THE IRA IN BALLYMACARRETT 1920-1922 (by Sean Ó Coinn)

The most dangerous place in Belfast, writes Sean Ó Coinn, describing Ballymacarrett in 1920-1922 in his book Defending the Ground published earlier this year. Here Sean gives a flavour of his account of the IRA in Ballymacarrett during that period (the book is available to buy at various places in Belfast).

 

The Most Dangerous Place in Belfast

Amid the closely- knit terrace streets of Ballymacarrett, B Company of the 2^nd Battalion, the 1^st Belfast Brigade was raised in 1920 and its volunteers fought at times a desperate action of defence to ensure its survival, while having to carry out its own offensive actions. The 2^nd Battalion was created in the early months of 1920, under the command of Tom Fitzpatrick with a Company in Ballymacarrett, Carrick Hill and the Low Market.

The first O/C of B Company was Manus O Boyle, who along with his 2 I/C and later O/C John [Sean] Cunningham, succeeded in forming a Company of 120, mostly made up of men who were unemployed and armed with small arms and grenades.

Manus O’ Boyle recorded the following account:

“I know that the heaviest fighting took place in the Ballymacarrett area, where there were about 7,000 Catholics. On the outskirts of that area were about 40,000 Orange men and women St. Matthews church, Convent and Schools were the continuous target of the Orange hordes.

In the early days, it was chiefly a stone-throwing competition, until the Volunteers got organised. I was detailed then by the Brigade to organise a Company of Volunteers for the defence of Ballymacarrett. I succeeded in forming a Company of about 120 men. These were all unemployed. Then the fighting proper commenced as we were now armed with small arms and grenades. It was a continuous street fight in Ballymacarrett.

Our opponents were heavily armed and had the assistance of the Police and Military. This continued all through 1920 and up to the Truce. The nuns were magnificent, Mother Teresa, Sister Eithne, Sister Peter Paul and Sister Bridget are four that I remember particularly…. Mother Teresa could always present us with hundreds of rounds of .45 ammunition that she received from……  [Inspector Mc Connell], a Catholic RIC officer.”

Tom Fitzpatrick recorded one of the earliest actions taken by the 2^nd Battalion against Crown Forces :

“Some time about February or March 1920, after the military had taken over a place in the Low Market, where they kept a lot of vehicles, we threw a few bombs into it. That was a Battalion job and it was done very quietly.

There was no sanction from the Brigade for it. At that time, the Brigade were averse to activities in Belfast for fear of reprisals on the Catholic population.

Across the island of Ireland during the period of 1920 and 1921, the guerrilla war being waged by the IRA had spearheaded a political drive to settle the conflict. Negotiations were underway between the Republican Leadership and the British government and on Friday July 9^th 1921, an order was dispatched to all IRA divisional areas:

“In view of the conversation now being entered into by our government with the government of Great Britain, and in the pursuance of mutual conversations, active operations by our troops will be suspended as from noon on Monday 11^th July” Risteard Ua Maolchatha [Richard Mulcahy], Chief of Staff.

The truce was signed on Friday 9^th July and was to take effect from noon on Monday, 11^th July. But while the rest of Ireland celebrated, Belfast bled. There was a de-escalation of fighting throughout the 26 counties and the truce was held with effect, but in the northeast, the fighting continued and Belfast was to witness a particularly vicious summer of violence. The Unionists felt that they were being sacrificed on the high altar of political pragmatism and there was a lack of will on the part of the northern Unionist administration to pursue the opportunity for peace.

That weekend in Belfast, the truce was ushered in with “blood letting”. The “Specials” [A part-time uniformed police militia drawn from the Protestant population] backed by Loyalist gunmen, were determined to launch an onslaught on Nationalist districts. The IRA throughout Belfast was mobilized in order to defend their areas, as the Specials and UVF gunmen unleashed sniper fire and moved with armoured cars against the Nationalist areas. The Carrick Hill enclave in the north of the city was near to breaking point and was only one hour short of running out of ammunition when the British military commander in the city organized an implementation of the truce.

Sixteen people died of whom eleven were Catholic and 161 homes were destroyed. Fierce gun-battles, involving machine-gun and rifle fire, as well as handguns and mills bombs were reported along the streets interlinking the Falls and Shankill Roads. Heavy shooting was also reported in the Falls and Cullingtree Road, Millfield and Carrick Hill areas.

Four of the Catholic victims were ex-servicemen. Over the next few days as the Orange marching season reached its climax, shooting occurred around the Short Strand and North Queen Street districts. Two people died and thirty more were wounded on the 14^th July, while on the following day as sniping continued in the North Queen Street/York Street area, two RIC policemen were shot and wounded in Little Georges Street. A Unionist politician, William Grant was also wounded by a sniper.

