Andrew Roberts; "Salisbury Victorian Titan" (Phoenix Press, London 1999) p. 454. ISBN 0-7538-1091-3

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 hitherto unknown group left a card into all the major newspapers identifying themselves as the Irish National Invincibles. For the first time in Irish history there would be Sunday editions of the major newspapers. The hunt for the murderers was led by Superintendent John Mallon, a Catholic who came from Armagh. Mallon had a pretty good idea of who was involved. He suspected a number of former Fenian activists. A large number of suspects were arrested and kept in prison by claiming they were connected with other crimes. Mallon got several of them to reveal what they knew about the murders. [5] Today the five still remain in that lonely yard in Kilmainham, largely forgotten by the majority of the Irish people and unknown to the visitors to the building. Just as other Republican groups did in their wake, the Invincibles were seeking the establishment of the Irish Republic. They were Fenians and working class republicans, aware that the Fenians, involved in the Land War were shooting landlords and landlords agents, and with no great landowners in Dublin, as in the country, they assassinated the two most important British government administrators in Ireland and were eventually executed for it in one of the most famous events of nineteenth century Ireland. A Short Account of the Discovery and Conviction of the 'Invincibles'", by George Bolton, Esq., Dantonien Journal, 1887. Retrieved 15 November 2019.

Context; Coercion of the Land League

Charles Stewart Parnell's policy of allying his Irish Parliamentary Party to Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone's Liberal Party in 1886 to enable Home Rule was undone by the murders. Gladstone's Minister Lord Hartington, the elder brother of Lord Cavendish, split with Gladstone on the Home Rule bills [11] of 1886 and 1893 and led the breakaway Liberal Unionist Association, which allied itself to Lord Salisbury's Conservative governments. In the ensuing 1886 general election the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists swept the board. This delayed Home Rule by twenty-eight years until the Government of Ireland Act 1914, which was technically passed but was never effected. [ citation needed] Reaction [ edit ]

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. 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) One can be quite certain that Joseph Biggar, Parnell's plain-spoken ally in obstructionism, did not meet emissaries from America to discuss the formation of a murder society 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.

Burke is himself an interesting figure, a scion of the Catholic landed gentry of County Galway and a grand-nephew of Cardinal Wiseman, the first Catholic archbishop of Westminster, in the wake of the re-establishment of a Catholic hier-archy for England and Wales in 1850. He had served in the office of the chief secretary in Dublin Castle since 1847, and was appointed under-secretary in 1869. He was a conscientious and hard-working official, and W.E. Forster—Cavendish’s predecessor—said of him that he was ‘the most efficient permanent official I ever came across, and my only fear about him is that he will literally work himself to death’. He was closely identified with and involved in the coercion policies espoused by Forster in response to the first Land War from 1879 onwards, and no doubt this explains why the Invincibles targeted him for assassination. It is notable that, to quote from the entry on Burke in the Dictionary of Irish biography, Joseph Brady’s head was cut off after his hanging and kept for medical purposes. John Mallon Dublin Mtropolitan Police chief, kept part of his spine as a souvenir The Coercion Act allowed for internment without trial and the suspension of Habeus Corpus. Under it over 900 Land League members were imprisoned, including thier leader, Parnell.

Parnell made a speech condemning the murders in 1882, increasing his already huge popularity in both Britain and Ireland. He had just enabled some reforms under the Kilmainham Treaty four days before the murders. Parnell's reputation increased in Ireland, being seen as a more moderate reformer who would never excuse such tactics. [12] There has never been a movement more misunderstood than and as controversial as the Invincibles in Irish history.In Carey’s narrative the Invincibles had been formed in the fall of 1881 by a Middlesbrough Fenian, John Walsh whose declared aim was to ‘make history’ and to establish a grouping within the Fenian network to assassinate government administrators in Ireland. Walsh had been sent to Dublin by Frank Byrne, secretary of the Land League of Great Britain, whose wife would later deliver the knives to Dublin smuggled on her person. 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 Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Pigott, Richard". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol.35. London: Smith, Elder & Co. He was met by permanent Undersecretary Thomas Henry Burke in a cab on Chesterfield Avenue, just inside the park’s entrance. Joining Cavendish in his walk, the two men were approached by a group of seven men, three in front, two in the middle and two behind.