Parnell

Q: What does the surname Parnell mean?

From the Old French Pernelle, the standard mediaeval French short form of the Latin Petronilla (the female form of Peter, after the obscure Roman martyr Saint Petronilla). The name was a popular mediaeval English-girl's name, and the genitive 's' attached to it produced the surname in the standard patronymic-from-mother fashion. The Parnells of Avondale in County Wicklow trace to a Cheshire-Parnell line settled in Ireland under Cromwell, given the lands of Avondale in the 1660s. The surname is rare in Ireland and is overwhelmingly associated with the single famous family. The Parnells of Avondale in County Wicklow descend from Thomas Parnell, a Cheshire Cromwellian officer granted the Avondale estate at Rathdrum in 1660s.

also Parnall

The Cheshire-Parnells of Avondale, and the uncrowned king of Ireland.

Origin: Leinster, Ireland
Famous bearer: Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), Member of Parliament, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party
Register: Irish family

Territory of Parnell

CoreHistoric reach

The seat of Parnell

Seat vacant

Chief

No one leads the Parnell community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.

Current mission

No shared goal set yet. Once Parnell has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.

The Parnell clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.

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What does the Parnell name mean?

From the Old French Pernelle, the standard mediaeval French short form of the Latin Petronilla (the female form of Peter, after the obscure Roman martyr Saint Petronilla). The name was a popular mediaeval English-girl's name, and the genitive 's' attached to it produced the surname in the standard patronymic-from-mother fashion. The Parnells of Avondale in County Wicklow trace to a Cheshire-Parnell line settled in Ireland under Cromwell, given the lands of Avondale in the 1660s. The surname is rare in Ireland and is overwhelmingly associated with the single famous family.

The history of Parnell

The Parnells of Avondale in County Wicklow descend from Thomas Parnell, a Cheshire Cromwellian officer granted the Avondale estate at Rathdrum in 1660s. The family rose through the eighteenth century into the Anglo-Irish Protestant gentry; Sir John Parnell, 2nd Baronet (1744–1801), was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer and a principal opponent of the Act of Union of 1800.

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), Sir John's great-great-grandson, was born at Avondale, educated at Cambridge, elected MP for Meath in 1875, and became, by the mid-1880s, the uncrowned king of Ireland: leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, founder of the Land League with Michael Davitt, principal political architect of the nineteenth-century Irish-Catholic-tenant movement against the Anglo-Irish landlord class, and the political force behind Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill of 1886.

His career was destroyed in November 1890 by the public exposure of his decade-long affair with Katharine O'Shea, the wife of his fellow MP Captain William O'Shea. The split of the Irish Parliamentary Party in December 1890 (between the anti-Parnellite majority and the Parnellite minority) collapsed the nationalist political momentum and effectively delayed Irish Home Rule for a generation. Parnell died of pneumonia at his home in Brighton, by the side of Katharine (whom he had married in June 1891, three months before his death), on the sixth of October 1891. He was forty-five.

Champions of the Parnell name

The bearers whose lives are inseparable from this surname. Each has its own page — biography, achievements, geography, connection to the family.

Charles Stewart Parnell
The Wicklow Anglo-Irish Protestant landlord who built the Irish Parliamentary Party into the disciplined eighty-six-vote bloc that held the balance of power at Westminster, forced the Liberal government to introduce the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1886, and earned the title the Uncrowned King of Ireland.

Explore With Your Ancestors · Beta

Chat with your Parnell ancestorsWalk in →

Pick any year from 500 to 1945 and any place on earth — the Parnell country, or a shore no Parnell ever reached. The chronicler sets the scene; the deeds are yours.

Step Into History

Walk the streets and seats the Parnell name knew — a photoreal walk through time, on foot.

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Walk Dublin in 1756Enter →

Georgian Dublin in the year of Rocque's great map — College Green, the Liberties' weavers, the Liffey quays and Christ Church.

