inquire into Charges and Allegations against certain M.P.s in Proceedings in Action of O'Donnell v. Walter (1890). Report. HMSO. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
- "Ireland—Special Commission (1888) Report". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 21 March 1890. HL Deb vol 342 cc1357-497.
- Secondary
- Memoirs of Tim Healy, barrister and Nationalist MP; Chapter 23, "Collapse of Piggott 1888–89" / Chapter 24, "Parnell's Triumph"
- Charles Russell; "The Parnell Commission: The Opening Speech for the Defence Delivered" (Macmillan and Co., London 1889)
- Leon Ó Broin, Comhcheilg sa Chaisleán (Conspiracy in the Castle), Dublin, 1963 (later expanded and published in English)
- Henry Harrison, Parnell, Joseph Chamberlain and The Times, Belfast and Dublin, 1953
- T. W. Moody, "The Times versus Parnell and Co., 1887–90", Historical Studies (Papers read before the Irish Conference of Historians), VI, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968
- Sir Robert Anderson's 'Parnellism and Crime articles'
Citations
- ISBN 0-7538-1091-3
- ^ "Hansard; Irish debate 18 April 1887". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 18 April 1887. Archived from the original on 21 June 2009. Retrieved 2 May 2009.
- ^ A Roberts, Salisbury op cit, p.454.
- ISBN 978-1-84682-265-0.
- ^ "New York Times article, 17 July 1889" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 September 2021. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-904890-58-4, pp. 217–263.
- ISBN 978-1-84588-698-1