The Invincible Society, a secret organization composed of approximately twenty members, all Fenians, was formed in Dublin around December of
1881. Their modus operandi was to assassinate Irish government officials who aided the English attempts at coercion. On May 6, 1882,
shortly after James Joyce was born, the Invincibles assassinated the new lord lieutenant Lord Frederick Cavendish - not their intended target -
and T.H Burke, his undersecretary, in Phoenix Park. Burke, an Irishmen supporting the English policies of coercion, was the real target and since
Cavendish could identify them, he was murdered as well. The murder of Cavendish was a serious, if not fatal blow to the passage of a Home Rule
Bill, as Cavendish was more sympathetic to Parnell's and Gladstone's efforts in parliament. Parnell fell into a depression after the murders, which
in turn fueled his animosity towards the Lady's Land League, as Margaret Ward explains in Unmanageable Revolutionaries (p.32). As
A Pocket History of Ireland states, the Invincibles were an example of what Parnell had used as a veiled threat towards the English
government; they would have to deal with him or deal with 'Captain Moonlight' - more extreme Fenians he feared he could not contain (p.46).
Our first encounter with these infamous figures and their heinous act is at All Hallows church where Bloom has gone to meet Martha. Bloom
reflects on 'their character', which could be women in general, or as more likely the tendency of the Irish to betray their faith, and in relation to the
Invincibles, their fellows. This was a recurrent theme in the Irish program, as we saw in the film The Informer, which dealt with this idea
of Fenian betrayal in the same iconography of sacrifice that Bloom has just recently touched on. "Their character. That fellow that turned Queen's
evidence on the invincibles he used to receive communion every morning. This very church. And plotting that murder all the time"(81:26-28).
James Carey, whom he mistakenly confuses with his brother Peter, also a principal in the murders, was a Dublin builder and one of the leaders of
the Invincibles, who even though an accomplice, testified against the group - a main source of evidence which won convictions against them. He
was later slain on board a ship, while attempting to escape Ireland under the alias Power, by an agent of the Invincibles. This again echoes the
film mentioned previously, betrayal equaling a death sentence among the Fenians.
Our next encounter with the story of the Invincibles is in the 'Aeolus' section where we learn the name of the pressman who followed the story
for the Freeman's Journal, 'the great Gallaher'(135:33). We also learn erroneously when the murders took place and where (136:3-4), as well
as two of the murderers, Tim Kelly and Joe Brady (136:11). More importantly though we hear about the cab drivers, one who also turned traitor
Michael Kavanaugh, and the other who will later turn up, James 'Skin-the-Goat' Fitzharris (136:16). More erroneous information follows when the
route taken nottaken by 'Skin-the-Goat' is explained with the anagram F. A. B. P. X. (137:5). The route was actually that of Kavanaugh, who
carried the principals, while Fitzharris and his cabfull of Invincibles were used largely as a decoy. During this mistaken remembrance Bloom
telephones and we have him and Stephen in the same scene (137:12) - if only through the mediation of technology. Stephen's very next thought
is 'Nightmare from which you will never awake' (137:22) in response to the phrase "give him the whole bloody history". As if to illustrate Stephen's
view on Irish politics and history, as expressed in the story of the Invincibles, we hear about hawkers selling commemorative postcards of the
murderers in Phoenix Park (138:5). This serves as a reflection on the idea that the Irish, following the 'Great Hunger', began to idolize the concept
of martyrdom as espoused by Catholicism, especially in regard to the continuing struggle with England; a view Stephen is obviously not
sympathetic to.
Bloom makes a very powerful connection when next we hear of these figures. Bloom is reminiscing about his encounter with student protest
against Joseph Chamberlain, a statesman supposedly responsible for the Boer War. He finally remembers the name of the turncoat James Carey
while thinking of Corney Kelleher as a possible betrayer (163:19). He goes on to suggest that Chamberlain was in essence an agitator or
provocateur, "Egging raw youths on to get in the know. All the time drawing secret service pay from the castle" (163:20-1). Shortly
thereafter he discusses the organizational form the Fenians used to avoid betrayal of this sort, "Circles of ten so a fellow couldn't round on more
than his own ring. Sinn Fein" (163:36).
