books were removed by Campbell and Sheridan to London.

The League changed its name to the Ladies' Land League, a device which had long been prepared in anticipation of the Government suppressing the organisation. The money for agitation was duly sent from Paris, and, though the main leaders were in prison, agitation, outrage and violence continued unabated.

On the 2nd May, 1882, Parnell, having given certain undertakings to the Government to use the whole influence of his machine to put down outrage and calm the country, he and his colleagues were released. Foster, the Chief Secretary, resigned, and Lord Frederick Cavendish was appointed in his stead. Four days later, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were murdered in Phoenix Park, May 6th, 1882, by a secret society known as the Irish Invincibles. It is, perhaps, a melancholy contemplation to note that the sturdy Victorian world of those times was more profoundly shocked by this cold-blooded murder than it has been by the far more terrible events of 1916 and 1919-21. Moral vision was clearer, and the people of that day still possessed perceptions that the great blood-bath of a world-war had not dulled. No policy that bore blood-guilt could be condoned, nor could there then be parley with those who had sanctioned murder.

The murder woke the British public, and the immediate answer was a Crimes Bill almost as powerful as the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act of to-day. Parnell and Davitt issued condemnations of the murder, but the Land League

was so discredited by the crime that it was converted into the National League, an organisation promptly captured by the secret societies.

The reaction from the crime checked outrage, and the mass of the Irish people again returned to the path of constitutional, rather than criminal, agitations.*

* The effect of the Land League can be gauged from the following official figures of Firing Outrages :

1883 56 1884

...

44

CHAPTER VII

THE NATIONAL LEAGUE, THE CLAN-NA-GAEL, AND DYNAMITE OUTRAGES

THE reaction against the agrarian agitation of the Land League produced by the Phoenix Park murders was sufficient to alienate the bulk of the people; but the I.R.B. and the Clan-na-Gael saw in the collapse of the open movement the assurance that secret revolutionary conspiracy alone could succeed.

The Land League had garnered into its net, not only the I.R.B., but the old agrarian and Catholic societies who had appeared as the executants of organised outrage under a new generic name of Moonlighters. These organisations were undoubtedly subsidised by the Land League, which was in turn the agent of the revolutionary societies in the United States.

Daniel O'Connell, alias Captain Moonlight, was a typical conspirator. At his trial on 23rd January, 1882, for an outrage in December, 1881, he turned informer and admitted that all the money for the organisation of outrages in the provinces came from Dublin. The oath he administered was as follows:

"I swear to be true and faithful to the Irish Republic, to obey my Superiors, and to take up arms when required. Death to the traitor. So help me God."

He was a raid organiser and also took charge of all arms for outrages and those stolen during the raids. The Judge, in his summing-up, said of the oath :-"It was the same unsuppressed Fenian conspiracy."

The search for the authors of the Phoenix Park murders continued for some time before the authorities were certain enough of their proofs to carry out the arrest of men who had long been suspected. It became clear that the organisation of the Irish Invincibles was not a definite branch of the Land League, nor even a particular circle of the I.R.B., but was an amalgamation of extremists pledged to a campaign of murder, and had on its directorate prominent Land Leaguers who were also members of the I.R.B.

Neither Parnell nor Davitt was proved to be implicated in the Invincible crimes, but the Land League officials under them certainly were. The very daggers were bought with Land League money, were carried over to the murderers by a Land League official's wife, and kept in the Land League offices. From 1879 to 1883 the Land League drew £244,820, of which four-fifths came from America. Of this money, £100,000 has never been accounted for.

The Executive of the Irish Invincibles was joined by members of the I.R.B., but the two organisations were kept distinct. In Dublin nearly every Invincible was an I.R.B. man, but in the provinces the bulk of the members were the daring spirits among the Land Leaguers, that is to say, active Moonlighters and criminals.

The Invincibles conceived the idea of assassi

nating all British officials in Ireland, and held themselves to be guerilla soldiers, a peculiar mental conception which still endures among certain Irishmen. Very little documentary record of the conspiracy exists, as all written orders or instructions were burnt when read.

The chief of the Invincibles was P. J. Tynan, always alluded to as ' No. 1.' His identity was for a long time secret, and his true character unsuspected. He was a member of the Queen's Westminster Volunteer Rifles, closely in touch with Government circles in England, and a frequent caller at the Irish Office. Byrne, Secretary of the Land League, Dr. Hamilton Williams and others, were high officials of the Invincible Executive.

The membership of the Irish Invincibles was limited to a nominal figure of 250, and through its secret affiliation with the I.R.B., the Moonlighters and other criminal organisations, it might have had more serious influence on Irish history, had its first exploits gone unpunished. Tynan, the leading assassin, claims for it a great deal more influence than it actually possessed, and claims a membership of many thousands. The society was, however, only founded in December, 1881, and not organised until the spring of 1882. The Phoenix Park murders were on May 6th, 1882, and two months later Daniel Curley, Edward McCaffrey, and Peter Doyle were arrested on suspicion, and after a period of detention were again released but kept under secret surveillance.

On January 13th, 1883, a surprise raid was made, and James Carey, Daniel Curley, Edward McCaffrey Peter Doyle, Thomas Martin, Joseph Hanlon,