Sunday, March 6, 2011

About Me


     Hi there! My name is Charles Stewart Parnell or known to some as the “uncrowned King of Ireland”. I decided to document my experiences of my fight for freedom for my country, Ireland, but before we jump to those let us start from the very beginning. I was born on June 27, 1846 in Avondale, Co. Wicklow, to an Anglo-Irish protestant family. My parents were Henry Parnell and Delia Tudor Stewart. My mother had a hatred for England, which came from her father. Aside from that my family was huge! I was their third son, but the seventh child of my parents. They in all had eleven children. My great grandmother was part of the Tudor family so I was somewhat related to the British Royal Family. Although my family had relations to well positioned people, I had run into financial problems along with family conflicts as my parents had divorced when I was six. As a child I was sent to various schools. At school most of my classmates saw me as cold and reserved. I developed a fondness for cricket though, and I enjoyed mathematics, but I had no real interest in these studies. My unhappy childhood is not a memory I enjoy looking back upon. Then, my father had died when I was thirteen, but the estate I had inherited had financial problems. This caused me to drop out of my college at Magdalene since I was no longer able to afford my stay, thus I never received my degree. Some years later in 1867, I had found a form of salvation within nationalism and became rebel because of the execution of the “Manchester Martyrs”. Throughout the years I had ended up farming in Alabama on a tour of the United States with my older brother, John. A few years later in 1874 I had taken the position of High Sheriff in my home county of Wicklow. A year later I was elected to the House of Commons take the position for Home Rule League for Meath. I supported the Home Rule Party greatly and loyally. In 1879 I took on the position of the leader of the Irish Land League. Our purposes was to give tenants a fair rent, fixed tenure, free sale, and allow farmers to own land. We called for Parliament to make land reforms and had advocated Independence. I called for home rule which I felt was pretty reasonable. We would not have complete Independence, but we would be able to have our own parliament. I am grateful William Gladstone had tried to settle the conflicts between us, but the Parliament had disagreed to this decision. This of course angered me greatly. On 1879 I was elected President of the National Ireland Land League. I was arrested on October 13, 1881 though, because my newspaper, United Ireland had attacked the Land Act. They accused me for sabotaging the land act and we were suppressed. After the hardships we finally had a victory in 1885 when we had won every seat which allowed the Home Rule Bill of 1886 to be discussed, but my enemies were against it every bit of the way and I had been accused of many crimes I had not committed. I apologize for my non detailed explanations of my life, but as you can see my life has had many ups and downs, but I will go into detail about those events later.  
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