06/10/2026
🍃 Happy IVY DAY
For the last few days, we’ve been telling the story of Charles Stewart Parnell — his extraordinary rise, his fight for Home Rule, his relationship with Katharine O’Shea and the political storm that followed.
But why ivy?
Parnell died on the 6th of October 1891, aged just 45.
Five days later, his body was brought home to Dublin.
His funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery was extraordinary. Huge crowds came onto the streets of Dublin to pay their respects to the man his followers had called “The Uncrowned King of Ireland.”
Somewhere among those thousands of mourners, something very simple happened. Ivy was picked and worn in his memory. One account tells of a woman from Cork who could afford no grand floral tribute and sent a simple wreath of ivy to lie beside Parnell as he lay in state. Another tells of ordinary Dubliners arriving at Glasnevin, plucking ivy from the cemetery walls and placing the leaves in their lapels.
Perhaps the tradition began with one. Perhaps with the other. But what we do know is that the ivy caught on.
And when the first anniversary of Parnell’s death came around on 6 October 1892, thousands once again made their way to Glasnevin. They wore the ivy.
Ivy appeared across Dublin as a quiet declaration that Parnell had not been forgotten. And Ivy Day was born.
There is something rather beautiful about the choice of ivy. It isn't a grand flower. It doesn't bloom for a moment and disappear. It indures. It clings. It remains green.
For generations, on or around the 6th of October, people continued to gather at Parnell’s grave and wear that simple green leaf in his memory and still do.
But the old tradition of Dubliners actually wearing the ivy gradually faded from everyday life.
So today, 135 years after Parnell’s death, we’d like to do our small part to bring it back.
If you’re passing Kitty O’Shea’s today, come in and mark these outstanding historical figures with us.
