Bloody Sunday or Belfast's Bloody Sunday was a day of violence in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
,
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
on 10 July 1921, during the
Irish War of Independence
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 (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...
. The violence erupted one day before a
truce
A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state act ...
began, which ended the war in most of Ireland. With the truce nearing,
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
launched a raid against
republicans, but were ambushed by the
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief tha ...
(IRA) and an officer was killed. In retaliation,
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
attacked
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
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
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
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
''The Truce'' ( it, La tregua), titled ''The Reawakening'' in the US, is a book by the Italian author Primo Levi. It is the sequel to '' If This Is a Man'' and describes the author's experiences from the liberation of Auschwitz ( Monowitz), whi ...
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.
[Parkinson, Alan F. ''Belfast's Unholy War''. Four Courts Press, Dublin 2004; , pg. 154.] See:
The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922)
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 Protestan ...
.
Background
Belfast saw almost 500 people killed from 1920 to 1922 in political and sectarian violence related to the
Irish War of Independence
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 (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...
(see
The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922)
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 Protestan ...
). While most of Ireland had a
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and
Irish nationalist
Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...
majority who wanted independence, the north-east had a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
and
Unionist majority who wanted to maintain ties to Britain. Violence broke out in Belfast on 21 July 1920, when Protestant
Loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
drove 8,000 "disloyal" co-workers from their jobs in the Belfast shipyards, mostly Catholics and some Protestant
labour activists. The violence was partly in reaction to increasing
Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief tha ...
(IRA) attacks and was fuelled by rhetoric from Unionist politicians. More than 50 people were killed in rioting between Protestants and Catholics.
[ In nearby ]Lisburn
Lisburn (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with ...
, Banbridge
Banbridge ( , ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Bann and the A1 road (Northern Ireland), A1 road and is named after a bridge built over the River Bann in 1712. It is situated in the Civil parishes in Ireland, c ...
and Dromore loyalists burnt hundreds of Catholic businesses and homes.
There was sporadic violence in Belfast over the following year. In May 1921, Ireland was partitioned under British law
The United Kingdom has four legal systems, each of which derives from a particular geographical area for a variety of historical reasons: English and Welsh law, Scots law, Northern Ireland law, and, since 2007, purely Welsh law (as a result of ...
, creating Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
as a self-governing territory of the United Kingdom,[O'Day, Alan. ''Irish Home Rule, 1867–1921''. Manchester University Press, 1998. p. 299] with Belfast as its capital. Its borders were drawn to give it a Protestant majority. Its new reserve police force, the Ulster Special Constabulary
The Ulster Special Constabulary (USC; commonly called the "B-Specials" or "B Men") 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 par ...
(USC), was almost wholly Protestant and some of its members carried out reprisal attacks on Catholics.
Violence increased in summer 1921. At the time, representatives of the self-declared Irish Republic
The Irish Republic ( ga, Poblacht na hÉireann or ) was an unrecognised revolutionary state that declared its independence from the United Kingdom in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of Ireland, but by ...
and the British government were negotiating a truce to end the war. On 10 June, IRA volunteers shot three Royal Irish Constabulary
The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ga, Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the country was part of the United Kingdom. A separate ...
(RIC) officers on Belfast's Falls Road, fatally wounding Constable James Glover. He had been targeted because the IRA suspected him of being part of a group of police involved in sectarian killings of Catholics. This attack sparked three days of loyalist violence, during which at least 14 people were killed, including three Catholics who were taken from their homes and killed by uniformed police. Sporadic violence continued in the city over the next month. On 8 July, police attempted to carry out searches in the Catholic enclave of Carrick Hill. However, they were confronted by about 15 IRA volunteers, leading to an hour-long firefight.[Parkinson, p. 151]
Violence
On 9 July, a ceasefire (or truce) was agreed between representatives of the Irish Republic
The Irish Republic ( ga, Poblacht na hÉireann or ) was an unrecognised revolutionary state that declared its independence from the United Kingdom in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of Ireland, but by ...
