The Phoenix Park Murders were the fatal stabbings on 6 May 1882 in the Phoenix Park

Phoenix Park

Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...

 in Dublin of Lord Frederick Cavendish

Lord Frederick Cavendish

Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish was an English Liberal politician and protégé of the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone...

 and Thomas Henry Burke

Thomas Henry Burke (Irish politician)

Thomas Henry Burke was Permanent Under Secretary at the Irish Office for many years before being killed during the Phoenix Park Murders on Saturday 6 May 1882. The killing was carried out by an Irish republican organisation called the Irish National Invincibles...

. Cavendish was the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland

Chief Secretary for Ireland

The Chief Secretary for Ireland was a key political office in the British administration in Ireland. Nominally subordinate to the Lord Lieutenant, from the late 18th century until the end of British rule he was effectively the government minister with responsibility for governing Ireland; usually...

, and Burke was the Permanent Undersecretary, the most senior Irish civil servant. The assassination

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 was carried out by members of the "Irish National Invincibles

Irish National Invincibles

The Irish National Invincibles, usually known as "The Invincibles" were a radical splinter group of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and leading representatives of the Land League movement, both of Ireland and Britain...

".

Murders

Cavendish – who was married to Lucy Cavendish

Lucy Cavendish

Lucy Caroline Cavendish, Lady Frederick Cavendish was a pioneer of women's education....

 the niece of British Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

 William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

, and had worked as Gladstone's personal secretary – had only arrived in Ireland the day he was murdered. He and Burke were attacked as they walked to the Viceregal Lodge

Áras an Uachtaráin

Áras an Uachtaráin , formerly the Viceregal Lodge, is the official residence of the President of Ireland. It is located in the Phoenix Park on the northside of Dublin.-Origins:...

, the "out of season" residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

. Thomas Myles

Thomas Myles

Sir Thomas Myles, CB was a prominent Irish Home Ruler and surgeon, involved in the importation of arms for the Irish Volunteers in 1914....

, resident surgeon at the nearby Dr Steevens' Hospital

Dr Steevens' Hospital

Dr Steevens' Hospital in Dublin was one of Ireland's most distinguished eighteenth-century medical establishments...

, was summoned to render medical assistance to the victims.
The then Lord Lieutenant, Lord Spencer, described suddenly hearing screams, before witnessing a man running to the Lodge grounds shouting "Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke are killed." Responsibility for the assassinations was claimed by a small hitherto unheard-of Republican

Irish Republicanism

Irish republicanism is an ideology based on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.In 1801, under the Act of Union, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

 organisation called the Irish National Invincibles.

Investigation

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. He suspected a number of former Fenian

Fenian

The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...

 activists. A large number of suspects were arrested and kept in prison by claiming they were connected with other crimes. By playing off one suspect against another Mallon got several of them to reveal what they knew.

The Invincibles' leader James Carey

James Carey

James Carey was a Fenian and informer most notable for his involvement in the Phoenix Park murders.Carey was son of Francis Carey, a bricklayer, who came from Celbridge, in Kildare, to Dublin, where his son was born in James Street in 1845. He also was a bricklayer, and for 18 years continued in...

, 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 and were hanged by William Marwood

William Marwood

William Marwood was a hangman for the British government. He developed the technique of hanging known as the "long drop".-Early life:Marwood was originally a cobbler, of Church Lane, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England.-Executioner:...

 in Kilmainham Gaol

Kilmainham Gaol

Kilmainham Gaol is a former prison, located in Kilmainham in Dublin, which is now a museum. It has been run since the mid-1980s by the Office of Public Works , an Irish Government agency...

 in Dublin between 14 May and 4 June 1883. Others were sentenced to serve long prison terms.

Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell

Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...

 made a speech condemning the murders in 1882. This increased his already huge popularity in both Britain and Ireland. He had just enabled some reforms under the Kilmainham Treaty

Kilmainham Treaty

The Kilmainham Treaty was an agreement reached in May 1882 between the United Kingdom Government under William Ewart Gladstone and the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell...

 four days before the murders. Parnell's reputation increased in Ireland, being seen as a more moderate reformer who would never excuse such tactics.

However, Parnell's policy of allying his party to Gladstone's Liberal Party in 1886 to enable Home Rule

Home rule

Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....

 was also ultimately defeated by the murders. Gladstone's Minister Lord Hartington

Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire

Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire KG, GCVO, PC, PC , styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891, was a British statesman...

 was the elder brother of Lord Frederick Cavendish. Saddened and infuriated by the manner of his brother's early death, Hartington split with Gladstone on the Home Rule bills of 1886

Irish Government Bill 1886

The Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, was the first major attempt made by a British government to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

 and 1893

Irish Government Bill 1893

The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 was the second attempt made by William Ewart Gladstone, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to enact a system of home rule for Ireland...

 and led the breakaway Liberal Unionist Association which allied itself to Lord Salisbury's

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC , styled Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until April 1868, was a British Conservative statesman and thrice Prime Minister, serving for a total of over 13 years...

 conservative governments. In the ensuing 1886 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1886

-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the UK general election, 1886*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...

 the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists swept the board. This delayed Home Rule by 28 years, until the Third Irish Home Rule Bill which was passed technically in 1914, but which was never effected.

In March 1887, The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

printed letters purportedly from Parnell claiming sympathy with the murderers and that his public denunciation of them was insincere. It emerged that the letters were forgeries written by journalist Richard Pigott, and Parnell was personally vindicated by the Parnell Commission

Parnell Commission

The Parnell Commission was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.-Background:...

in 1888-89.