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Cavendish had been in Dublin for exactly four hours when the knives came out. He
1882 Event

May 6

Phoenix Park Murders: Two British Officials Stabbed in Dublin

Cavendish had been in Dublin for exactly four hours when the knives came out. He'd just arrived as Ireland's new Chief Secretary, walking through Phoenix Park at dusk with the Under-Secretary Burke. A gang calling themselves the Irish National Invincibles used surgical blades—easier to conceal than guns. Cavendish wasn't even the target. Burke was. Wrong place, catastrophically wrong time. The murders gave British politicians the crisis they needed to crack down on Irish resistance for another generation. And they nearly killed Parnell's Home Rule movement before it could breathe. Four hours.

May 6, 1882

144 years ago

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