Patrick Geoghegan

We're coming to you this morning from the beautiful surroundings of Avondale in County Wicklow.

It's the first show of Newstalk's Summer Tour 2026 with thanks to ESB, the largest EV charging network.

I'm joined now by Patrick Gagan, historian and presenter of Talking History and director of the Trinity Long Room Hub.

Patrick, good morning and welcome.

Good morning, Pat.

Wonderful to be here.

When you come here, do you feel, to borrow from Tony Blair, the hand of history heavy on your shoulder?

Yeah.

Now tell me about the man himself.

Will you sort out Parnell or Parnell?

Or being posh or something.

Exactly.

But in terms of his thinking, I mean, he was the owner of, it has to be said, quite a large estate.

My goodness, I mean, it's hard to see how you would make ends meet here with a big estate, much of it walled, of course, and using local people as servants, because the one thing they weren't going to do without, were they, as a family?

But did he make that ring from Wicklow gold or not?

He was an astute political operator and you mentioned his obstructionism, which even people today will take lessons from.

So his legacy remains, his parliamentary legacy remains.

Now, in terms of what he achieved, what can we say that was definitely achieved by Charles Stuart Parnell?

Now, his difficulties, you talk about bringing the physical force tradition along with the, if you like, a more democratic tradition.

But at one point he had to more or less get himself jailed, didn't he?