On 30 May 1884 there were three explosions in London attributed to the Fenian Brotherhood. One was at Scotland Yard, caused by dynamite left in a urinal which the public had access to. The windows in the pub opposite, The Rising Sun, were shattered. Nobody was killed. Chief Inspector Littlechild, Head of the Special Irish Branch which investigated the Fenian Brotherhood, had left his office to go to the opera.

In a private letter written in 1913 Littlechild named Francis Tumblety as a Jack the Ripper suspect, commenting that there was a large dossier on him at Scotland Yard. This has not survived. The Fenian campaign continued until 1885, with explosions at train stations and in the House of Commons. Later the IRA adopted a similar campaign of terror.

A new Scotland Yard building was erected. During the construction, and at the height of the Jack the Ripper murders, someone broke into the site and left a female torso. Other parts of the body were found elsewhere. The murderer, like Jack the Ripper and the bombers, was never caught.