A week later, the IRA GHQ in Dublin sent Eoin O Duffy, the IRA commander in Ulster to Belfast to act as a Liaison Officer with the British military in the city. He set up his headquarters in St. Mary’s hall in the Smithfield area, but found Belfast not to be on the same level as other cities in the rest of the country. The British military seemed content to respect the truce in its initial stages, but the Specials who were acting as the armed wing of the northern administration, which had been officially constituted by the British King in June, continued to act against the Nationalist areas with the full endorsement of the Belfast Parliament.

Reference to the period is made in an IRA divisional report sent by Seamus Woods O/C of the 3^rd Northern Division, which covered Belfast, to IRA GHQ on the 27^th July 1922, when he states;

“Until the signing of the treaty in London, the perfecting of our organization, training and equipping had been pursued with great earnestness on the part of all officers and men. As both Numbers 2 and 3 Brigades were very much below strength in July’21, a large number of recruits were taken on in these areas”.

The increase in recruits was due largely to the truce and the fact that as Woods states in the same report: “the Catholic population believing for the moment that we had been victorious and that the Specials and UVF were beaten, practically all flocked to our standard, with the exception of the aristocratic minority”.

Throughout Ireland, the IRA used the truce for intensive training. It was important to maintain discipline, as grievances on both sides were still sore.

In the same report Seamus Woods made reference to the fact that the truce was not been adhered to and officers and men were being arrested.

He also stated that: “After the raid on their liaison office, St.Mary’s Hall, Belfast, in which the name of practically every officer in the Division was found, all the Divisional and many of the Brigade officers demanded an inquiry into the circumstances of the raid and were asking the Divisional Commandant to resign.” [Joe McKelvey]

The truce appeared to have little effect on the situation in Belfast. In August 1921, the local RIC Commissioner observed in a confidential report: “Poverty is still rife in the Nationalist Quarters where so many people are existing on charitable donations received from the Expelled Workers Fund, which continues to receive fairly large subscriptions from various sources, particularly White Cross of America”

Training camps were established within the Divisional area at Hannahstown [Belfast], Seaforde and Castlewellan in County Down and Glenariff and Torr Head, in County Antrim.

The IRA in Belfast reached its peak membership during the months of August and September 1921 [835] and would have preferred to now engage in a war against British Crown forces similar to its counterparts in the south, but unfortunately the IRA in the north-east of the country but more especially in Belfast, found itself having to act as defenders of the Nationalist areas against armed Loyalists engaged in sectarian pogroms and the Unionist controlled armed militia in the guise of Special Police. Only in areas such as South Armagh, Tyrone and Monaghan, was the IRA able to operate with a free hand against the Specials and British military.

The need to defend the Catholic community was vital to the Belfast IRA during the 1920-1922 periods, as they struggled not to lose their ideological role as the Army of the Irish Republic. They were also operating in a hostile environment flooded with British troops, Police and Loyalist Specials who targeted the Catholic community in ‘acts of reprisals’ which stretched from merely shooting into Catholic streets during curfew hours in order to prompt a reaction from the military to the inhabitants, to conducting actual murder.

Added to this was the poor social condition in the Catholic working-class districts which was caused in part by expulsions from employment and also the overcrowding due to relatives and friends being forced out of their homes in Protestant districts.

This was a much harsher environment than the ‘fighting ground’ of Roscommon, Mayo, or West Cork. It was for these very reasons that the majority of the Belfast IRA would later remain loyal to the pro-treaty Government GHQ in Dublin, who ensured mainly through Michael Collins that they were financed and armed.

For the Officers of the 1^st Belfast Brigade or the 3^rd Northern Division overall, it was loyalty to a GHQ that logistically supported them, rather than to a treaty that isolated them from their ‘natural aspiration of a United Ireland’.

Michael Collins stands out as the only Republican leader in the south for whom partition and the plight of the northern nationalists remained a major concern. Yet, it’s ironic that his desperate efforts to assist the latter, led him to adopt a confusing blend of ‘non-recognition’, diplomacy and coercion toward the Unionist Government in the north-east.

Collins death in August 1922 during the civil war and the new policy of Cosgrave’s cabinet in recognising the Belfast Unionist Parliament, spelt the end of Republican resistance in the north as a real potential threat for the next 48 years and one that when it did come, would be launched from the very streets of Catholic Ballymacarrett that Loyalists tried so hard to eliminate from East Belfast during the period of 1920-1922. [It is also important to emphasize that Collins death preceded the atrocities and executions of Republican volunteers carried out during the civil war by Free State forces which were then under the command of Richard Mulcahy].

Added to this, the political divisions in northern nationalism ensured that the Catholic minority in the north was effectively precluded from any say in influencing its own fate at a critical juncture in the historic issue of partition.

