Patrick Geoghegan

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?

managed to get himself imprisoned in Kilmainham jail, it gave him some bona fides.

Now, we heard a woman in the Vox Pop earlier from Sarah's report saying she didn't like him.

So was he a nice man or not?

But was it not an open secret, though, that he was having this affair with Catherine O'Shea?

Because, I mean, the husband was involved in negotiations.

I mean, he was very much part of the movement.