I have just written a piece about a plain walking stick that was once owned by Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891). In fact it was made by him - he cut the whitethorn stick from the wood in Avondale, Co. Wicklow where he lived some 130 years ago. Read it here.
Photo of the Parnell Monument on Parnell Street, Dublin, Ireland.
The stick has been adopted as a literary baton, handed down from generation to generation of Irish writer. Past guardians of the walking stick include poets, essayists and novelists. The Nobel Prize winner, Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), is probably the most internationally recognisable holder of the stick, but it has also passed through the hands of Conor Cruise O'Brien and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill among others. I wonder who the next recipient will be...
Avondale, Co. Wicklow (home of the Parnell family).
While researching the piece, I came across other walking sticks that were either owned by Parnell or have had some close personal connection to him. In places as far apart as Brighton-on-Hove in England, New York in the USA and Clara in Co. Offaly in Ireland, sticks have come to light that are closely linked to the man himself. In Glasnevin Museum in Dublin and in the National Museum of Ireland, there are also a couple of fancier sticks that are also believed to have been owned by him at one time or another. Perhaps we should do an inventory of all the Parnell sticks out there - we might be surprised by the result!
One of the more elaborate Parnell walking sticks in Glasnevin Museum. Image source.
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