Class: Understanding Nineteenth Century Ireland. Widely considered the most important Irish political figure of the late nineteenth century, Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91) brilliantly convulsed and transformed Irish and British politics in his tumultuous career. This short course will place the genius of Parnell within his social, political and cultural contexts while paying particular attention to his infamous love affair with Kitty O’Shea and his legacy as an inspirational figure for James Joyce and William Butler Yeats in the Irish Literary Revival. The course is ideal for anyone who always wished to understand one of the great figures responsible for the transformation of Ireland after the Famine of the 1840s and before the revolutionary period beginning in 1916.
Instructor: Patrick O’Donnell