Charles Stewart Parnell

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Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882, and then of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1882 to 1891, holding the balance of power in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom during the Home Rule debates of 1885–1886. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891. He fell from power following revelations of a long-term affair, and died at the age of 45. Born into a powerful Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning family in County Wicklow, he was a land reform agitator and founder of the Irish National Land League in 1879. He became leader of the Home Rule League, operating independently of the Liberal Party, winning great influence by his balancing of constitutional, radical, and economic issues, and by his skilful use of parliamentary procedure. He was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, in 1882, but he was released when he renounced violent extra-parliamentary action...

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