Phoenix Park

This guide to Phoenix Park in Dublin sets its scene on the evening of 6 May 1882, when two men walk along the park's main road near the Viceregal Lodge, one of them newly arrived in the country only hours before. It introduces the Irish National Invincibles, a secret society armed with surgical knives rather than guns, closing in as the men pass the zoo gates. One of the two is Thomas Henry Burke, the most senior civil servant in Ireland; beside him walks Lord Frederick Cavendish, arrived that same day as the new Chief Secretary for Ireland.