Petticoat Rebellion: The Anna Parnell Story

A book or a movie?

In 2006, I took a year’s leave of absence from my work with a well-known international nonprofit in order to spend more time with my young family, and to focus on writing a killer movie script.

The outcome wasn’t a movie script as I had anticipated, but instead it was a biography of a fascinating character from the Victorian era, Miss Anna Parnell, younger sister of the well-known Irish statesman, Charles Stewart Parnell. The biography began life as an outline for a film script but, when the story was rejected by the Irish Film Board (now known as Screen Ireland) as being ‘too much like a history book’, I pitched it to The Mercier Press in Cork, who commissioned it immediately and published in 2009, and I have long hoped that one day it will be made into a movie or television drama series. It really is the most fascinating story, with intrigue at the highest level in Ireland and in the United Kingdom during the Land War of 1879-1882.

I do hope that one day Anna’s story will be made into a feature film, to honour both her work and the great sacrifices she made in her life, including leaving Ireland to live in exile in the United Kingdom, where she died in 1911.

Anna Parnell’s story

In the late nineteenth century, before women had the vote, a group of respectable ladies operated outside the law to fight for the rights of the landless poor in Ireland. They were feared by both the British government and Irish nationalist movement because of their radicalism, and the authorities were reluctant to confront them because they were women. They were the Ladies Land League, led by Anna Parnell.

When Anna and her colleagues starting questioning her brother Charles Stewart Parnell's political strategies, they challenged the authority of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the male-run Land League, forcing Charles to reassert control and disband the LadiesLeague.

In this new study of an often unheralded heroine, Patricia Groves explores the life of Anna Parnell, her relationship with her brother and the forces that drove her to such remarkable feats.

'This is a long overdue biog of an energetic and feisty lady.'

The Sunday Tribune

'It is fitting that she be remembered for the significant contribution she made to the aspiration for, and the development of, a more just and caring community.'

Mary McAleese - (Former) President of Ireland.

Note: The selection of blog posts below, from 2009-2013, were imported from my old WordPress blog. I kept the original images where available, but removed old links where they are no longer exist. Many sites have since shut down and old news articles have been archived.