Undaunted Defiance
On 10 December, Parnell arrived in Dublin to a hero's welcome. He and his followers later forcibly seized the offices of the party paper United Irishman. His prestige had risen to unprecedented heights, but the crisis crippled this support, and most rural nationalists turned against him. In the December North Kilkenny by-election, he attracted Fenian "hillside men" to his side. This ambiguity shocked former adherents, who clashed physically with his supporters, his candidate beaten by almost two to one. Deposed as leader, he fought a long and fierce campaign for re-instatement. He conducted a political tour of Ireland to re-establish popular support. In a North Sligo by-election, the defeat of his candidate by 2,493 votes to 3,261 was less resounding, the clergy not united.
He fulfilled his loyalty to Katharine when they married on 25 June 1891 in Steyning Register Office, after Parnell had unsuccessfully sought a church wedding. On the same day, the Irish Catholic hierarchy, worried by the number of priests who had supported him in North Sligo, signed and published a near-unanimous condemnation: "by his public misconduct, has utterly disqualified himself to be … leader." Only Bishop Edward O'Dwyer of Limerick withheld his signature. The Parnells took up residence in Brighton.
He returned to fight the third and last by-election in County Carlow, having lost the support of the Freeman's Journal when its proprietor Edmund Dwyer-Gray defected to the anti-Parnellites. On the difficult campaign trail, his health visibly worsened since Kilmainham Gaol and seriously deteriorating during the year, quicklime was thrown at his eyes by a hostile crowd in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny. Fr. P. J. Ryan, a Land League protagonist, called in medical aid given by his brother, Dr Valentine Ryan of Carlow, a Home Rule sympathiser. Parnell continued the exhausting life of an Irish public agitator, refused to regard parliamentary pressure as outmoded and looked to the next election to restore his fortunes. On 27 September, rather than disappoint his followers in the west, he addressed a crowd in pouring rain at Creggs on the Galway/Roscommon border, subjecting himself to a severe soaking. This was taking a great risk with his health, for Parnell was suffering from a serious kidney disease.
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