3-070-501 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The State of Ireland: Mr. Parnell interviewed in Kilmainham Jail, 1881. 'The warning of Mr. Gladstone on his visit to Leeds that the policy of plunder would be confronted by "all the forces of civilisation" having produced no effect, and the ascendency of the League having become week by week more apparent, Mr. Parnell and about a dozen of his confederates, including four M.P.s, were arrested about the middle of October and consigned to Kilmainham prison, and the Land League was proscribed as an illegal association. The adherents of the League were for a time stunned by this resolute action; but a manifesto, signed by the incarcerated leaders, was speedily issued, enjoining the tenant farmers to pay no rent until coercion had ceased - that is, till the suspects had been released...The private room occupied by Mr. Parnell in Kilmainham Gaol is that in which the Rev. Father Sheehy was lately confined. It is a comfortable and cheerful apartment, which has been furnished and supplied with books by gifts from the Ladies' Land League. Mr. Parnell is treated as a patient of the prison Infirmary, and is allowed special diet and other comforts'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.