Death
He returned to Dublin, departing by mail boat on 30 September ("I shall be all right. I shall be back next Saturday week."). He died in his home at 10 Walsingham Terrace, Hove (now replaced by Dorset Court, Kingsway) on 6 October 1891 of a heart attack and in the arms of his wife Katharine (formerly Katharine O'Shea). He was 45 years of age. Though an Anglican, his funeral at the Irish National nondenominational Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin on 11 October was attended by more than 200,000 people. His notability was such that his gravestone of unhewn Wicklow granite, erected in 1940, reads only "Parnell".
His brother John Howard inherited the Avondale estate. He found it heavily mortgaged and eventually sold it in 1899. Five years later, at the suggestion of Horace Plunkett it was purchased by the state. It is open to public view and is where the "Parnell Society" holds its annual August summer school. The "Parnell National Memorial Park" is in nearby Rathdrum, County Wicklow. The capital city Dublin commemorated Parnell with the naming of Parnell Street and Parnell Square. At the north end of O'Connell Street stands the Parnell Monument. This was planned and organised by John Redmond, who chose the American Augustus Saint Gaudens to sculpt the statue, and which was eventually completed in 1911.
He is also commemorated on the first Sunday after the anniversary of his death on October 6, known as "Ivy Day", which originated when the mourners at his funeral in 1891, taking their cue from a wreath of ivy sent by a Cork woman "as the best offering she could afford", took ivy leaves from the walls and stuck them in their lapels. Ever after, the ivy leaf became the Parnellite emblem, worn by his followers when they gathered to honour their lost leader.
Read more about this topic: Charles Stewart Parnell
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“You listen to artists fighting with each other, competing to the death like gladiators, in order to see who is going to get into a show, who is going to make it, who isn’t: who is going to get a full-page ad and who is going to get a half-page. Then I think, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go off somewhere and just do your work?””
—Howardena Pindell (b. 1943)
“Most of the folktales dealing with the Indians are lurid and romantic. The story of the Indian lovers who were refused permission to wed and committed suicide is common to many places. Local residents point out cliffs where Indian maidens leaped to their death until it would seem that the first duty of all Indian girls was to jump off cliffs.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Because you live, O Christ,
the spirit bird of hope is freed for flying,
our cages of despair no longer keep us closed and life-denying.
The stone has rolled away and death cannot imprison!
O sing this Easter Day, for Jesus Christ has risen!”
—Shirley Erena Murray (20th century)