Personal Life
Butt amassed debts and pursued romances. It was said that at meetings he was occasionally heckled by women with whom he had fathered children. He was also involved in a financial scandal when it was revealed that he had taken money from several Indian princes to represent their interests in parliament.
He died on 5 May 1879 in Clonskeagh in Dublin. His remains were brought by train to Stranorlar, County Donegal, where he is buried in a corner of the Church of Ireland cemetery beneath a tree by which he used to sit and dream as a boy.
Despite his chaotic lifestyle and political limitations, Butt was capable of inspiring deep personal loyalty. Some of his friends, such as John Butler Yeats (father of the poet W.B. Yeats) and the future Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Edward Thomas O'Dwyer, retained a lasting hostility towards Parnell for his role in Butt's downfall.
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