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Charles
Stewart Parnell and Katherine O'Shea
Married
at Steyning on June 25th, 1891
(continued)
Pages
1 and 2
THE
SUSSEX DAILY NEWS, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1891.
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CONVERSATIONS
WITH MR. PARNELL
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SOME
IMPORTANT OPINIONS
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During the late Mr. Parnell's residence at Brighton, one of the few
local residents with whom he was on friendly terms, and with whom he
serveral times held converse on political subjects, was Mr. Edward
Cripps, solicitor, who holds among other offices that of Superintendent
Registrar of the Steyning Union. It was Mr. Cripps who conducted the
marriage of Mr.
and
Mrs. Parnell. The Irish Leader had interviews with him both before and
after the civil marriage, those subsequent to that ceremony having
relation to the arrangements necessary to be made to secure a second,
or religious, marriage service in Steyning Parish Church. Political
conversations of an interesting character took place during these
meetings of Mr. Cripps and Mr. Parnell, and the effect of them has just
been imparted by Mr. Cripps to a representative of the Sussex Daily News.
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A
HAPPY BRIDEGROOM
"What was your impression of Mr. Parnell, asked the representative of
the Sussex Daily News.
Mr.
Cripps - "Do you mean as to manner?" - "Yes."
"When I
first saw him he
had an absolutely frozen manner : not cold only, but frozen. He was
chilly ; but after the ice was broken he was quite 'joky,' and left me
with a joke. When I married him he struck me as one of the happiest
bridegrooms I had ever married. He struck me as a genial and affable
man, and the last words he said to me were : 'I hope we shall soon meet
again.' "
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The
complete piece is
available at Steyning Museum.
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Steyning
Register Office (left)
in 1905.
This picture
is held at Steyning Museum.
Steyning Register Office, on the corner of Church Street
and High
Street, is now a private house. The metal railings and the
steps
where Katherine and Charles would have alighted from their carriage,
are still there and the scene looks remarkably unchanged. Between 1837
and 1935, the office served 25 parishes, including Aldrington in Hove,
near
Brighton, where Katherine and Charles lived at the time of their
marriage. Parnell died at Aldrington just three months later, in his
wife's arms.
Come
Gather Round Me, Parnellites
Come gather round me, Parnellites,
And praise our chosen man;
Stand upright on your legs awhile,
Stand upright while you can,
For soon we lie where he is laid,
And he is underground;
Come fill up all those glasses
And pass the bottle round.
And here's a cogent reason,
And I have many more,
He fought the might of England
And saved the Irish poor,
Whatever good a farmer's got
He brought it all to pass;
And here's another reason,
That Parnell loved a lass.
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And here's a final reason,
He was
of such a kind
Every
man that sings a song
Keeps
Parnell in his mind.
For
Parnell was a proud man,
No
prouder trod the ground,
And a
proud man's a lovely man,
So
pass the bottle round.
The
Bishops and the party
That
tragic story made,
A
husband that had sold his wife
And
after that betrayed;
But
stories that live longest
Are
sung above the glass,
And
Parnell loved his country
And
Parnell loved his lass.
W.B. Yeats
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By
coincidence, the
great Irish poet, W.B.Yeats, stayed at Chantry House in Steyning with
the mistress of his later years, Edith Shackleton Heald.
The brochure produced for the event is held in Steyning Museum. It
states:
No one man has ever disturbed
the scene of British democratic politics so proufoundly as Charles
Stewart Parnell.
In
his maiden speech to the House of Commons in 1875 he asked: "Why should
Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England? Ireland is
not a geographical fragment but a nation"
He dominated British parliamentary life and no British Prime Minister
could rule without taking into account how Parnell might exercise his
authority.
His rise to power was meteoric - achieved in little more than ten years
of active political life. His fall was equally so and he died in Hove,
Sussex, on 6th October 1891 at the age of 45 with his wife Kathering
by his side.
During Parnell's lifetime almost three million Irish had either
emigrated or died of famine . . . .
Read
more at:
Wikipedia
The Parnell Society
Ivy Day in the Committee Room
(from the Dubliners by James Joyce)
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