Kilmainham Treaty

Gladstone (left) and Parnell (right) negotiated the agreement using O'Shea (middle) as an intermediary. Unknown to the government, O'Shea's wife was Parnell's lover.

The Kilmainham Treaty was an informal agreement reached in May 1882 between Liberal British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone and the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. Whilst in gaol, Parnell moved in April 1882 to make a deal with the government, negotiated through Captain William O'Shea MP. The government would settle the "rent arrears" question allowing 100,000 tenants to appeal for fair rent before the land courts. Parnell promised to use his good offices to quell the violence and to co-operate cordially for the future with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles and measures of general reform.^[1] Gladstone released the prisoner and the agreement was a major triumph for Irish nationalism as it won abatement for tenant rent-arrears from the Government at the height of the Land War.^[2]