Even the man who was more than any other responsible for his fall said
of Parnell (Mr Barry O'Brien's _Life of Parnell_):

"Parnell was the most remarkable man I ever met. I do not say the
ablest man; I say the most remarkable and the most interesting. He was
an intellectual phenomenon. He was unlike anyone I had ever met. He
did things and said things unlike other men. His ascendancy over his
Party was extraordinary. There has never been anything like it in my
experience in the House of Commons. He succeeded in surrounding
himself with very clever men, with men exactly suited for his purpose.
They have changed since--I don't know why. Everything seems to have
changed. But in his time he had a most efficient party, an
extraordinary party. I do not say extraordinary as an opposition but
extraordinary as a Government. The absolute obedience, the strict
discipline, the military discipline in which he held them was unlike
anything I have ever seen. They were always there, they were always
ready, they were always united, they never shirked the combat and
Parnell was supreme all the time."

"Parnell was supreme all the time." This is the complete answer to
those--and some of them are alive still--who said in the days of "the
Split" that it was his Party which made him and not he who made the
Party. In this connection I might quote also the following brief
extract from a letter written by Mr William O'Brien to Archbishop
Croke during the Boulogne negotiations:

"We have a dozen excellent front bench men in our Party but there is
no other Parnell. They all mean well but it is not the same thing. The
stuff talked of Parnell's being a sham leader, sucking the brains of
his chief men, is the most pitiful rubbish."