Kitty O'Shea's – Daring to seek happiness
"It was a little thing to bear for the man who loved me as never woman has been loved before.”
It was a tragic love story.
Katie O’Shea was an MP’s wife in London. Her husband Willie had never been able to hold down any of the jobs his father had procured for him, but he had managed to become an MP with a constituency in Ireland – as was the political system in the 1880s. She had given him children, but he was hardly around, travelling back and forth between London and his constituency in Ireland.
As part of her duties, Katie started hosting dinner parties for her husband’s political contacts. She was told she had to invite the elusive Irish nationalist MP, Charles Parnell. When he did not respond to her invitations, she decided to hand-deliver a letter to him in Westminster.
On that first meeting, outside Parliament, it seems as though Charles instantly fell head over heels for Katie. They started a correspondence (most of the letters came from him), which turned into an intimate dinner where he was finally able to woo her. They fell in love and began an affair.
In Ireland, meanwhile, the case for Home Rule – and the violence which came with it – was building momentum. As the campaign’s figurehead, Charles was thrown into jail in 1881. During this time, Katie became the conduit between him and Gladstone, even meeting the prime minister to negotiate on Charles’s behalf. This was not due to any ardent support of Irish independence on her part – she had never even been to Ireland. She did it because she loved Charles. As historian Dr Elisabeth Kehoe says, “his cause became her cause.”
When Charles was released, he continued to visit Katie’s house, and by the mid-1880s newspapers began to run gossip pieces hinting at a cuckolded husband. Charles’s reputation began to suffer from the scandalous tittle tattle whispered among MPs in London and Ireland. Were the affair to be publicly confirmed, Charles’s position as the country’s premier campaigner for Irish Home Rule would be in tatters.
Katie’s husband Willie eventually filed for divorce in 1889, and the papers had a field day. The scandal was finally out in the open. Charles had a decision to make: Either publicly devote himself to Katie and shred his political career, or lose the love of his life for the sake of Ireland. His choice was clear. He said, according to Katie, “I have given, and will give, Ireland what is in me to give. That I have vowed to her, but my private life shall never belong to any country, but to one woman.”
It was Katie who was blamed for the collapse of Irish independence. Charles’s former allies turned on him and besmirched Katie’s name – she began to be referred to as “Kitty” in the press; an innuendo which inferred she was a serving maid or a prostitute. She would later write, “For me it was a little thing to bear for the man who loved me as never woman has been loved before.”
Elisabeth Kehoe sums up their story like this: “Both she and he are punished so hugely by society for daring to seek happiness, for daring to want to be together.”
Katie and Charles lost everything – money, careers, family – but they had each other. In 1891, after Katie’s divorce, they were finally free to marry. But the final chapter in this tragedy is a short one. Charles died of pneumonia in the arms of his wife three months after their wedding.
Kitty O’Sheas is your bog standard Irish chain pub in the middle of Edinburgh. I like it because the Guinness is great and it has big screens which show the football.
Where is it?
Where next?
You’re a couple of minutes away from The Oxford Bar.
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The chaser – Another beer garden gone
A bit of local pub news. One of my favourites, Dreadnought, has been told it can’t put tables outside, like it normally does when it’s sunny. A post on Instagram said their application had been rejected by the council, “presumably on the grounds that not enough small businesses are folding.”
Outside space is at a premium in Edinburgh pubs. Hardly any have beer gardens, which means it’s very difficult to find a spot in the sun when there’s weather like this. Hopefully the council will see sense – Dreadnought says it’s appealing the decision – and allow them to put tables back up soon.
Sources
Dr Elisabeth Kehoe is senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London and the author of Ireland’s Misfortune: the Turbulent Life of Kitty O’Shea (2008). Her quotes, and most of Katie and Charles’s story are from a 2020 episode of the Past Loves podcast. Katie O’Shea’s quotes are from her book Charles Stewart Parnell – His Love Story and Political Life, first published in 1914.
Thanks for the story, I had no idea!
I had never considered Kitty's as a place to go and watch sports. Maybe one to keep in mind. Personally I've only ever been there late at night when better judgement might have been to go home - that said, they have often had some great live music on!
Delightfully concise and informative historical summary, although I can't help but wonder—what happened to "Kitty" in the end? (Some research clearly needed on my part.) As for the bar, though, it fails two of my personal tests: you can't clearly see inside from the street, and it shows sports.