Parallel Violence
Alongside the Land War small nationalist groups such as the "Invincibles" murdered two senior politicians in the 1882 Phoenix Park Murders, heightening tensions. In the same year the murders of bailiffs and loyalists at Lough Mask, Maamtrasna and Castleisland were widely publicised; nationalists and Land Leaguers argued that packed pro-government juries had convicted and executed the wrong men, while their opponents argued that the victims' families had to have redress. Violence used ostensibly in the name of the League also overlapped with robbery; the murder of John O'Connell Curtin in County Kerry in November 1885, when resisting a band of "moonlighters" who wanted to rob his gun shop, came to international attention. Curtin was a Catholic tenant farmer; after his burial his family were boycotted locally for naming his murderers to the police, and were therefore obliged to sell their farm lease and leave their home in April 1888. The bitterness and distrust engendered in the Land War, and the suffering on both sides, were emotive elements in the movement for Irish Home Rule and the eventual partition of Ireland.
Read more about this topic: Land War
Famous quotes containing the words parallel and/or violence:
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