Phoenix Park Murders: Murder, Betrayal and Retribution: Conspiracy, Betrayal & Retribution

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Only the case of Kelly gave any real difficulty. He was 19 and generally said to look much younger, and by referring to him as "a child" his defence counsel created enough unease for two juries to disagree. Only after an unprecedented third trial was he found guilty. [10] Implications [ edit ] Punch magazine depicts the Fenian movement as Frankenstein's monster to Charles Parnell's Frankenstein, in the wake of the Phoenix Park Murders.

Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Pigott, Richard". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol.35. London: Smith, Elder & Co. If I had a thousand lives to lose, I would rather lose them sooner then bring to my grave the name of informer’, Daniel Curley. The Invincibles' leader James Carey, Michael Kavanagh and Joe Hanlon agreed to testify against the others. Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and Tim Kelly were convicted of the murder. [6] They were hanged in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin between 14 May and 4 June 1883. Others were sentenced to serve long prison terms.This disaster in the harvest was combined with the unpredictability of capitalism, as the value of Irish agricultural produce in the British market fell against cheaper imports from South America and New Zealand. Many tenant farmers, particularly in the west, could not now afford to pay rent, resulting in an increasing number of evictions – rising from 406 in 1877, to 1098 in one year, and levels of emigration not witnessed since the famine. With the famine less than a generation beforehand, tenant farmers were not prepared to allow tragedy to strike for a second time, many determining to organise as a social movement seeking fairer rights on their farms and lands led by an effective tenant leadership. The hunt for the perpetrators was led by Superintendent John Mallon, a Catholic who came from Armagh. Mallon had a pretty shrewd idea of who was involved, suspecting a number of former Fenian activists. A large number of suspects were arrested and kept in prison claiming they were connected with other crimes. By playing off one suspect against another Mallon got several of them to reveal what they knew. [7] It is accepted that Burke, not Cavendish, was the Invincibles’ intended target. They had originally planned to assassinate Cavendish’s predecessor as chief secretary, W.E. Forster, but after Forster’s resignation they decided to kill Burke instead. On 5 May, the day before the actual assassinations, they had waited for Burke in the Phoenix Park but missed him. They returned the following day to carry out their grim task; unfortunately for Cavendish, he happened to be in Burke’s company on that occasion and died simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is unlikely that the Invincibles knew the identity of the man who was with Burke. They killed him because he tried to defend his colleague. Corfe, Tom (1968). The Phoenix Park Murders: Conflict, Compromise and Tragedy in Ireland, 1879–1882. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-34002-624-3.

As a means of defeating the agitation of tenant farmers the British government on 1 January 1881 made clear its intention to introduce a Coercion Act to pacify Ireland, becoming law in March. It was exceptionally draconian, suspending habeas corpus, trial by jury and facilitating the proclamation of entire districts as ‘disturbed’. This act was endorsed by the British governments most important administrator in Ireland, the Chief Secretary in Dublin Castle, William Forster MP. the Land League was a movement of tenant farmers led by Irish nationalists. It was seen as a challenge to British rule in Ireland Forster vigorously championed and applied coercion in Ireland, which was administered by his permanent Undersecretary, Thomas Henry Burke. Once put into operation, some nine hundred members of the Land league were arrested and interned in various prisons across Ireland, culminating in the arrest of Charles Stewart Parnell in October 1881 and his imprisonment in Kilmainham Gaol Dublin.

The case was successfully prosecuted by the Attorney General, Solicitor General James Murphy QC (later Mr Justice Murphy), and Peter O’Brien, before Justice William O’Brien. [8] [9] Invincibles' leader James Carey, Michael Kavanagh and Joe Hanlon agreed to testify against the others. Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and Tim Kelly were convicted of the murders, [10] and were hanged by William Marwood in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin between 14 May and 9 June 1883. Others, convicted as accessories to the crime, were sentenced to serve long prison terms. Fitzharris was acquitted of murder but retried as an accessory and convicted. [10]

Taken to Kilmainham Gaol, they were extensively interrogated by John Mallon and Adye Curran, who would ‘turn’ several into informers, including Kavanagh (who had driven four Invincibles from the Phoenix Park after the assassination), Joseph Smith and most importantly, James Carey. But who were, the Invincibles really? And how did they come to adopt such ruthless methods in the cause of Irish independence? Context; Coercion of the Land League THE IRISH FRANKENSTEIN. “The baneful and blood-stained Monster * * * yet was it not my master to the very extent that it was my creature . . . Had I not breathed into it my own spirit?” * * * (Extracts from the Works of C.S. P-rn-ll, M.P.).’ Punch (20 May 1882) quotes from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to link Charles Stewart Parnell (left) with the murders. (British Library)Podcast about the Irish National Invincibles and the Fenian Dynamite Campaign with Dr. Shane Kenna. In March 1887, The Times printed letters that said they were written by Parnell. The letters said that he agreed with the murderers of the English politicians, and that his speech saying otherwise was not true. It later came to light that the letters were not written by Parnell. They were forgeries written by journalist Richard Pigott. Parnell was personally shown to be innocent by the Parnell Commission in 1888-89. Molony, Senan (2006). The Phoenix Park Murders: Conspiracy, Betrayal and Retribution. Dublin: Mercier Press. ISBN 1-85635-511-X.