Charles Stewart Parnell divorce case featured in newly published letters

William O’Brien, MP, has published letters he received from the former leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Charles Stewart Parnell, in the period between the notorious O’Shea divorce case and Parnell’s death. O’Brien has published the letters to show that the decision that was made at the time of the divorce case in 1889 not to allow Parnell to give evidence to the court was a disaster. O’Brien contends that if Parnell had been allowed to speak he would not only have demonstrated that he was a victim, and not, as he was painted, the destroyer of a happy home. This in turn would have meant that Parnell’s career would not have been fatefully damaged and the course of history may have been altered. O’Brien’s arguments and extracts from the Parnell letters have been published in the latest issue of the Cork Free Press.