Arnon Street killings

Last updated

Arnon Street killings
Part of the Irish War of Independence and The Troubles (1920–1922)
Location Belfast, Northern Ireland
Date1 April 1922
TargetCatholic civilians
Attack type
 Mass shooting
Deaths6
Injured1
PerpetratorUnknown

The Arnon Street killings, also referred to as the Arnon Street murders or the Arnon Street massacre, took place on 1 April 1922 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilian men and boys, three in Arnon Street, were shot or beaten to death by men who broke into their homes. It is believed that policemen carried out the attack, members of either the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) or Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), in retaliation for the killing of an RIC officer by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). [1] [2]

Contents

Background

Although the Irish War of Independence officially ended in July 1921, the Irish Republican Army's conflict with British and Irish unionist forces continued in Northern Ireland and escalated in the first half of 1922. The Ulster IRA, with the tacit but covert assistance of Michael Collins (head of the new Irish Free State) continued to wage a guerrilla war in Northern Ireland. According to historian Alan Parkinson, despite "the IRA having some short term successes ... the main effect of this intensive campaign was to unleash a terrible backlash on the Catholic population in Belfast". [3] Only a week before the Arnon Street incident, policemen – either Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) or Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) – had killed six Catholic civilians (the McMahon killings). [4]

On the evening of 1 April an RIC constable, named George Turner was patrolling the Old Lodge Road when he was killed by a sniper. The IRA denied any involvement in the killing of Constable Turner. [5]

The killings

About ten police officers in Brown Square Barracks, upon hearing of Turner's murder, took a Lancia armoured car and went touring Catholic areas. When they dismounted their vehicle, witnesses heard them shouting "Cut the guts out of them for the murder of Turner". [6] Their first victim was John McRory (40) who lived on Stanhope Street, just across the road from where Constable Turner had been shot. The police broke into his house and shot him dead in his kitchen. In Park Street, Bernard McKenna (42), father of seven, was killed while lying in bed. Finally, the police arrived at Arnon Street. [6] [7]

William Spallen (70) lived at 16 Arnon Street and had just returned from the funeral of his wife. [7] His 12-year-old grandson, Gerald Tumelty, witnessed his death: "Two men came into the room, one was in the uniform of a policeman. They asked my grandfather his name and he said William Spallen. The man in plain clothes fired three shots at him. When I cried out he said "lie down or I will put a bullet into you". [8] Tumelty said the killers then took £20 that his grandfather had to pay for his wife's funeral. [8]

The attackers then used a sledgehammer to break into the house next door, where they found Joseph Walsh (39) in bed with his seven-year-old son Michael and his two-year-old daughter Bridget. Joseph Walsh was bludgeoned to death with the sledgehammer while Michael Walsh was shot and died from his wounds the next day. [8] [9] Another son, Frank (14), was shot in the thigh but survived. [8] A local man, George Murray, described the aftermath of the attack: "One of the three policemen had revolvers and the other two had guns. These men went out. Immediately after, seven armed men – five in police uniform and two in civilians clothes – entered". [9] Later that evening, another Catholic, John Mallon (60), was shot dead in Skegoneill Avenue. [8]

Aftermath

The Dublin-based Irish Independent wrote that "never even in the worst state of terror in the west and south has the state of affairs which now prevails in the Northern capital been experienced". [10] Michael Collins sent an angry telegram to Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Craig, demanding a joint inquiry into the killings in accordance with Clause 5 of the recently signed Craig-Collins Pact. No such joint inquiry took place. [11]

As with the McMahon killings one week earlier, it was strongly suspected that an RIC Detective Inspector, John William Nixon, operating out of the Brown Street Police barracks, had organised the attack. Nixon and several other policemen failed to turn up at roll call at the barracks immediately after the killings. [12] According to Irish historical writer Tim Pat Coogan, "in the atmosphere of the time neither Craig nor the British could or would prosecute or investigate such men without risk of a serious backlash amongst the Specials Special Constabulary". [12] Bishop (later Cardinal) MacRory had no doubts that a cover-up was staged in the case of the Arnon killings and stated: "I believe not a single man will be arrested". [13]

