Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91), the greatest Irish politician of the late nineteenth century, forfeited leadership of the Irish Party in Westminster because of a divorce scandal, after a decade in which he had placed the Irish Question at the centre of British politics.

Victim of the Nonconformist Conscience and Catholic rectitude, he fought fiercely but died within a year, aged forty-five. On the occasion of the centenary of his death, Parnell's unyielding, tutelary presence inhabits an uncertain political landscape.

The Irish Question remains unresolved, while the enigma of the 'uncrowned king' has lost none of its fascination.