Kitty O'Shea (1846-1921) was at the centre of one of the most notorious scandals of the late Victorian Age - a scandal which brought the downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the movement for Home Rule for Ireland and crippling damage to the movement itself.

In 1889, Parnell was named co-respondent in a divorce suit brought by one of his own MPs, Captain Willie O'Shea. Alleged to have conducted an ten-year affair with Mrs Katherine O'Shea, Parnell was also revealed to be the father of the three youngest O'Shea children. The divorce and the details it exposed was a great public scandal in Victorian England and Catholic Ireland. Yet Parnell refused to resign from his leadership of the Home Rule movement, which resulted in the split of his party.