According to Parkinson, "the raw sectarianism of many violent acts during this period were not confined to large scale incidents such as the Arnon Street or the McMahon murders, nor indeed to any one political or religious group". [14] For instance, the day before the Arnon Street killings, it is believed that Catholics were responsible for throwing a grenade through the window of the house of Protestant Francis Donnelly, killing his two-year-old son Frank and mortally wounding another son, Joseph (12). [14]

According to historian Robert Lynch's count, a total of 464 people died in Belfast between 1920 and 1922. A further 1,091 were wounded. Of the dead, 159 were Protestant civilians, 258 Catholic were civilians, 35 were British forces, and 12 were IRA volunteers. [15]

Notes

  1. ↑ Lynch 2006 , p. 122, "The murder gang struck again after an RIC Constable, George Turner, was gunned down on the Old Lodge Road."
  2. ↑ Parkinson 2004 , p. 245, "the shooting of a Brown Square Barracks-based RIC officer, George Turner...sparked the grisly events which were to occur in north Belfast early the next morning."
  3. ↑ Parkinson 2004 , p. 220.
  4. ↑ Glennon, Kieran (27 October 2020). "The Dead of the Belfast Pogrom". The Irish Story. Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  5. ↑ McDermott, Jim (2001), Northern Divisions, BTP Publications, Belfast, p. 202; ISBN   1-900960-11-7
  6. 1 2 Parkinson 2004 , p. 245.
  7. 1 2 Lynch 2006 , p. 122.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Parkinson 2004 , p. 246.
  9. 1 2 Lynch 2006 , p. 123.
  10. ↑ Parkinson 2004 , p. 247
  11. ↑ McDermott, p. 214.
  12. 1 2 Coogan 2002 , p. 356.
  13. ↑ McDermott, p. 208.
  14. 1 2 Parkinson 2004 , p. 248.
  15. ↑ Lynch 2006 , p. 227

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Republican Army (1919–1922)</span> Paramilitary organisation

The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary paramilitary organisation. The ancestor of many groups also known as the Irish Republican Army, and distinguished from them as the "Old IRA", it was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly, and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Ulster Constabulary</span> Police force of Northern Ireland (1922–2001)

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) following the partition of Ireland. At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers, with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish War of Independence</span> 1919–1921 war between Irish and British forces

The Irish War of Independence or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was part of the Irish revolutionary period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Irish Constabulary</span> Former armed police force of the United Kingdom in Ireland

The Royal Irish Constabulary was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the country was part of the United Kingdom. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), patrolled the capital and parts of County Wicklow, while the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later had special divisions within the RIC. For most of its history, the ethnic and religious makeup of the RIC broadly matched that of the Irish population, although Anglo-Irish Protestants were overrepresented among its senior officers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulster Special Constabulary</span> Specialized police force of Northern Ireland

The Ulster Special Constabulary was a quasi-military reserve special constable police force in what would later become Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the partition of Ireland. The USC was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency. It performed this role most notably in the early 1920s during the Irish War of Independence and the 1956–1962 IRA Border Campaign.

Events from the year 1920 in Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short Strand</span> Area in Belfast, Northern Ireland

The Short Strand is a working class, inner city area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist enclave surrounded by the mainly Protestant and unionist East Belfast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the Irish War of Independence</span>

This is a timeline of the Irish War of Independence of 1919–21. The Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla conflict and most of the fighting was conducted on a small scale by the standards of conventional warfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe McKelvey</span> Irish Republican Army officer (1898–1922)

Joseph McKelvey was an Irish Republican Army officer who was executed during the Irish Civil War without trial or court martial. He participated in the Anti-Treaty IRA's repudiation of the authority of the Dáil Éireann, the civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919 in March 1922, and was elected to the IRA Army Executive. In April 1922, he helped command the occupation of the Four Courts in defiance of the new Irish Free State. This action helped to spark the civil war, between pro- and anti-treaty factions. McKelvey was among the most hardline of the republican side and, briefly in June 1922, became IRA Chief of Staff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protestant Action Force</span> Front group during the Troubles

