Homage at grave of Irish hero's wife

This was the first time ever that a group of people from Ireland had visited the grave of Katharine Parnell, wife of 19th century Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell, who had fought tirelessly for Irish home rule.

The society visited Katharine's grave in Littlehampton Cemetery to unveil a special plaque made from Wicklow granite and laid a bunch of white roses, bred especially in her name, to put right "a great historical wrong".

The Irish people persecuted Katharine for her clandestine affair with the political leader, which began in 1881, while she was married to Irish MP William O'Shea.

And their furore was further fuelled in 1889 when the couple went public and Captain O'Shea sued for divorce. Following the divorce, the couple married at Steyning Register Office.

Addressing society members, its president Professor Donal McCartney said they were standing by the grave of someone who was more hated than perhaps any other woman in the whole of Irish history.

The society wanted to commemorate Katharine Parnell because she was one of the most important and most loved women in Parnell's life and they wanted to remember her with dignity and respect.

"It is a case of repatriating her memory," said Professor McCartney. "This is a big piece of revisionism of Irish history.

"She was anything but an enemy of Ireland. She believed in everything Parnell stood for, even though she herself was a non-political woman."

The society wanted to commission a white rose, as she wore one in her buttonhole when she first met Parnell in 1881. As she leaned forward, he picked it up and put it in his buttonhole and she found it pressed in an envelope after his death in 1891, of rheumatic fever.

Katharine spent the last few years of her life in a small house in Littlehampton, looked after by her daughter, Norah O'Shea, until her death in 1921.