Thomas H. Burke

Thomas H. Burke (1829-82)

Life

[Thomas Henry Burke]; b. 29 May 1829, at Waterslade House, Tuam; son of William Burke; descended from Sir Ulick Burke of Glinsk, recipient of a baronetcy from Charles I in 1628; br. of Theobald Burke, 13th Baronet Glinsk; also br. of Augustus Nicholas Burke, an artist; brought up in Knocknagur [Tuam] Co. Galway; ed. Oscott College, Sutton Coldfield, nr. Birmingham; later in Belgium and Germany;appt. clerk in Dublin Castle, 1847; m. a dg. of Thomas N. Redington [q.v.], Irish Under-Sec. of State (Ireland);

worked as priv. sec. to three Chief Secretaries, Cardwell, Peel, and Fortescue-Parkinson; appt. Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, 1863-82 [var.1869], associated with the Coercion policy during Land War, 1879-82; personally intervened to prevent the evictions on the Kirwan Estate at Carraroe, Co. Galway - writing in a report to Wm. Edward Forster (Chief Sec. for Ireland) of the ‘sad flood of light this throws on the Irish land question ... an absentee landlord, careless sub-agents, fraudulent bailiffs and a wretched tenantry’;

Burke was the main promoter of the Intermediate Certificate and grant-award system from which James Joyce was a beneficiary; a Home-ruler and also a law-and-order man, he alienated nationalists with his support of the Crime [Coercion] Acts designed to protect property in the Land War and thus became a target for the National Invincibles - a splinter group of the Irish Republican Brotherhood [IRB] - which planned his assassination when he was walking with Lord Frederick Cavendish (apparently a bonus victim) near the Vice-Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, 6 May 1882;

bur. with his father under a Celtic Cross in Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin, 9 May 1882; the ensuing hunt and prosecution of the assassins was conducted by Det. Superintendant John Mallon of G Division; JHB left an estate of £1,901 11s. 4d; a monument to Burke was erected in Glasnevin y the Irish Resident Magistrates; there is an annual GCSE Award dedicated to Burke under the remit of the Northern Ireland Education Dept. ODNB DIH

Right - portrait printed in Le Monde Illustré (aka The Graphic, 20 May 1882) accompanied by another of the funeral of Thomas Burke

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Criticism
Tom Corfe, The Phoenix Park Murders: Conflict Compromise & Tragedy In Ireland 1879–1882 (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1968); Senan Molony, Assassins in the Park: Murder, Betrayal and Retribution (Cork: Mercier Press 2006), 192[285]pp.

See also Frank O’Connor & Hugh Hunt, The Invincibles, ed. Ruth Sherry (Newark: Proscenium 1980) - a play.

[ See the account given of the Phoenix Park murders and the ensuing trials by Peter O'Brien (then Q.C. and later Lord Chief Justice of Ireland) in his Reminiscences (1916) - as attached. ]


Burke Memorial, Prospect Cemetery (Glasnevin)	The Grave of Thomas Burke

Inscription: “To the memory of Thomas Henry Burke, Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant f Ireland. Assassinated in the Phoenix Park. This monument is erected by his many friends among the Irish Resident Magistrates as a mark of their appreciation of his high character and eminent public service. RIP.” [Source: Wikipedia - online.]

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Commentary

Emily Lawless, The Story of Ireland [Story of Nations ser.] ([1889]; rev. edn. 1912) - account of the Phoenix Park murders:—

‘Parnell, Davitt, and others were now released (May 2, 1882), and the policy of peace and conciliation was held to be duly inaugurated. To carry it out, Lord Spencer was appointed Viceroy, and Lord Frederick Cavendish, Chief Secretary. The air was full of hope; quiet seemed to be returning, and many Irishmen were busily engaged organising an Industrial Exhibition at Dublin. Unknown to the Government, or to those who were working with them, a fearful event was however at hand. On the evening of Saturday the 6th of May, 1882, the Chief Secretary and the Under Secretary (Mr, Thomas Henry Burke) were assassinated in the Phoenix Park. The murderers escaped, and their identity was for a long time a mystery. Other crimes committed in Dublin later on in the same year soon however made it clear that unknown forces were at work, and attention became drawn to a knot of men whose deeds were in the end fully revealed [415] to the world by the treachery of a few of the group, It then appeared that in the previous November a conspiracy had been formed in Dublin to murder certain leading Government officials. Mr. Forster had been marked for their first victim, and had only by a series of almost miraculous accidents escaped. Mr. Burke, whose name, though less known in England, was familiar in Ireland through its appearance at the foot of so many Government proclamations, was next selected as a victim. The stabbing of Lord Frederick Cavendish, whom the members did not even know by sight, was not pre-arranged: he was murdered simply that he might not identify the assassins. A leading figure in the conspiracy was one John Carey, a building contractor, and a member of the town council of Dublin, his companions being, as a rule, men of no mark, chiefly labourers, and artisans. This murder club had called itself “The Irish Invincibles,” and Carey, finding himself netted through the information of Kavanagh, a car-driver, turned Crown witness (February 17, 1883), and revealed everything. His revelations did not disclose any connection between the Irish political leaders and the “Invincibles”; indeed what was chiefly shown was the very limited scope, and the all but incredibly casual aims of the latter body. Five of Carey’s dupes were hanged (June, 1883) and several more sentenced to penal servitude, thus completely ending the activities of the “ Invincibles.” The informer Carey was shot subsequently on his way to South Africa by a man named O’Donnell, who was brought home, tried and hanged. (pp.414-15.)

