Katharine O'Shea
| Katharine Parnell | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
30 January 1846 Braintree, Essex |
| Died | 5 February 1921 (aged 75) |
| Residence | Eltham, Kent |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Gentlewoman |
| Spouse(s) |
William O'Shea Charles Stewart Parnell |
| Children | Gerard Norah Claude Sophie Claire Katharine |
Katharine Parnell (née Wood; 30 January 1846 – 5 February 1921), known before her second marriage as Katharine O'Shea, and usually called by friends Katie O'Shea and by enemies Kitty O'Shea, was an English woman of aristocratic background, whose decade-long secret adultery with Charles Stewart Parnell led to a widely publicized divorce in 1890 and his political downfall.
She was born in Braintree, Essex,on 30 January 1846, the daughter of Sir John Page Wood, 2nd Baronet (1796–1866), and granddaughter of Sir Matthew Wood, a former Lord Mayor of London. She had an elder brother who became Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood and was also the niece of both Western Wood MP (1804–1863) and Lord Hatherley, Gladstone's first Liberal Lord Chancellor.
Katharine married Captain William O'Shea in 1867, a Catholic Nationalist MP for County Clare from whom she separated around 1875. Katharine first met Parnell in 1880 and began a relationship with him. Three of Katharine's children were fathered by Parnell; the first, Claude Sophie, died early in 1882. The others were Claire (born 1883) and Katharine (born 1884). Captain O'Shea knew about the relationship. He challenged Parnell to a duel in 1881 and initially forbade his estranged wife to see him, although she said that he encouraged her in the relationship. However, he kept publicly quiet for several years. Although their relationship was a subject of gossip in London political circles from 1881, later public knowledge of the affair in an England governed by "Victorian morality" with a "nonconformist conscience" created a huge scandal, as adultery was prohibited by the Ten Commandments.
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