“Perhaps the most striking feature of Professor Paul Bew’s book is how much is packed into so little space...his trick is not to dwell on the nuances of Parnell’s upbringing...but to examine forensically every dramatic episode of the epic life”  Michael Foley, The Sunday Times ‘A significant new assessment of Charles Stewart Parnell and his place in the politics of his period which is at once a masterpiece of compression and of clarity of expression.’ Maurice Hayes, Irish Independent ‘A riveting portrait ... “astonishing” scarcely does justice to the political achievements of the deeply strange, even dysfunctional man at the heart of Bew’s book … How are we to reconcile the sleep-walking, paranoid inadequate who obsessed about the colour green and the number 13, with the parliamentary titan who came to terrify the Speaker of the Commons with his deadly procedural prowess by 1880?’ John-Paul McCarthy, The Spectator ‘Bew’s magnificent study leaves a deepened appreciation of the force of Joyce’s characterisation of Parnell as an Irish leader who was “strong to the verge of weakness”.’ Frank Callanan, The Sunday Independent