and the British government, to begin at noon on 11 July. Many Protestant loyalists condemned the truce as a 'sell-out' to republicans.[Bell, J Bowyer. ''The Secret Army: The IRA''. Transaction Publishers, 1997. pp. 29–30; /]
On the night of 9–10 July, hours after the truce was announced, the RIC attempted to launch a police raid in the Catholic Lower Falls district of west Belfast. Scouts alerted the IRA of the raid by blowing whistles, banging dustbin lids and flashing a red light. On Raglan Street, a unit of about 14 IRA volunteers ambushed an armoured police truck, killing one officer and wounding at least two others. The officer killed was Thomas Conlon, a Catholic from County Roscommon
"Steadfast Irish heart"
, image_map = Island of Ireland location map Roscommon.svg
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Ireland
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 = Connacht
, subdi ...
, who, ironically, was viewed as "sympathetic" to the local nationalists.[Glennon, Kieran]
Today in Irish History – July 10 1921 – Belfast’s Bloody Sunday
. The Irish Story. 10 July 2015.
That killing sparked a week of ferocious violence between Protestants and Catholics in west Belfast in which 22 people died. The following day, Sunday 10 July 1921, Protestants, "fearful of absorption into a Green, Catholic Ireland ..and blindly angered by the presence of heresy and treason in their midst, struck ..at the Catholic community" while "vengeful Catholics struck back with counter-terror".[ Much of the violence took place along the sectarian boundary between the Protestant Shankill and Catholic Falls districts. A "loyalist mob, several thousand strong" attempted to storm the Falls district, carrying petrol and other flammable materials.][ Between 161 and 200 houses were destroyed,][Parkinson, pp. 153–4.] about 150 of which were Catholic homes. The ''Irish News
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
'' reported that the Falls district was "in a state of siege".[ A ]tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
travelling from the Falls into the city centre was struck by snipers' bullets, and the service had to be suspended.[
Gun battles also raged along the sectarian boundaries in the west and north of the city and rival gunmen used ]rifle
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...
s, machine guns and hand grenade
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...
s in the clashes. Gunmen were seen firing from upstairs windows, rooftops and street corners.[ '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' characterised the clashes as "a three-fold fight between Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
and Unionist snipers and Crown forces
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
". It added, "In the extent of material damage to property, Sunday's rioting can be compared to the Dublin Rising in 1916".[ New York Times, 11 July 1921]
. While the IRA was involved in some of the fighting, it did not control the actions of the Catholic community. A rival Irish nationalist group, the Hibernians, were also involved on the Catholic side.
Catholics claimed that police—mostly from the overwhelmingly-Protestant Ulster Special Constabulary
The Ulster Special Constabulary (USC; commonly called the "B-Specials" or "B Men") 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 par ...
(USC)—drove through Catholic enclaves in armoured cars firing indiscriminately at houses and bystanders.[ A 13-year-old Catholic girl, Mary McGowan, was shot dead by USC officers firing from an armoured car as she crossed the road with her mother.][O'Halpin & Ó Corráin, pp.518–519] The inquest into her death concluded that they had "deliberately" shot the girl and added: "In the interests of peace, Special Constabulary should not be allowed into localities of people of opposite denominations".[ Another Catholic, William Tierney (56), was killed in his home by USC gunfire which shattered his window. One Protestant, Francis Robinson (65), was killed by police bullets as he lay in bed during an exchange of fire.]
Two Catholic fathers, James McGuinness and Daniel Hughes, were killed in separate incidents by loyalist snipers while rushing to bring their children home. Meanwhile, two Protestant boys, William Baxter (12) and Ernest Park (13) were both killed apparently by the same nationalist sniper.
The police returned to their barracks late on Sunday night, allegedly after a ceasefire had been agreed by telephone between a senior RIC officer and the commander of the IRA's Belfast Brigade
"Belfast Brigade" is an Irish folk song, to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic".
Context
The song is about the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and in particular the 1st, or West Belfast battalion, during the Irish War ...
, Roger McCorley
Roger McCorley (6 September 1901 – 13 November 1993) was an Irish republican activist.
