sentences:  Parnell is reported to have said, on encountering him for the first time, ‘Who is that convict-looking fellow?’.O'Brien  said Blane was ‘reputed to be one of the simpler members of the party’, adding that in the debates in Committee Room 15 of the House of Commons leading to the Split he ‘achieved the "tour de force" of defending Parnell….from an extremist Catholic and patriotic point of view…..This defence (was) exhilarating in its combination of classicism and audacity….’.Blane did not stand for Parliament again.