A Book by Julie Kavanagh
Julie Kavanagh’s The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders That Stunned Victorian England revisits one of the most shocking episodes in nineteenth-century Anglo-Irish history, the 1882 assassinations of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Rather than treating the murders as an isolated act of political violence, Kavanagh frames them as the culmination of long-standing structural tensions between Great Britain and Ireland, deepened by decades of economic exploitation, political repression, and repeated failures of reform. Her central argument is that the killings occurred at precisely the worst possible moment, one in which legitimate progress toward Irish self-government appeared possible, if not inevitable, with the killings effectively derailing it.
Kavanagh places the narrative lead-up to the Phoenix Park murders within the broader historical context that shaped late nineteenth-century Ireland, beginning with the Great Famine (or “potato famine”) of the 1840s. The famine marked a moral and political unraveling that permanently altered Irish perceptions of British rule. It accelerated land consolidation, entrenched absentee landlordism, and deepened the socio-economic inequalities that defined rural life in Ireland at the time. The famine’s legacy of generational resentment and distrust persisted, shaping Irish political consciousness and setting the stage for later movements and further hostilities into the modern era.
By the late 1870s, these unresolved tensions erupted once again as Irish tenant farmers, long subjected to an inequitable land system, mobilized against high rents, insecure tenure, and arbitrary eviction in what became known as the Irish Land War. Under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, often referred to as “the King of Ireland,” and the Land League, the movement employed strikes, mass protests, and organized boycotts to force meaningful change. The Land War radicalized political discourse and normalized confrontation with the state, blurring the line between constitutional agitation and revolutionary action.
When unrest escalated, Parnell was blamed and imprisoned without trial, yet in a bold and unexpected diplomatic maneuver he negotiated the secret Kilmainham Treaty with British Prime Minister William Gladstone. The agreement raised genuine hopes for peace, land reform, and a renewed path toward Irish autonomy, suggesting that constitutional politics might succeed where violence had failed. That fragile promise collapsed on May 6, 1882, when radical republicans known as the Irish National Invincibles, backed by American funding and armed with surgical blades, assassinated Cavendish and Burke in Phoenix Park. The killings shattered the Kilmainham settlement and sent shockwaves through both Dublin and Westminster.
Kavanagh demonstrates how the Phoenix Park murders destabilized the British government and hardened attitudes toward Irish nationalism, reinforcing fears that reform would only invite further violence. At the same time, the assassinations exposed the fractures within Irish political movements themselves, where militant nationalism coexisted uneasily with parliamentary strategies. The murders did not simply end a treaty; they altered the trajectory of Irish politics, contributing to a legacy of radicalization and mistrust that would echo into the twentieth century.
Methodologically, Kavanagh relies on an extensive range of primary sources, including newspapers, court transcripts, private correspondence, and memoirs, to reconstruct both the events themselves and the mental worlds of those involved. Her emphasis on individual actors – from British administrators and Irish parliamentarians to the members of the Irish National Invincibles – allows her to humanize the political crisis without losing sight of its broader implications. Written in a style that blends political history with elements of true-crime storytelling, the book remains highly readable and accessible while still grounded in serious historical research, laying out a complex web of interconnected narratives that span Ireland, Britain, and the Irish diaspora.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is that trans-national perspective. Kavanagh follows the flow of people, money, and ideas across Ireland, Britain, and the Irish diaspora, illustrating how Irish nationalism in this period was not confined to Dublin or Westminster but was deeply connected to global networks of exile and activism. In doing so, she underscores how the Phoenix Park murders reverberated far beyond Ireland, shaping British public opinion, imperial governance, and perceptions of Irish political legitimacy.
Ultimately, The Irish Assassins is best understood as a work of narrative history that bridges popular and scholarly audiences. While it does not offer a sustained historiographical intervention, it succeeds in reframing the Phoenix Park murders as a pivotal moment in the long struggle over Irish self-determination. For readers interested in the intersection of political violence, reform, and imperial power in nineteenth-century Ireland, Kavanagh provides a compelling and well-researched account that rewards close reading and invites further study alongside more specialized academic works.
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NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.