Early life
Roger Edmund McCorley was born into a Roman Catholic family at 67 Hillman Street in Belfast on 6 September 1901, one of three children born to ...
.[ The truce was due to begin at midday on Monday 11 July, but violence resumed that morning. Loyalist crowds from the Shankill attacked and looted Catholic homes. IRA officer ]Joe McKelvey
Joseph McKelvey (17 June 1898 – 8 December 1922) was an Irish Republican Army officer who was executed during the Irish Civil War. He participated in the anti-Treaty IRA's repudiation of the authority of the Dáil (civil government of the Iri ...
reported that the IRA struggled to control Catholic crowds "infuriated by the burnings of their homes". Three people were shot dead that day, including IRA volunteer Seamus Ledlie, who was shot minutes before midday.[
The day was referred to as "Belfast's Bloody Sunday" at the time. However the title of "Bloody Sunday" now more commonly refers in Ireland to events in Dublin in November 1920 or Derry in January 1972.
]
Casualties
As well as the RIC officer killed on Raglan Street, 16 people were killed and fatally wounded on Sunday; 11 Catholics and 5 Protestants.[Parkinson, pp. 153–4.] One Catholic man who was shot that day died from his wounds nine months later.[ Three more people were killed and fatally wounded before the start of the truce on Monday; an IRA member, a Catholic and a Protestant. Most of the dead were civilians and at least four of the Catholic victims were former soldiers who served in the First World War.][ More than 100 people were wounded.][
]
Aftermath
A strict curfew was enforced in Belfast after the violence. On 11 July, the Commandant of the IRA's 2nd Northern Division, Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy (born Owen Duffy; 28 January 1890 – 30 November 1944) was an Irish military commander, police commissioner and politician. O'Duffy was the leader of the Monaghan Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a prominent figure in ...
, was sent to Belfast by the organization's leadership in Dublin to liaise with the British authorities there and try to maintain the truce. He said, "I found the city in a veritable state of war. The peal of rifles could be heard on all sides, frenzied mobs at every street corner, terror-stricken people rushing for their lives, and ambulances carrying the dead and dying to hospitals."[McGarry, pp. 78–79.] There were no serious disturbances during the Orange Order
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also ...
's yearly 12 July marches, but sporadic violence resumed the following day, and by the end of the week 28 people had been killed or fatally wounded in Belfast.
O'Duffy set up headquarters in St Mary's Hall in Belfast city centre and made contact with British forces and the press. With the tacit consent of the RIC, he organized IRA patrols in Catholic areas to try to restore order and announced that IRA action would cease except in self-defence. Both Protestants and Catholics saw the truce as a victory for republicans. Protestant unionists "were particularly appalled by the sight of policemen and soldiers meeting IRA officers on a semi-official basis". While the truce ended fighting in most of Ireland, communal violence soon resumed in Belfast. IRA members later recalled, "The Truce was not observed by either side in the north", while McCorley said the truce in Belfast "lasted six hours only".
The violence of the period in Belfast was cyclical, and the events of July 1921 were followed by a lull until a three-day period starting on 29 August, when another 20 people died in the west and north of the city.[Parkinson, p. 318.]
References
Sources
* Lynch, Robert, ''The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition'', Irish Academic Press, Dublin 2006;
* McGarry, Fearghal, ''Eoin O'Duffy, a Self-Made Hero'', Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005;
* Parkinson, Alan F, ''Belfast's Unholy War'', Four Courts Press, Dublin 2004; {{ISBN, 1-85182-792-7.
External links
Riots in Belfast: July 10th to 17th 1921
a
archive.org
*Kieran Glennon
Belfast's Bloody Sunday
TheIrishStory.com
Military actions and engagements during the Irish War of Independence
History of Northern Ireland
History of Ireland (1801–1923)
1921 in Northern Ireland
1921 riots
Arson in the United Kingdom
Mass murder in 1921
Riots and civil disorder in Northern Ireland
Deaths by firearm in Northern Ireland
Sectarian violence
Ethnic riots
Urban warfare
20th century in Belfast
July 1921 events
1920s murders in Northern Ireland
1921 murders in the United Kingdom