Phoenix Park Murders

Related Category: British and Irish History

name given to the assassination on May 6, 1882, of Lord Frederick Cavendish, British secretary for Ireland, and Thomas Henry Burke, his undersecretary, in Phoenix Park, Dublin. They were stabbed to death by members of the “Invincibles,” a terrorist splinter group of the Fenian movement. Two of those arrested turned state's evidence, five were hanged, and three were sentenced to penal servitude. Charles Stewart Parnell was alleged (1887) by his political enemies to have been personally involved in the plot. A parliamentary commission appointed to investigate the charges exonerated him (1890).