The Protestant Action Force (PAF) was a front group used by Ulster loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland when claiming responsibility for a number of attacks during the Troubles. First used in 1974, attacks by individuals claiming to be members of the PAF killed at least 41 Catholic civilians. The PAF was most commonly used by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). All of the attacks claimed by the PAF in Armagh and Tyrone counties from 1974 to 1976 have been linked to the Glenanne gang, which was a group consisting of members of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade along with rogue Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. A six-year period of no attacks claimed by the PAF ended in 1982; during the 1980s, the PAF claimed 15 attacks in the Belfast area and two in County Armagh. UDR soldiers were convicted of two attacks in Armagh. The PAF claimed its last attacks in the early 1990s, all of which were in north Armagh and were alleged to involve members of the security forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John William Nixon</span> Northern Irish politician

John William Nixon, MBE, was a unionist politician and police leader in Northern Ireland who was alleged to be responsible for several sectarian atrocities, including the McMahon killings and the Arnon Street killings. It was widely believed that Nixons "murder gang" within the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) hunted down and murdered Catholics as reprisals for the killing of police.

Roger McCorley was an Irish republican activist.

The McMahon killings or the McMahon murders occurred on 24 March 1922 when six Catholic civilians were shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A group of police officers broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside, in an apparent sectarian attack. The victims were businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others were shot but survived, and a female family member was assaulted. The survivors said most of the gunmen wore police uniform and it is suspected they were members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It is believed to have been a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) killing of two policemen on May Street, Belfast the day before.

Bloody Sunday or Belfast's Bloody Sunday was a day of violence in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 10 July 1921, during the Irish War of Independence. The violence erupted one day before a truce began, which ended the war in most of Ireland. With the truce nearing, police launched a raid against republicans, but were ambushed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and an officer was killed. In retaliation, Protestant loyalists attacked Catholic enclaves in west Belfast, burning homes and businesses. This sparked rioting and gun battles between Protestants and Catholics, including paramilitaries. There were also gun battles between republicans/nationalists and the police, and some police patrols fired indiscriminately at Catholic civilians. Seventeen people were killed or fatally wounded on 10 July, and a further three were killed or fatally wounded before the truce began at noon on 11 July. At least 100 people were wounded. About 200 houses were destroyed or badly damaged, most of them Catholic homes, leaving 1,000 people homeless. See: The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donegall Street bombing</span> 1972 IRA attack in Belfast, Northern Ireland

The Donegall Street bombing took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 20 March 1972 when, just before noon, the Provisional IRA detonated a car bomb in Lower Donegall Street in the city centre when the street was crowded with shoppers, office workers, and many schoolchildren.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sack of Balbriggan</span> Incident in 1920, during the Irish War of Independence

The sack of Balbriggan took place on the night of 20 September 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. Auxiliary members of the Royal Irish Constabulary known as "Black and Tans" went on a rampage in the small town of Balbriggan, County Dublin, burning more than fifty homes and businesses, looting, and killing two local men. Many locals were left jobless and homeless. The attack was claimed to be revenge for the shooting of two police officers in Balbriggan by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was the first major 'reprisal' attack against an Irish town during the conflict. The sack of Balbriggan drew international attention, leading to heated debate in the British parliament and criticism of British government policy in Ireland.

Seamus Woods commanded a division of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during a period of intense conflict and was a senior leader of the newly formed Irish Free State army.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922)</span> Conflict in Northern Ireland

The Troubles of the 1920s was a period of conflict in what is now Northern Ireland from June 1920 until June 1922, during and after the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland. It was mainly a communal conflict between Protestant unionists, who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic Irish nationalists, who backed Irish independence. During this period, more than 500 people were killed in Belfast alone, 500 interned and 23,000 people were made homeless in the city, while approximately 50,000 people fled the north of Ireland due to intimidation. Most of the victims were Nationalists (73%) with civilians being far more likely to be killed compared to the military, police or paramilitaries.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.