Belfast Pogrom

Several factors - economic, political and cultural coincided in July 1920 which led to mass expulsions or "clearings" of Catholics, Socialists and Protestants (that were considered disloyal) from Belfast's shipyards, foundries, linen mills and other commercial concerns. The workplace expulsions took place at a time when northern Irish Unionists were concerned with the ongoing violence in the south of Ireland (the Irish War of Independence) and the introduction of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (which resulted in the Partition of Ireland). Other factors were the increased level of violence against senior members of the army/police and politicians: (the assassinations of Belfast City Councilman William J. Twaddell, British Army Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) District Inspector Swanzy and RIC Divisional Commissioner Lt Col Gerald Rice Smyth.[1]

Also contributing to the onset of intense communal violence were the bleak economic conditions of post war Belfast, increased demand for jobs brought on by returning World War I soldiers, fiery political speeches made by Unionist leaders and the stockpiling of weapons by both communities - Irish Unionists/Protestants and Irish Nationalists/Catholics.[2][3] While both communities suffered from sectarian and politically motivated violence during this time, Catholics were disproportionally affected. Almost 2/3 of the victims of violence were Roman Catholic but made up less than a quarter of the population.[4] By June 1920 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) engaged each other in gun battles.[5]" Tit for tat" retaliations between the IRA/Catholics and the Pollice/Unionists ensured extended periods of violence. On July 29, 1920 the Irish Committee in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom approved the setting up of a new security force for Ireland - the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) (disbanded in May 1970).[6] To many in Belfast's Nationalist/Catholic community the establishment of this almost exclusively Unionist/Protestant force - the A Specials and B Specials was the arming of a majority (Unionists) against a minority (Nationalists).[7][8] Two of the most infamous sectarian retaliations during this period were the McMahon killings (24 March 1922) in which five Catholic family members and one employee were murdered in Belfast (the gunmen allegedly were police officers).[9] A week later six Catholics were murdered during the Arnon Street killings (1 April 1922). These unsolved killings are believed to have been retaliations for the killing of policemen in the days before the attacks.[10][11]

The use of the terms pogrom and ethnic cleansing to describe the violence of this time has been fiercely debated by historians.[12] Historians have argued that the term pogrom is not appropriate given the reciprocity of violence between communities in Northern Ireland.[13] In the context of the Belfast shipyard clearances, the use of the word pogrom does not strictly conform to dictionary definitions, most notably in the pogroms directed at Jews in eastern Europe. However, the term was widely used at the time by Irish Nationalists.[14] The American Commission on Conditions in Ireland Interim Report 1921 stated "These riots between Protestants and Catholics in which Protestants were the aggressors partook of the character of Russian pogroms against the Jews."[15]

During this period of intense violence, many members of the Catholic/Nationalist community in Belfast felt that the violence of the shipyard expulsions and the violent clearing of thousands of Catholics from mixed neighborhoods was ethnic cleansing or a pogrom.[16] What is clear is that the minority population were the principal victims, suffering high levels of violence, intimidation and severe economic hardships at the hands of the majority population and the police.[17]

After the annual July 12th holiday in 1920, shipyard workers returned to work and a meeting was called of "all Unionist and Protestant workers" during the lunch hour that day (21 July 1920). With approximately 5,000 workers present, speeches were made demanding the expulsions of all non-loyal workers. After hours of intimidation and violence most Catholic and Socialist workers were removed from the Harland and Wolff and other shipyards.[18] Expulsions continued for several days after at work locations across Belfast to include several hundred female textile workers.[19] The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and soon to be the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Sir James Craig made his feelings on the expulsions clear when he visited the shipyards: "Do I approve of the actions you boys have taken in the past? I say yes."[20] The expulsion of thousands of Catholic workers from the shipyards was followed by retaliatory attacks on Protestant workers returning home after work, starting a cycle of communal violence which continued for over two years.[21]

The shipyard had a long-standing reputation as a Protestant "closed shop" – in 1970, 500 Catholic workers were expelled from their jobs.[22]

In August 1920, Belfast Sinn Fein members formed the Belfast Boycott Committee and requested help from the newly formed Irish Government to put pressure on the Unionists. The boycott was aimed at goods from Belfast and several other northern towns. The boycott was effectively enforced only in County Monaghan, primarily due to its location close to the newly proclaimed border and Belfast. By late August 1920, the following declaration was signed by all of Monaghans Catholic commercial traders: "We the undersigned traders of Monaghan town, hereby pledge ourselves not to deal directly or indirectly with Belfast Unionist firms or traders until such time as adequate reparation has been made to the Catholic victims of the recent Belfast pogrom."[23] In January 1921 the abstentionist Irish Parliament (Dail Eireann) agreed to support the boycott, providing 35,000 pounds to the campaign.[24] By May 1921 there were 360 Belfast Boycott committees spread across Ireland, but it was enforced intermittently. The boycott had minimal impact on the north's three main industries agriculture, shipbuilding and linen as they were mainly shipped to markets outside of Ireland.[25]

