The Irish Assassins
Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders That Stunned Victorian England
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3.7 • 10 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant true crime account of the assassinations that altered the course of Irish history from the “compulsively readable” writer (The Guardian).
One sunlit evening, May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were funded by American supporters of Irish independence and carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially made surgeon’s blades. They put an end to the new spirit of goodwill that had been burgeoning between British Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland’s leader Charles Stewart Parnell as the men forged a secret pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland—with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone’s protégé, to play an instrumental role in helping to do so.
In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes, and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell’s downfall; to Queen Victoria’s prurient obsession with the assassinations; to the investigation spearheaded by Superintendent John Mallon, also known as the “Irish Sherlock Holmes,” culminating in the eventual betrayal and clandestine escape of leading Invincible James Carey and his murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an Empire.
Praise for Julie Kavanagh’s Nureyev: The Life
“Easily the best biography of the year.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
“The definitive biography of ballet’s greatest star whose ego was as supersized as his talent.” —Tina Brown, award-winning journalist and author
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Kavanagh (Nureyev: The Life) delivers a page-turning history of the murders of the chief secretary and the undersecretary for Ireland in May 1882. Examining the events that led up to the assassination, Kavanagh details the destitution of Ireland's tenant farmers, who had few rights of tenure or rent security against their Anglo-Irish landlords, and the rise of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which aimed to overthrow British rule by armed insurrection. She vividly describes how the murders were plotted and carried out by the Invincibles, an extremist group within the Brotherhood, with funding from American supporters of Irish independence, and shows how the resulting backlash delayed home rule for Ireland by more than 30 years. The large cast includes Queen Victoria; prime minister William Gladstone; revolutionary Catholic priest James MacFadden, who sided with the tenant farmers, instructing them not to pay rent until landlords had given back "confiscated" acres; police superintendent John Mallon, "the Irish Sherlock Holmes," who caught the culprits; James Carey, a leader of the Invincibles turned informer; and Irish emigrant Patrick O'Donnell, who killed Carey for his betrayal. This entertaining and richly detailed chronicle offers fresh insights into a conflict whose repercussions are still felt today.
