PRINCE’S REDBEARD RELATIVE
Royal couple could learn of Phoenix Park Murders history
PRINCE Harry and new bride Meghan Markle will stay in Dublin just a mile from where a redbearded relative of Harry’s had to deal with the consequences of one of the most bloody and destabilising acts of Anglo-Irish history.
Harry and Meghan will overnight at Farmleigh, adjoining the Phoenix Park, where his great-greatgreat-uncle, ironically known as ‘Old Redbeard’, was the viceroy inhabiting what is now Áras an Uachtaráin.
Old Redbeard was John Poyntz Spencer, the fifth Earl Spencer, who was also known as the ‘Red Earl’. He was in the then Viceregal Lodge when May 1882 brought the notorious political killings that became known as the Phoenix Park Murders.
The new Duke and Duchess of Sussex will pass the spot where the murders took place when they make their way to the State guesthouse Farmleigh.
Farmleigh was closed to visitors yesterday and ‘for the next few days’. It flew the Irish Tricolour but also the Austrian flag because Chancellor Sebastian Kurz stayed there on Sunday night.
The fifth Earl Spencer did not personally witness the deaths of Chief Secretary Sir Frederick Cavendish and Under Secretary Thomas Henry Burke, but the attack was witnessed from the Viceregal Lodge. He later attended the scene and viewed the bodies, writing a full account in a mournful letter that night to Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.
LORD Spencer wrote: ‘It is said that I saw the murders. That is not so. I had asked Cavendish to drive to the Park with me. He said he would not; he would rather walk with Burke. Of course, if he had come with me it would not have happened. I then rode to the Park with a small escort… I made a slight detour, and got to the Lodge another way. When I reached the Lodge I sat down near the window and began to read some papers.
‘Suddenly I heard a shriek which I shall never forget. I seem to hear it now; it is always in my ears. This shriek was repeated again and again. I got up to look out. I saw a man rushing along. He jumped over the palings, and dashed up to the Lodge shouting: “Mr Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are killed!”
‘There was great confusion, and immediately I rushed out; but someone of the household stopped me, saying that it might be a ruse to get me out, and advising me to wait and make inquiries. I have said that I did not see the murder, but my servant did. He was upstairs, and saw a scuffle going on, but, of course, did not know what it was about.’
The two men, effectively Lord Spencer’s No. 2 and 3 in the British administration in Ireland, had been knifed to death by a party of four assassins who fled the park on a horse-drawn car.
The news caused consternation. Theatre productions and concerts were stopped mid-performance and the audiences invited to leave in announcements from the stage. The effect was akin to the Lincoln assassination in Washington DC 19 years earlier. The authorities’ immediate response was to turn out all police and army barracks, stopping all train movements, with watches set on ferry ports, while instantly a web of checkpoints was operated and raids organised on the homes of the usual Fenian suspects. It all came to nothing, although scores of innocent suspects were arrested around the country. The truth only began to distil with a blackbordered mourning card that had been pushed through a newspaper’s night box: ‘This deed was done by the Irish Invincibles.’
Meanwhile, Harry’s great-greatgreat-uncle was writing to his wife at home in London: ‘We are in God’s hands. Do not be filled with alarm and fear. I was alone and have no apprehension. God knows how I feel, this fearful tragedy – two such men at such a time. I dare not dwell on the horror, for I feel I must be unmanned. I am very calm. Do not, loved one, come unless you feel more unhappy in London than here. There is no danger really whatever. See dear Lucy [Cavendish’s wife] if you can and tell her that I am not made of ice, but I dare not face what has occurred. God help and comfort her and all his relatives.’
It later fell to Old Redbeard to keep the pressure on the police and security apparatus as they sought to discover who comprised this new band that had described themselves as ‘Invincibles’. Eventually, some months later, one of their number fell into their hands as a result of a botched attempted murder of a judge one night outside his Kildare Street club. Soon the prisoner’s associates were in custody, with suspicion progressively falling on others.
Redbeard’s apparatus then went to work – psychologically torturing the detainees and prompting them to turn on one another, letting it be known that they were quite prepared to hang small fry (or even innocent men, as they had before), but that anyone who turned Queen’s evidence should escape the noose – as long as they testified against the real perpetrators in open court.
Thus it came about that James Carey, one of the leading Invincibles, betrayed his fellows – and several would be hanged in the same Kilmainham gaol where another pantheon of patriots would replace them in 1916.
CAREY, for his part, had gold put in his pocket and his whole family taken into protective custody. Redbeard Spencer was party to Carey’s pardon and the creation of the world’s first witness protection programme, whereby he was given a new name (Power) and prepared for a new life in Australia.
The Powers were later rowed out to meet a ship bound for South Africa on the first leg of their journey. But on that vessel was a Fenian – whether by foreknowledge or happenstance – and he recognised Carey. Patrick O’Donnell shot him to death below decks and would himself hang for his acts.
The Phoenix Park Murders hold as many twists and turns as Irish history in miniature – and Harry, if he cared to see it, can still trace a cross of remembrance that has been at the site for the last 136 years. Each year, on May 6, fresh flowers appear beside it.