Shane Leslie, The Irish Tangle for English Readers (1946), remarks: ‘Burke’s murderer remained impenitent in prison, despite the loving attention of a namless Sister of Charity. At last he was told she was Burke’s sister. Then he broke down. It was all so Irish and dramatic.’ (p.20.)

Freidrich Engels on the Phoenix Park Murders: ‘But the Fenians themselves are being drawn increasingly to a type of Bakuninism, the assassination of Burke and Cavendish could have pursued the sole aim of thwarting the compromise between the Land League and Gladstone ... In this light the “heroic deed” in Phoenix Park appears as purely Bakuninist, boastful and senseless” propaganda par le fait”, if not a crass foolishness.’ (‘About the Irish Question’ [1888], K. Marx and F. Engels, On Colonialism, Lawrence & Wishart 1968, p.264; quoted in Emer Nolan, James Joyce and Irish Nationalism, London: Routledge 1995, p.126.)

Maurice Headlam recounts that Lord Spencer, Viceroy, saw what he took to be a drunken brawl through his window, and that no monument was raised at the site or the murders ‘since the Liberal government thought it would provoke enmity, and the Nationalist party were not proud of the deed.’ (Irish Reminiscences, 1947; p.39.)

Family records: Thomas Burke was son of William Burke of Knocknagur, Co. Galway, and his wife Mary Anne, sister of Nicholas, Cardinal Wiseman; Burke’s family was connected with that of Sir Ulick Burke of Glinsk, Co. Galway, on whom a baronetcy was conferred by Charles II in 1628 [see ODNB]. In April 1851 he was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Redington [Sybil’s maternal grandfather], then Under-Secretary for Ireland. In 1869, he was himself appointed Under-Secretary. Burke was assassinate 6th May, 1882, and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. The viceroy Earl Spenser erected a memorial window in the Dominican Church, Dublin; his sister was given a govt. pension; his estate at his death was £1,901.11.4. (Source: Family record of Sybil le Brocquy [née Staunton] - which includes an unidentified allusion to Fanny Xaviera, only dg. of Thomas Tucker of Brook Lodge, Sussex.)

Myles Dungan, ‘Writing Nearly on the Wall for Parnell’, in The Irish Times (13 Feb. 2010), Weekend Review, p.6. - mentions a reference to Burke’s death at the hands of the Invincibles in a note purportedly written by Parnell but actually forged by Piggott: “On 7 March 1887, in the first of a number of articles, the London Times made the not-altogether astonishing allegation of links between Irish parliamentarians and agrarian crime stretching back to the Land War of 1879-82. The series, entitled Parnellism and Crime, appeared to be dying a natural death for want of substance when the Times, on page 8 of its edition of April 18th, published a facsimile of a highly incriminating letter bearing the signature “Chas. S Parnell”. The text of the brief note, dated nine days after the infamous Phoenix Park murders of the newly arrived Irish chief secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and under-secretary, Thomas H. Burke, expressed the view that while the killing of Cavendish had been a regrettable accident Burke had got his just deserts for a career of actions inimical to nationalist interests. If genuine, the letter would have been a fatal blow to the political career of the man already lionised as “The Uncrowned King of Ireland”. Parnell, oddly, given the furore that arose, had to be cajoled into making a belated denial that the signature was his. The note itself was clearly not in his handwriting. Privately he dismissed the signature, rather blithely, as a forgery, observing of his alleged middle initial (“S” for Stewart) that “I did not make an ‘S’ like that since 1878”. [...] (For full text, see RICORSO Library, “Criticism > History”, via index - or as attached.)

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References
D. J. Doherty & J. E. Hickey, A Chronology of Irish History since 1500 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), cite under ‘Parnellism and Crime’ the supposed letter by Charles Stewart Parnell of 7 March 1887 [recte 18 April], actually forged by Pigott, in which the author writes, ‘But you can tell all others concerned that though I regret the accident of Lord F. Cavendish’s death, I cannot refuse to admit that Burke got no more than his deserts.’

