William O'Shea
{{Short description|Irish soldier and Member of Parliament (1840-1905)}}
{{about||the Irish Olympic boxer|William O'Shea (boxer)|the American Roman Catholic bishop|William O'Shea (bishop)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix =
| name = William O'Shea
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| image = CaptWilliamOShea.jpg
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| caption = O'Shea {{circa|1880}}
| office = Member of Parliament for Galway Borough
| term_start = 1886
| term_end = 1886
| constituency =
| majority =
| predecessor = T. P. O'Connor
| successor = John Pinkerton
| office2 = Member of Parliament for Clare
| term_start2 = 1880
| term_end2 = 1885
| predecessor2 = James Patrick Mahon
Lord Francis Conyngham
| successor2 = Constituency abolished
| majority2 =
| alongside2 = James Patrick Mahon
| birth_date = 1840
| birth_place = Dublin, Ireland, UK
| death_date = 22 April 1905 (aged 65)
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| party = Independent Nationalist
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| spouse = {{marriage|Katharine O'Shea|1867|1890|end=divorced}}
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| allegiance = {{Flag|United Kingdom}}
| branch = British Army
| serviceyears =
| rank = Captain
| unit = 18th Royal Hussars
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Captain William Henry O'Shea (1840 – 22 April 1905) was an Irish soldier and Member of Parliament. He is best known for being the ex-husband of Katharine O'Shea, the long-time mistress of the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell.
Life
Born in Dublin, O'Shea was a captain in the 18th Hussars of the British Army.
Around 1880, his wife, Essex born Katharine O'Shea, entered into a relationship with the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell, with whom she had three children. O'Shea, who was already separated from his wife, knew of the relationship.
In 1882 when the Liberal government was secretly negotiating with Parnell for the terms of his release from Kilmainham Gaol where he was being held on suspicion of "treasonable practices", the President of the Board of Trade, Joseph Chamberlain, chose O'Shea as its intermediary, unaware of Parnell's affair with Mrs O'Shea or of the fact that the newly born first child of their liaison was dying.{{sfn|Marsh|1994|p=153}} O’Shea spent 6 hours negotiating with Parnell in the prison, extracting the surprising concession that Parnell would tacitly support the Government after his release. It has been suggested that O’Shea won this concession, which reflected well on him, by threatening Parnell with public exposure of his affair with Mrs O’Shea.{{sfn|Bew|2011|pp=92–94}}
In 1886, following insinuations of the Parnell affair and O'Shea's complicity in it appearing in the Pall Mall Gazette, O'Shea abstained from voting on the First Irish Home Rule bill and resigned his parliamentary seat the following day.{{sfn|Bew|2011|pp=138–139}} However, he only filed for divorce on 24 December 1889 after his wife's aunt, from whom he was expecting a large inheritance, died earlier that year leaving her estate in trust for his wife (thus allegedly violating the terms of O'Shea's marriage contract).{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pp=322–323}}{{sfn|Bew|2011|pp=165–168}} However, that will was overturned upon appeal, and the aunt's legacy was shared among Katharine O'Shea's siblings.
After the divorce the two surviving children of Parnell and Katharine O'Shea were given into Captain O'Shea's custody.
O'Shea was MP for Clare from 1880 to 1885 and Galway Borough for a short period in 1886. Although supported by Parnell, he was never a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party.
References
{{reflist}}
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite book |last1=Bew |first1=Paul |title=Enigma - A New Life of Charles Stewart Parnell |date=2011 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |isbn=9780717147441 }}
- {{cite journal|last=Dungan|first= Myles|title=The Captain and the Fenians: William Henry O'Shea and The IRB|journal= History Ireland|volume= 17|issue=5|pages= 34–37|date= 2009|jstor=40588420}}
- {{cite journal|title=The Captain and the King: William O'Shea, Parnell and Late Victorian Ireland, by Myles Dungan|first=Jane |last=Jordan|journal=Victorian Studies|volume= 54|issue= 1 |pages=133–134 |date=Autumn 2011|publisher = Indiana University Press|doi= 10.2979/victorianstudies.54.1.133|jstor=10.2979/victorianstudies.54.1.133 |s2cid=141551085 }}
- {{cite journal|last=MacGuinness|first= Kevin|title=Myles Dungan and the Fenians|journal=History Ireland|volume= 17|issue= 6|date= 2009|pages= 14|jstor=40588443.}}
- {{cite book |last1=Marsh |first1=Peter T |title=Joseph Chamberlain - Entrepreneur in Politics |date=1994 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven and London |isbn=0300058012 }}
- {{cite journal|title=Jilted—Parnell and the American Heiress|first=John F.|last= Quinn|journal=History Ireland|volume= 23|issue= 1 |pages=26–28|date= 2015|publisher= Wordwell |jstor=43234635}}
{{refend}}
External links
- {{Hansard-contribs | mr-william-oshea | William O'Shea }}
- {{Rayment-hc|external links=y|date=March 2012}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-par|uk}}
{{s-bef | before=James Patrick Mahon
Lord Francis Conyngham}}
{{s-ttl
| title = Member of Parliament for Clare
| with = James Patrick Mahon
}}
{{s-non | reason = Constituency abolished}}
{{succession box |title=Member of Parliament for Galway Borough|before=T. P. O'Connor|after=John Pinkerton|years=1886–1886}}
{{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oshea, William}}
Category:18th Royal Hussars officers
Category:19th-century Irish people
Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Clare constituencies (1801–1922)
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