Notable bearers of the Parnell name

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), Member of Parliament, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party
Sir John Parnell, 2nd Baronet (1744–1801), Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer
Anna Parnell (1852–1911), founder of the Ladies' Land League, sister of Charles

Stories of Parnell

Parnell at Ennis
1880
On the afternoon of Sunday the nineteenth of September 1880, in the market square at Ennis in County Clare, on the western seaboard of Ireland, Charles Stewart Parnell, thirty-four years old, the recently elected leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster and the President of the Irish National Land League (founded the previous October at Castlebar by Michael Davitt with Parnell as its presiding chairman), addressed a crowd of about ten thousand tenant-farmers and small-holders on the question of how the Irish countryside should respond to land-grabbers (the tenants who took on a holding from which a previous tenant had been evicted). The speech, made without notes from a wooden platform on the eastern side of the Ennis market square, ended in the four-paragraph instruction that became the founding text of an entirely new political tactic. Now what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted? You must shun him in the streets of the town, in the shop, in the market-place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him severely alone, putting him into a moral Coventry, isolating him from his kind as if he were a leper of old. The word boycott, after Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, the Mayo land-agent at Lough Mask House who was the first man on the island to whom the tactic was systematically applied that same November, entered the English language within six weeks of the Ennis speech and is in the Oxford English Dictionary with the date 1880.
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Frequently asked

What does the surname Parnell mean?

Where does the Parnell family come from?

The Parnell family is rooted in Leinster, in Ireland. Within that, the name was particularly concentrated in Wicklow. The atlas page for the name records the historical territory it has held over the centuries.

Where did the Parnell family historically hold territory?

At its greatest historical extent, the Parnell name has been concentrated in Dublin. The atlas page distinguishes the core territory of the name from this wider historical reach with hatched silhouettes on the map.

Is Parnell a Ireland surname?

Yes, Parnell is a Ireland surname. Its editorial home in this atlas is Ireland, where the historical territory and family record of the name are concentrated.

How old is the Parnell surname?

The Parnells of Avondale in County Wicklow descend from Thomas Parnell, a Cheshire Cromwellian officer granted the Avondale estate at Rathdrum in 1660s. European hereditary surnames crystallised broadly between the 12th and 14th centuries, and the Parnell name took its modern form within that long settlement.

What is the Parnell family known for?

The Cheshire-Parnells of Avondale, and the uncrowned king of Ireland. The Parnells of Avondale in County Wicklow descend from Thomas Parnell, a Cheshire Cromwellian officer granted the Avondale estate at Rathdrum in 1660s.

Who is the most famous Parnell?

The best-known bearer of the Parnell name is Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), Member of Parliament, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Other prominent figures of the family include Sir John Parnell, 2nd Baronet (1744–1801), Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer and Anna Parnell (1852–1911), founder of the Ladies' Land League, sister of Charles.

Who are some famous Parnells?

Notable bearers of the Parnell name include Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), Member of Parliament, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sir John Parnell, 2nd Baronet (1744–1801), Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer and Anna Parnell (1852–1911), founder of the Ladies' Land League, sister of Charles. Each is profiled on the family page, with cross-links to the geography, stories, and historical events tied to their life.

What stories are told about the Parnell family?

The Parnell family is associated with Parnell at Ennis. Each story has its own page on this site with the full account, the date, the location, and the other families involved.

What is the story of Parnell at Ennis?

On the afternoon of Sunday the nineteenth of September 1880, in the market square at Ennis in County Clare, on the western seaboard of Ireland, Charles Stewart Parnell, thirty-four years old, the recently elected leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster and the President of the Irish National Land League (founded the previous October at Castlebar by Michael Davitt with Parnell as its presiding chairman), addressed a crowd of about ten thousand tenant-farmers and small-holders on the question of how the Irish countryside should respond to land-grabbers (the tenants who took on a holding from which a previous tenant had been evicted). The speech, made without notes from a wooden platform on the eastern side of the Ennis market square, ended in the four-paragraph instruction that became the founding text of an entirely new political tactic. The event is dated to 1880.

Is Parnall the same family as Parnell?

Yes. Parnall is a historical spelling variant of the Parnell name. The two share the same lineage and family affiliation; different parishes, clerks and migration registrars recorded the same name in slightly different forms, and the variant spellings sit on the same family tree.

Where is the Parnell surname found today?

Ireland is the primary historical home of the Parnell surname. In the modern era, the name is also borne across the wider diaspora, particularly in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where families carry the line of descent from the same Ireland origin recorded on this page.

What does the Clan Rising page for the Parnell family cover?

The Clan Rising page for the Parnell family covers the meaning of the surname, the historical geography of the name, famous bearers of the name, traditional stories and the seat of the head of the family. Each section is linked to the underlying atlas of Ireland so the name can be read in the geography that shaped it.

Who is the head of the Parnell family today?

The seat for the head of the Parnell family is currently vacant on this register. Clan Rising is rebuilding the chief and family structure for the modern era, and the family page allows readers to claim the seat or pledge to the name.