1. Katharine Parnell, known before her second marriage as Katharine O'Shea and popularly as Kitty O'Shea, was an English woman of aristocratic background whose adulterous relationship with Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell led to a widely publicised divorce in 1890 and his political downfall.
Katharine O'Shea had an elder brother who became Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood and was the niece of both Western Wood MP and Lord Hatherley, Gladstone's first Liberal Lord Chancellor.
In 1867, Katharine married Captain William O'Shea, a Catholic Nationalist MP for County Clare from whom she separated around 1875.
Katharine O'Shea first met Parnell in 1880 and began an affair with him.
Three of Katharine O'Shea's children were fathered by Parnell; the first, Claude Sophie, died early in 1882.
Katharine O'Shea challenged Parnell to a duel in 1881 and initially forbade his estranged wife to see him, although she said that he encouraged her in the relationship.
Out of her family connection to the Liberal Party, Katharine O'Shea acted as liaison between Parnell and Gladstone during negotiations prior to the introduction of the First Irish Home Rule Bill in April 1886.
Captain Katharine O'Shea filed for divorce in 1889; his reasons are a matter for speculation.
Catholic Ireland felt a sense of shock when Katharine O'Shea broke the vows of her previous marriage by marrying Parnell on 25 June 1891.
Katharine O'Shea lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity and is buried in Littlehampton, West Sussex, England.
Katharine's other daughter by Parnell, Katharine O'Shea, married Arthur Moule of the East Lancashire Regiment; she died in an asylum.