Sectarian motivated violence was not confined to Belfast. On July 12, 1920 Ulster Unionist Party leader Lord Carson made an inflammatory speech in Derry in which he said "I am sick of words without actions" and warned the British government that if they refused to provide adequate protection against the IRA "we (Unionists) would take matters into our own hands."[26] Five days of looting and street fighting followed in Derry.[27] Many Nationalists asserted that Carsons rhetoric was responsible for prompting Loyalists to attack Catholics, thereby initiating what they regarded as a "pogrom" against Belfast's minority community.[28] In the first half of 1920, the violence in Derry left twenty people dead and hundreds more wounded.[29] In Lisburn, County Antrim, on 23–25 August 1920, Protestant/Loyalist crowds looted and burned practically every Catholic business in the town and attacked Catholic homes. About 1,000 people (a third of the town's Catholics) fled Lisburn.[30] In the summer of 1920 sectarian rioting occurred in several other towns in east Ulster: Banbridge, Dromore and Newtownards.[31] The burning of property forced many Catholic families to flee, leading to a long term decline of the Catholic population in these towns.[32]

Ulster Pogroms, Main Street Lisburn 1920

The Parliament of Northern Ireland first met on June 7, 1921 and violence quickly followed. Between June 10–15, 1921 severe rioting occurred in Belfast with six Catholic men beaten/shot to death with about 150 Catholic families driven from their homes.[33] Ferocious fighting occurred in west Belfast on 10 July 1921, in which 16 civilians (eleven Catholics and five Protestants) lost their lives and 161 houses were destroyed.[34] The War of Independence in Ireland ended with a truce on 11 July 1921 but the following week saw intense violence in Belfast. During the week of 9–14 July 1921 23 civilians were killed: 16 Catholics and seven Protestants with 216 Catholic homes destroyed.[35]

The first half of 1922 saw an undeclared civil war under way in Northern Ireland.[36] The death toll in the north for February was 44, with 30 people killed in Belfast on a single night. One of the worst atrocities during this time occurred on 14 February 1922. A bomb was thrown into a group of Catholic children as they were playing in Weaver Street, Belfast, killing four children, two mothers and injuring 22 children.[37] In early/mid 1922 large scale intimidation of Catholic families again took place in Belfast: on May 19, 1922, 71 Catholic families were driven out of their homes and on 31 May 1922, 78 Catholic families were driven from their homes.[38] Sectarian attacks were not limited to one side of the conflict: on 19 May 1922 workmen at a cooperage in Belfast were lined up and asked their religion. Four Protestant workers were separated from their Catholic workmates and shot dead.[39]

Between 1920-22, within newly formed Northern Ireland 557 people were killed: 303 Catholics, 172 Protestants and 82 members of the police and British Army.[40] Belfast suffered the most casualties - 452 people were killed (267 Catholics and 185 Protestants), 650 private houses/businesses destroyed by arson and thousands of people forced out of their homes due to intimidation.[41] Catholic relief organizations estimated that (between July 1920 and July 1922) 8,700 to 11,000 Catholics had lost their jobs, that up to 23,000 Catholic residents had been forced from their homes and about 500 Catholic owned businesses had been destroyed.[42] Intimidation and retaliation attacks occurred in both communities with over 20% of the victims of housing expulsions being Protestants.[43]

In the troubles of 1969, some Belfast Catholics whose homes had been attacked when they were children found themselves being attacked again in what seemed a re-run of the 1920s pogroms.[44]

In February 1922, a police raid on an IRA location in Belfast captured documents listing the names of all of the IRA Brigade Officers in Belfast.[45] By the summer of 1922 the level of violence in Belfast subsided due to increased arrests of Irish Republicans and the passing of the Special Powers Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 which introduced internment without trial. Within four months the government reported that 446 people had been interned (by December 1924, 700 Irish Republicans were interned).[46][47] The death of Michael Collins on 22 August 1922 dealt a severe blow to the northern IRA. Collins had taken an active interest in reversing the Partition of Ireland and with his death, many northern IRA men felt that their cause was unwinnable. IRA Belfast Brigade leader Roger McCorley stated, "When Collins was killed the northern element (of the IRA) gave up all hope."[48] The numerical superiority of the USC (19,400 members in the A and B Specials) also proved an insurmountable obstacle for the IRA.[49] Nationalists hopes for a large scale transfer of Northern Ireland territory to the newly formed Irish Free State (via the Irish Boundary Commission) may have also led to a decrease in the violence.[50]

Bruce, Steve (1994) The Edge of the Union: the Ulster Loyalist Political Vision, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Cottrell, Peter, (2008), The Irish Civil War 1922-23, Osprey Pub, Oxford, ISBN 139781846032707

Lawlor, Pearse (2009), The Burnings 1920, Mercier Press

MacEoin, Uinseann, (1981), Survivors, Argenta Publications

McCarthy, Pat, (2015),The Irish Revolution, 1912-23, Four Courts Press, Dublin, ISBN 978-1-84682-410-4

McNally Jack, (1987), Morally Good, Politically Bad, Andersontown News Publications

Phoenix, Eamon, (1994), Northern Nationalism Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast

Thorne, Kathleen, (2014), Echoes of Their Footsteps, The Irish Civil War 1922-1924, Generation Organization, Newberg, OR, ISBN 978-0-692-245-13-2