Justin McCarthy (22 November 1830 – 24 April 1912) was an Irish nationalist, journalist, historian, novelist and politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1879 to 1900, taking his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Early life McCarthy was born in Cork City, Cork, and was educated there. He began his career as a journalist, aged 18, in Cork. From 1853 to 1859 he was in Liverpool, on the staff of the Northern Daily Times. In March 1855, he married Charlotte Ailman. In 1860 he moved to London, as parliamentary reporter to the Morning Star, of which he became editor in 1864. He gave up his post in 1868, and, after a lecturing tour in the United States, joined the staff of the Daily News as leader-writer in 1870 (where he was employed for the next twenty-three years) and was also to write for several periodicals including The Fortnightly Review, The Contemporary Review and The Nineteenth Century. He became one of the most useful and respected upholders of the liberal politics of the time. He lectured again in America in 1886–87. Political career McCarthy was first elected to Parliament at a by-election on 4 April 1879, when he was returned unopposed as a Home Rule League MP for County Longford. He was re-elected unopposed as a Parnellite Home Ruler in 1880, and when the two-seat Longford constituency was split into two divisions under the Redistribution of Seats Act, he was elected as an Irish Parliamentary Party member for the new single-seat Northern division of Longford. His sole opponent, a Conservative, won only 6% of the votes. At the 1886 general election, he was returned unopposed in North Longford, but had also stood in Londonderry City, where he was declared to have lost to the Unionist candidate by the narrow margin of 1778 votes to 1781. However, the result was later overturned on petition, and McCarthy opted to sit for Londonderry City. During the divorce controversy surrounding Charles Stewart Parnell in November 1890, the British Prime Minister Gladstone expressed a warning, given to Justin McCarthy as intermediary, that if Parnell retained leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party it would mean the loss of the next election, the end of their alliance and Home Rule. When the annual party leadership election meeting was called later that month, this threat was somehow