Parnell Commission

The Parnell Commission was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880's into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.

On 6 May, 1882 two leading members of the British Government in Ireland, Chief Secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, T.H. Burke.were stabbed to death in Phoenix Park, Dublin by the Irish National Invincibles.

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

Parnell immediately declared the letter a forgery. 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 nearly two years. In February 1889, one of the witnesses, Richard Piggott, 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.

In an out-of-court settlement Parnell accepted £5,000 in damages. When Parnell re-entered parliament after he was vindicated, he received a standing ovation from his fellow MPs.

A balanced and up-to-date overview of the "Parnellism and Crime" affair is given by T. W. Moody (1968), who was able to take advantage of the important modern contributions of Henry Harrison in the 1940s and 1950s and of Leon Ó Broin in the 1960s.

References

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
* [http://www.usna.edu/EnglishDept/ilv/parnell.htm "The Gift of Hope"]