The next encounter is Bloom's as well, ironically enough it occurs in 'Cyclops', a chapter which deals thematically with the silence of secret
societies and Fenians in particular, through the character of Michael 'the Citizen' Cussack, a founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association. It is only
appropriate since we are in the presence of so mighty a man-hero that the reference of the hanging of Joe Brady (304:30) should fall in a
conversation on the effects hanging has on the genitalia of males. There is a piece of folklore that bears mentioning, the ejaculate of hanged men
is supposedly the seed of the mandrake, an anthropomorphic root said to scream when pulled from the ground. "So of course the citizen was
only waiting for the wink of the word and he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard…" (305:11). The citizen is
discussing the various Irish revolutionaries who have added their blood to the cult of sacrifice, martyrs for the stillborn birth of the Irish nation.
The gestation of Stephen, the overly spirited son and Bloom the spiritual father, comes about in 'Oxen of the Sun' where there is a twist on the
name of the Invincibles as 'the Denzill Lane boys' (424:26) due to several of the members living on Denzill St., adjacent to Denzill Ln.. If this
section is the gestation/birthing of Stephen, the section where we finally meet James 'Skin-the-Goat' Fitzharris is the first move towards
consubstantiation. There is no way that Stephen can come to view Bloom in anyway, other than the sarcastic deprecation of his schoolboy
friends until he has severed the connection to his obsessive guilt regarding his mother (583:2) - self-awareness, and his schoolboy turncoats as
seen in being left with and by Lynch (600:26) - self-determination, which both occur in the 'Circe' section.
'Skin-the-Goat' is aligned with the figure of the pig-keeper Eumaeus in the Odyssey, his cab shelter on Butt Bridge is the place
Ulysses/Bloom and Telemachus/Stephen travel to first before returning home to Penelope/Molly. As the 'Ithaca' section is constructed to be
anticlimactic, this is where the action of connection becomes palpable. For the first time we have a recollection of the Phoenix Park murders and
our would-be Eumaeus as being potentially fallible (621:37); which in its way causes us to question them in the same way we have become
accustomed to regard the 'facts' about other political assassinations. When we finally discover how the murders were committed, the suggestion
of questionable 'facts' concerning the nationality of the murderers is a whisper out of the dark (629:7) - like most recriminations of outsiders and
foreigners. The fact that these grizzly murders took place seven years before Sir William Gull as 'Jack-the-Ripper' perpetrated his Masonic
murders as seen in the comic series From Hell, it is no wonder that Bloom can recall these slayings so vividly, even if he can't get the year
correct (629:28). The crescendo in this discourse on the questionable nature of 'facts' and consequently motives, is the cynic Bloom suggesting
the conversation between the sailor Murphy "home and beauty" of the Rosevean and 'Skin-the-Goat' Fitzharris is a "confidence trick … it was
prearranged" (640:1). He then goes on to suggest it is best to let these have their game, on the "offchance of a Dannyman coming forward and
turning Queen's evidence" (640:8). And we have come full circle, as this was the first reflection that we encountered in regards to the Phoenix
Park murders and the Invincibles in All Hallows church.
The Phoenix Park murders serve to illustrate several characteristics of the Irish culture in regard to the continuing political struggle with England
- self determination, and its own internal struggle with the bloody sacrifice of martyrdom as viewed through the dark lens of Catholicism - self
awareness. The dispossession and pauperism of the Irish Catholics, the memory of genocidal inaction on the part of the English during the 'Great
Hunger', these are threads of the tapestry of victimhood which depict the continuing struggle of revolutionary aspirations in Ireland. In the face
of overwhelming odds and stark destitution there will always be someone willing to sacrifice connections of nationality and loyalty for bread in
the stomach and coin in the pocket. Just as there is always a voice raised against the outsider or foreigner when no target is readily at hand. The
Irish on so many occasions were in reach of their goals of self-determination, only to have them slip through their fingers like so much fairy gold
turned to dust in the light of day. As Gabriel says in The Dead, "…I'm sick of my country, sick of it", he like Stephen and Joyce was in
the midst of this violent desire to be rid of the chains of oppression swelling to abscess, it consistently showed its shadow in the form of ironic
and detrimental actions like the Phoenix Park murders, the disavowal of the Lady's Land League by Parnell, and the desertion and discrediting of
Parnell by the Church, which while intending to facilitate the process inevitably force their desires further away. Joyce uses these allusions to
he murders to make us aware of the ambiguous nature of 'facts' when coupled with political and religious convictions.