  This paper concerns the moduli spaces of rank two parabolic Higgs bundles and
parabolic K(D) pairs over a smooth curve. Precisely which parabolic bundles
occur in stable K(D), pairs and stable Higgs bundles is determined. Using Morse
theory, the moduli space of parabolic Higgs bundles is shown to be a
non-compact, connected, simply connected manifold, and a computation of its
Poincar\'e polynomial is given.
