Parnell Reconsidered ed. by Pauric Travers, Donal McCartney (review)

Is there still room for collected volumes in an era of declining scholarly publishing and even faster diminishing library book purchases? Often assembled from several conference panels, these books typically bring together a number of essays on a common theme, topic, or figure. In some cases the commonalities between the essays end there, leading, as often as not, to staid and mechanical reviews that simply walk through the chapters. The best of these volumes feature essays that are in dialogue and collectively advance some shared thesis. Parnell Reconsidered falls somewhere between these models, but cohesion is not the sole criteria for judging a collected volume. Relatively few people read this type of book in its entirety, turning instead to the essay or essays that apply directly to their own research. Therefore, perhaps a better indicator of a collected volume’s success is how many of its essays are cited in and inform other work in the years after publication. A good volume should offer essays that will contribute to a variety of subfields within the larger topic. Judged by these standards, Parnell Reconsidered passes the test and in doing so demonstrates why these books of specialized essays that might not otherwise appear elsewhere are still important and useful to scholars.

The subject of this volume, Charles Stewart Parnell, the so-called Uncrowned King of Ireland, continues to fascinate, as evidenced by a fairly steady stream of journal articles and essays published over the past twenty years. It has been longer than that since the last long form biography of Charles Stewart Parnell appeared, but the last few years have seen the publication of an important study by Paul Bew in 2011, a revised version of Alan O’Day’s classic short biography in 2013, and a highly readable historical novel told through the eyes of Parnell’s secretary James Harrison by Brian J. Cregan in 2013. Popular interest in Parnell is also evidenced by the great success of the Parnell Society and its annual Summer School at Avondale, now nearing their thirtieth year. Edited by the current President and Chairperson of the Parnell Society, Donal McCartney and Pauric Travers, this collection brings together eleven essays read at Society meetings and related events in 2010 and 2011.

The essays can be roughly divided into two groups: those that explore Parnell’s thought and political philosophy and those that illuminate more broadly (and sometimes tangentially) the political and social world in which he lived and operated. Two of the essays from the latter group also examine Parnell in his most famous role: the political tightrope walker who uniquely managed to assemble and lead a disparate transatlantic coalition of Irish nationalists and others and for a time bring this coalition into partnership with William Gladstone and the Liberal party. D. G. Boyce’s essay explores this latter relationship with particular emphasis on Gladstone, the “concerned schoolmaster” to Parnell’s head boy (39). Boyce offers a generous and convincing verdict that both men “had an honesty of purpose” and that, as they saw it, their aims (to bolster the Union and establish an Irish legislature, respectively) were not incompatible (43). The alliance Parnell forged with Gladstone’s party and its nonconformist base presented a genuine threat to the economic interests of Parnell’s supporters in the Irish drink trade, who were important allies in grassroots political mobilization. Fionnuala Waldron examines how the Irish leader ably balanced between the temperance and drink interests, in part through his trademark ambiguity and strategic silences but more importantly with his demand that the Irish drink question could only be properly addressed by a native legislature.

One group that Parnell could not successfully co-opt was the Ladies’ Land League, led in part by his sister Anna. Margaret Ward demonstrates how Anna and her compatriots resolutely refused the gendered and relatively minor role assigned to them by the male leaders of the Land League, envisioning their organization as a solidly...