Phoenix Park murders

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Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish (1836-1882)
Thomas Henry Burke (1829-1882)

As Phoenix Park Murders ( English Phoenix Park Murders ), the murder of two British-Irish officials Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke in Phoenix Park in Dublin called on May 6 1,882th Members of the Irish Republican Irish National Invincibles were responsible for the murders .

The murder victims

Thomas Henry Burke held the office of Permanent Under Secretary (Undersecretary of State, Secretary of State) in Ireland for a long time and was the actual target of the assassination attempt. Burke was a Catholic himself and was Irish by birth, but had made himself hated by the Irish nationalists for having held high positions in the British-Irish administration for a long time. In particular, his measures during the so-called Land War in the 1870s and 1880s had made him a target of the nationalists and he was seen as a traitor. The other murder victim, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was actually not the target of the assassins, but rather happened to be the victim of the murder as a companion of Burke. The lord had only arrived in Ireland from London a few hours before his murder. Cavendish was a close confidante of the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and had worked for a long time as his personal secretary. He had finally appointed him Chief Secretary for Ireland in May 1882 and Cavendish had then started the trip to Ireland.

Course of events

Both victims were on their way through Phoenix Park to Viceregal Lodge (now Áras an Uachtaráin ), the summer residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . In the park they were attacked by several men and killed by multiple knife stabs with sharp surgical knives. The then Lord Lieutenant John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer , suddenly heard screams when a man ran into the property and shouted "Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke have been killed". Responsibility for this murder has been taken by a small Republican group called The Invincibles ( The Invincibles ). After the murder became known, the leader of the parliamentary group of Irish nationalists Charles Stewart Parnell offered to resign from parliament in order to publicly protest the crime. The offer was rejected by Prime Minister Gladstone. Shortly after the crime, the perpetrators were identified and arrested. The invincibles James Carey, Michael Kavanagh and Joe Hanlon agreed to testify as key witnesses for the prosecution against the other perpetrators. James Carey, the leader of the Invincibles then escaped to Cape Town under the protection of the British government, but was shot there by the Irish Patrick O'Donnell for this betrayal. The other Invincibles Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley, and Tim Kelly were convicted of murder and hanged in May / June 1883.

In 1887, the British newspaper The Times accused Parnell of assisting the murders on the basis of alleged letters from Parnell. A commission of inquiry, actually set up to prove his guilt, absolved him of any guilt. In February 1890, it became known that the letters were a forgery by anti-Parnell journalist Richard Piggott , who committed suicide shortly after they were discovered.

source

  1. ↑ Senan Molony: The Phoenix Park Murders . Mercier Press, Cork 2006, ISBN 185635511X .

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