T. H. Burke

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Notes
R. R. Madden: Dr. Madden was joined by T. H. Burke in persuading Disraeli to provide a civil list pension for Mrs. Michael Banim, relict of the novelist (See Irish Literature, gen. ed. Justin McCarthy, 1904; under ‘Michael Banim’.)

C. S. Parnell: The most offensive content in the letter of 18 April 1887 forged by Richard Pigott included the assertion that Thomas H. Burke deserved his fate at the hands of the Invincibles on account of his anti-nationalist role in Irish affairs. (See further remarks in review of Myles Dungan’s article on the Parnell Commission of 1887 under Parnell, infra.)

Lord Spencer: ‘Please make acquaintance with the Under Secretary T. H. Burke. He was the Irishman of all I know in whom I placed the greatest trust. I certainly knew him better than any other man in the country, but my constant intercourse with him only made me like and trust him more and more.’ (Letter to W. E. H. Gladstone on the eve of the latter’s visit to Ireland in 1887. [Information supplied to Ricorso by James H. Murphy, Oct. 2011.]

The Invincibles (I): The Invincibles’ plot compassed the idea of capturing W. E. Forster, the unpopular Chief Secretary [called “Buckshot” Forster], and taking him to John Street to be killed there. They were arrested for the Phoenix Park assassinations on 13 Jan. 1883, and both charged [in Feb.] and tried in April for murder on 6 May 1882. Before the trial Superintendent Mallon of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (G Division) induced James Carey, the leader, and Michael Kavanagh to testify against the others. Carey was a bricklayer from Chapelizod with a business at Denzille St. and a name in corporation politics. He acted in the conspiracy as spotter, pointing out the intended victim, Burke, from a cab near the scene but did not himself take part in the killings. The first blow was struck at Burke by Joseph Brady and the next at Cavendish by Tim Kelly. Those convicted along with Brady and Kelly were Daniel Curley, Michael Fagan, and Thomas Caffrey - all of whom were hanged in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, between 14 May and 4 June 1883. The hangman was William Marwood. [See further under James Joyce, Notes > Joyce’s People - infra.]

There is a memorial plaque to the Invincibles giving their names and dates of execution between 14 May and 4 June 1883: Anseo a crochadh Joseph Brady (14.5), Daniel Curley (18.5), Michael Fagan (28.5), Thomas Caffrey (2.6), Timothy Kelly (9.6.) James Fitzharris (“Skin the Goat”; 1833-1910), who drove the cab, served 15 years in prison and did not inculpate any of his colleagues. There is also a plaque at his grave citing the names of the hanged men. Those considered leaders of the Invincible organisation who were not charged and later made public appearances in America included John Walsh, Patrick Egan, John Sheridan, Frank Byrne, and Patrick Tynan.

The Invincibles (II): Burke was said to have been ‘executed by Order of the Irish Invincibles’ according to a card delivered by the principles to the Irish newspapers. James Carey, who turned Crown witness, was killed by Patrick O’Donnell on board the Melrose out of S. Africa on route to Natal, having out the Kinfauns Castle with his wife Mary [née McKenna] under the name Power - leaving London on July 6. The Powers formed a convivial friendship on the voyage with O’Donnell, also a bricklayer, who was notified by an English traveller called Cubitt that Power was actually Carey as he had learned in the newspapers - a copy of which he showed to O’Donnell. O’Donnell drew a gun on Carey and shot him several times on 29 July. It remained unclear whether he was moved by spontaneous anger or prior intent. O’Donnell was hanged in London on 17 December for the offence. (See Michael Newton, The Age of Assassins, Faber 2011; also J. L. McCracken, The Fate of an Infamous Informer, in History Ireland (2001).

Wikipedia: After numerous attempts on his life, Chief Secretary for Ireland William Edward “Buckshot” Forster resigned in protest of the Kilmainham Treaty.[3] The Invincibles settled on a plan to kill the Permanent Under Secretary Thomas Henry Burke at the Irish Office. The newly installed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was walking with Burke on the day of his arrival in Ireland when the assassins struck, in Phoenix Park, Dublin, at 17:30 Saturday, 6 May 1882. The first assassination in the park was committed by Joe Brady, who attacked Burke with a 12-inch knife, followed in short order by Tim Kelly, who knifed Cavendish. Both men used surgical knives. The British press expressed outrage and demanded that the “Phoenix Park Murderers” be brought to justice. A large number of suspects were arrested. By playing off one suspect against another, Superintendent Mallon of “G” Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police got several of them to reveal what they knew.[4] The Invincibles’ leader, James Carey, and Michael Kavanagh agreed to testify against the others. Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and Tim Kelly were hanged by William Marwood in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin between 14 May and 4 June 1883. Others were sentenced to long prison terms. No member of the founding executive, however, was ever brought to trial by the British government. John Walsh, Patrick Egan, John Sheridan, Frank Byrne, and Patrick Tynan were welcomed in the United States, where sentiment toward the murders was less severe, although not celebratory.”

