Anna Catherine Parnell was born May 13th 1852 at the family estate of Avondale in Co Wicklow.

BY PAULINE MURPHY

The artistic younger sister of Irish statesman Charles Stewart Parnell spent her youth in Paris and London where she studied art.

Anna became political when her brother Charles was elected a Home Rule MP and she often joined him at Westminster where, when allowed, she would cheer him on from the public gallery.

In 1879 Anna travelled to the United States where she fundraised  alongside her sister Fanny for the relief of evicted tenant farmers in Ireland.

After a year stateside Anna returned to Ireland where she organised a female wing of the National Land League.

She travelled throughout Ireland to promote the aims of the Ladies Land League and on Wednesday March 30th 1881 she arrived in Ballydehob to address an open air Land League meeting.

A large crowd had assembled in the village to welcome Anna. She made her way through throngs of cheering well-wishers to where the meeting took place. From on top of a large rock in a field where Scoil Bhride now stands, Anna Parnell delivered a fiery address to those gathered.

The public meeting was banned by the crown authorities but, it did not deter thousands who turned up for it. The head of the local Land League branch, Richard Hodnett, had spent the days leading up to the meeting traveling around the area to advertise the meeting.

In her speech Anna poured scorn on those who carried out mass evictions. She pledged her support for the tenant famer and asked in return for people to stick to the Land League principals.

When Anna finished her speech she was followed by John O’Connor who had been an active Fenian in the uprising of 1867.

He praised the Land League activists of West Cork, in particular Richard Hodnett.

The meeting had a clear effect on the local area because the following days and weeks saw an increase in physical activity, or as The Irish Times reported it: ‘Outrages in West Cork!”

The plaque erected in Ballydehob to mark Anna Parnell’s historic speech to Land League supporters in 1881.

Activism grew across the Ballydehob district and beyond. Trees and furze were set alight on the lands of unfavourable landlords while civil bill officers on their way to hand out eviction orders on tenants were met enroute by masked men armed with blackthorn sticks.

As activity grew more intense across West Cork a number of local Land League members were arrested including Richard Hodnett who was led away in handcuffs on April 25th, just one month after he hosted Anna Parnell in Ballydehob.

A year after her speech in West Cork Anna took on a bigger role in the Land League movement when her brother Charles was arrested. Anna and the Ladies Land League fundraised £60,000 and built huts for evicted tenants but, some male members of the Land League felt outdone by the fiery females led by Anna.

The disgruntled men went to Anna’s imprisoned brother with their grievances and when he was released Charles asked Anna to dissolve the Ladies Land League. It left her very bitter and she never spoke to her brother again.

1881 was a cruel year for Anna when her beloved sister Fanny died from a heart attack. Shortly after Anna suffered a mental breakdown and attempted suicide. She left Ireland following her recovery and settled in Cornwall where she lived under the name Cerisa Palmer.

Her final resting place.

Anna remained resentful towards her treatment by the Land League movement and in 1904 she penned a stinging memoir called The Tale of the Great Sham. She remained a reclusive figure and lived in poverty in the south of England but, she did make one public appearance in 1907 when she publicly pledged her support for the newly formed Sinn Fein party.

Anna went for a swim on the afternoon of September 20th 1911 at Ilfracombe, a coastal village in Devon. 59 year old Anna never came back on shore and her body was later recovered by fishermen. Anna’s death went unnoticed in Ireland, even her family were unaware of her death until after she was buried in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church, Devon.

Years later Anna’s sister Theodosia erected a headstone over her final resting place and in 2002 The Parnell Society placed a plaque there.

In Ballydehob the visit of Anna Parnell is remembered with a plaque at the spot where she addressed the massive Land League rally 145 years ago. The commemorative plaque has the opening lines of Anna’s speech: A month ago I did not know there was such a place as Ballydehob but now I know there is such a place, I think it is the grandest place in the world. Do you know when I first heard of the name Ballydehob I thought to myself there is a sound about the name that looks as if there was some back bone in the place, there is a kind of fighting sound in the word Ballydehob and I am sure from what I have seen that Ballydehob will not be the first place to go back of the Land League.