User:Fgurnee/sandbox

Frank Byrne (1843 - 1894) was an instigator of the Irish National Invincibles, the radical offshoot of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was implicated, if not as the organizer at least the spirit behind the assassinations of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Under Secretary Thomas Henry Burke in the Phoenix Park Murders of May 6, 1882. He was one of only two who managed to flee Ireland to escape prosecution for the crime. His escape was the source of much legal wrangling in Ireland, France, and the United States.

Personal life
Byrne was born in Ireland in 1843. He was married to Mary Ann Monneypenny and had two children. Mrs. Byrne's sympathies lay with her husband and was an active participant his activities.

Irish patriot
Frank Byrne was an aide to Charles Stewart Parnell and secretary of the Irish Home Rule League and the Irish National Land League. Although he was an ardent supporter of the goals of both Irish home rule and the abolishment of landlordism in Ireland, he became much more of a revolutionist and opposed to Parnell's methods of negotiation. After the Coercion Act of 1881, designed to quell the Irish farmers, led the arrest of Parnell's, Byrne and a number like-minded Land Leaguers banded together as the Irish National Invincibles with more violent ideals to combat the British administrators

Phoenix Park Murders
His wife was believed to be the woman who brought to Dublin the knives with which the Phoenix Park murders were committed. These knives, it was stated, had been laying for some time in the London offices of the Irish National League of Great Britain.

Escape
After the murders, Byrne was arrested in Paris, but soon released. Byrne had served in the French army during the Franco-Prussian War, and had received several medals for meritorious conduct. He claimed this owed to his release.

Later life
Upon being freed, he immigrated to New York, arriving on March 28, 1883. In New York, Byrne took an active part in the propaganda of Fenianism.

He died in the Providence, Rhode Island, on February 16, 1894