"This account of the dramatic events of the Parnell split in Meath from 1890 challenges the accepted view the Irish priests could only lead their people in the political direction which they had already chosen. David Lawlor uses private papers and secret police reports as well as newspaper accounts to show how Bishop Thomas Nulty preached that no Parnellite voter could 'continue a Catholic' but then claimed election results as political victories." "Having broken the power of local Parnellites over their refusal to vote for a nun as Matron of Navan workhouse, the Bishop nominated Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, to unseat North Meath's Parnellite MP, Pierce Mahoney (who is commemorated in the name of Navan's GAA club). While the Parnellites successfully petitioned the courts to have Davitt's election - and that of Patrick Fulham, his colleague in South Meath - annulled because of 'undue clerical influence', new anti-Parnellite candidates narrowly won the ensuing by-elections. However, clerical interference in Meath politics provided damaging evidence of 'Rome rule' to Tories and Unionists opposing Gladstone's second Home Rule bill, which was lost in the Lords in 1893"--Jacket.