Further: In Episode Seven of James Joyce’s Ulysses Stephen Dedalus and other characters discuss the assassinations in the offices of the Freeman newspaper. In Episode Sixteen[,] Bloom and Dedalus stop in a cabman’s shelter run by a man they believe to be James “Skin-the-Goat” Fitzharris. The Invincibles and Carey are mentioned in the folk song “Monto (Take Her Up To Monto)”. (See Wikipedia entry on The Irish National Invincibles - online; accessed 21.09.2020.)

“Take her Up To Monto ...”

[...]
When Carey told on Skin-the-goat,
O’Donnell caught him on the boat
He wished he’d never been afloat, the filthy skite.
‘twasn’t very sensible
To tell on the Invincibles
They stood up for their principles, day and night by going up to Monto Monto ...

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Dan Curley: There is a song commemorating the fate of Daniel Curley - a member of the Invincibles though not actually one of the killers - who refused to turn Queen’s Evidence against his associates and was hanged with the others, convicted on the evidence of James Carey (the informer). On stanza, devoted to Carey, reads: ‘May he be evicted, may his wife be a widow, / May his children turn wanderers from Ireland’s green shore, / May the curse of the widow and orphan stay on him / My husband Dan Curley I’ll see him no more.’ An annual commemoration is conducted at the pebble cross at the site of the assassination. (See ‘Frank McNally on a forgotten song about the Phoenix Park Murders’, in “Irishman’s Diary”, The Irish Times, 7 May 2019.)

Further:

Of all the defendants in the subsequent murder trials, Dan Curley made the deepest impression on the public. It was partly his looks – ‘splendid physique with features of almost perfect mould’, according to the Freeman’s Journal – and well-groomed appearance. He was nicknamed ‘Dapper Dan’. But it was also the contrast with his fellow Fenian-turned-informer, James Carey, whose testimony sent five men to the gallows. Curley had not been one of the actual assassins and might have saved his own neck by also turning queen’s evidence. As he said, however, ‘if I had a thousand lives to lose I would lose them sooner than [do that].’ / In a farewell letter from Kilmainham Gaol, he apologised to his wife for having valued honour more than self-preservation. He also told her that would die forgiving his enemies and ‘at peace with all men’.

—McNally, “Irishman’s Diary”, in The Irish Times (7 May 2019) - online; accessed 21.09.2020.

See also Deaglán de Bréadún, review of The Phoenix Park Murders: Conspiracy, Betrayal and Retribution by Senan Molony, in The Irish Times (19 Aug. 2006).

[...] The Sherlock Holmes of this political whodunnit is Det. Supt. John Mallon, the guiding intelligence behind the investigation. Clever as some of the conspirators were, they met their match in Mallon, portrayed as a master of subterfuge and psychology. Ironically, we are told that his subsequent efforts to secure promotion were temporarily blocked by Dublin Castle prejudice against Catholics. [...] The idea has been put about in recent years that the Invincibles were some kind of proto-communists or ideological anarchists, but in Molony’s account they come across as highly devout Catholics who saw themselves as the vanguard of Irish nationalism.

The Sherlock Holmes of this political whodunnit is Det Supt John Mallon, the guiding intelligence behind the investigation. Clever as some of the conspirators were, they met their match in Mallon, portrayed as a master of subterfuge and psychology. Ironically, we are told that his subsequent efforts to secure promotion were temporarily blocked by Dublin Castle prejudice against Catholics. [...] The ‘turning ’ of Carey to give evidence against his colleagues was brought about by a combination of family pressures and false suggestions that the so-called ‘prime minister of the Invincibles ’ , Daniel Curley, was about to break first. His final letter to his ‘most ever-beloved wife’ Jane illustrates the pressure he was feeling. [...] Curley asks her to ‘forgive me for the step that I took with regard to my trial - I mean for not trying to save myself as others did; but I could not stoop so low or bring myself to do so. My dear wife, I will die as I have lived, faithful to my principles and to my country’s causeˆ.

The story has a rich cast of characters, including cab driver “Skin the Goat” Fitzharris and the chief ‘enforcer ’ of the Invincibles, Joe Brady, one of a family of 25 children, who went to his death on the scaffold intoning prayers and kissing the crucifix. [...]

—Deaglán de Bréadún, reviewing n The Irish Times (19 Aug. 2006) - online; accessed 21.09.2020.

Reports on the Phoenix Park Murder Trial

Le Monde Illustré (1882)

Examination of the Defendants - engraving offered on e-Bay - online [21.09.2020]


New York Times report on the conviction of Joe Brady - offered on Amazon - online [29.06.2023]

Belfast Public Library holds a copy of Phoenix Park Murders (1882) assoc. in the catalogue with the name of Joe Brady

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