Remembering Henry Harrison 1867-1954 Holywood Priory скачать в хорошем качестве

Remembering Henry Harrison 1867-1954 Holywood Priory

It's February 16th 2019 and I'm at Holywood Priory Cemetery Co Down with members of the University of the Third Age Holywood branch. We are here to pay tribute to the life, benevolence and historical contribution of one of Holywood's leading sons, Capt. Henry Harrison MC. Henry Harrison was of a rare breed. He was a Protestant nationalist. He was the son of Harrison was the son of Henry Harrison of Holywood and Ardkeen, Co. Down and of Letitia Tennent. She was the daughter of Robert James Tennent, who had been Liberal MP for Belfast from 1847 to 1852. The Harrisons owned substantial lands running into hundreds of acres in and around Holywood. Throughout his life Henry Harrison was well thought of by his tenants. He took great interest in their welfare and contributed time and money to improving their lives. Harrison was a close friend and supporter of Protestant, Charles Stuart Parnell, leading Irish National politician. Harrison acted as his bodyguard and aide-de-camp, and after Parnell’s death devoted himself to the service of his widow Katharine ( Kitty ) O'Shea this friendship with both Parnells was to form the seed of his later books. In 1889 the Irish Land War was in progress and Harrison went to Ireland to visit the scene of the evictions in Gweedore, Co. Donegal. He became involved in physical confrontations with the Royal Irish Constabulary and as a result became a Nationalist celebrity overnight. The following May, Parnell offered the vacant parliamentary seat of Mid-Tipperary to Harrison, who left Oxford, still aged only 22, to take it up, unopposed. So began Harrison's time as an Irish Nationalist politician at Westminister. Harrison was a lifelong opponent of Irish partition. He was Irish correspondent of The Economist from 1922 to 1927 and owner-editor of Irish Truth from 1924 to 1927. War Service When the Great War broke out Harrison served with the Royal Irish Regiment on the Western Front. He served with distinction and reached the rank of Captain and being awarded the MC. He organised patrols in "No Man's Land" so successfully that he was appointed special patrol officer to the 16th (Irish) Division. He was invalided out and became a recruiting officer in Ireland. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1919 New Year Honours. He lost his son John who was killed in the Gallipoli fiasco. In later life Harrison published two books defending Charles Stuart Parnell. They saw the light of day in 1931 and 1938. These two books had a major impact on Irish historiography, leading to a more favourable view of Parnell’s role in the O’Shea affair. F. S. L. Lyons commented that he "did more than anyone else to uncover what seems to have been the true facts" about the Parnell-O'Shea liaison. The second book, Parnell, Joseph Chamberlain and Mr Garvin, was written in response to J. L. Garvin's biography of Joseph Chamberlain, which had ignored Harrison’s first book, 'Parnell Vindicated: The Lifting of the Veil'. Later, Harrison successfully repulsed an attempt in the official history of The Times to rehabilitate that newspaper’s role in using forged letters to attack Parnell in the later 1880s. In 1952 he forced The Times to publish a four-page correction written by him as an appendix to the fourth volume of the history. Henry Harrison son of Holywood is buried in the family plot in Holywood Priory Cemetery Co Down. He deserves to be remembered.