Charles Stewart Parnell is not just one of the key figures of modern Irish history: he is also one of the most enigmatic. He was a wealthy, Protestant landlord who led a largely Catholic land reform and nationalist movement. He was an apparently cold, aloof man whose political downfall was precipitated by his passionate love affair with another man's wife. He was not a great orator in a country that loves oratory, yet he dominated its public life as no man has done before or since.