Despite the IRA in Belfast being forced into a primary role of defence, it still conducted an offensive policy against Crown forces; on whole this would mainly have been Specials and RIC personnel. The increase in attacks was due to the establishment of ‘Active Service Units’ [ASU], while others were shot during gun-battles that engulfed Nationalist districts.  IRA snipers in areas such as Ballymacarrett/Short Strand also fired at trams carrying shipyard workers, while others were bombed as a retaliation for the huge expulsion of the Catholic workforce.

The whole mood of political uncertainty was the signal for a renewed wave of bloody violence at the end of August 1921, during which 21 people lost their lives over a three day period. The worst of the fighting was around the Catholic York Street district, which lay within the 2^nd Battalion area. The Loyalist attacks was planned to wipe out the Nationalist streets around York Street and send a message to Britain that no settlement involving the IRA was possible in Ulster. However, Eoin O Duffy mobilised the IRA to defend the area, which broke the siege.

Seven Protestants were killed and the Manchester Guardian reported that the IRA “was retaliating in kind and quite as effectively as the Loyalist gunmen.”

To further infuriate the Unionists, Michael Collins made a visit to County Armagh and told a 10,000 strong gathering, which included a large force of the IRA, that the Dail would not desert them. [Unfortunately after his death in August 1922, the Dail not only deserted the Nationalists of the north, but it betrayed the Northern Divisions]

The IRA also had an extensive stock of Mills bombs [grenades] and a large stock of home made bombs, which were used against mobs attacking Catholic districts. One example of this was when a large Loyalist crowd firebombed the Sextons house close to St. Matthew’s Church on the 24th November 1921.  The densely packed mob assembled in the vicinity gloating over their deed, when a bomb was hurled over into their ranks from Seaforde Street killing two and injuring forty-five others. The Irish News described the scene of the injured ‘laying in heaps of twos and threes‘.

On the same date, 24^th November, a shipyard tram travelling along Corporation Street at 5.45pm was attacked when the IRA threw a bomb from Little Patrick Street. The device, which was hurled through a window of the lower part of the tram, blew a section of the tram apart and killed two of the passengers on board. That particular day ended with a death toll of 14 killed, ten of which were Catholic. The following evening, Shipyard trams were again fired on at around 7.30pm in the York Street/ North Queen Street area.

Two days later, on the 26^th November, amid nightly gun-battles around York Street, North Queen Street and the Short Strand, another tram was attacked in Royal Avenue killing two of its passengers. The Shankill Road bound Shipyard tram was attacked at 6pm as it passed by the Grand Central hotel in the city centre. The two IRA Volunteers involved in the attack were prominent members; one from the Dock area, the other from Carrick Hill. They escaped along Berry Street into Francis Street and safety. These attacks usually resulted in retaliation against innocent Catholics; vulnerable targets in a bid to take revenge.

A pattern had developed through the month of September into November 1921 with snipers concentrating their fire into and around Seaforde Street, while mobs attacked St Matthews church and the Cross and Passion convent close by in Bryson Street. Both the church and convent were vulnerable to the tightly bound Protestant Streets opposite. The IRA remained active across the district with its own snipers firing into the Protestant streets and at the Shipyard trams.

An extract from the 2^nd Battalion operations report to O/C No.1 Belfast Brigade around this time summarises the situation: “During the month there were constant outbreaks by the hostile population in the Battalion area and obviously organised attempts were made by armed gangs of men to invade the Catholic districts. The hostile element was extremely well equipped and in the Ballymacarrett district appeared openly carrying full bandoliers and service rifles. A determined and long threatened invasion of Seaforde Street, Ballymacarrett was attempted.

On the 22ⁿ – [September], B Coy. Were obliged to take up firing positions for its defence. On Sunday 24^th large numbers of armed men were observed at the Newtownards Road and Seaforde Street and the position was so threatening that a Mills bomb had to be thrown by one of our men. The grenade was very effective and two of the Orange mob were killed and 34 wounded.” 

The IRA defence of the Seaforde Street area infuriated the northern authorities to the point that on the 21^st September 1921, prior to another weekend of attacks, one of the most extensive raids to be seen in Belfast by the Crown forces was carried out by the RIC and British military in the Short Strand. For nine hours, they engaged in searches for weapons. Houses and yards across the district were searched by the RIC as the military were posted on the streets. No weapons were unearthed, but the huge presence of Crown forces prevented access to the area for 24 hours by IRA ASUs to reinforce any defensive measure in place by the local company.

During the week period of the 19^th-25^th November 1921, 27 people died and 92 were wounded across Belfast.

December 1921 continued much in the same vein with snipers active on a daily basis. But it was the weekend of Friday 17^th and Saturday 18^th December around the Short Strand that saw the worst shooting in the city since York Street at the end of August when the IRA was mobilised .

There had been the usual sporadic shooting leading up to the Friday and on the Wednesday; a Police lorry was raked by machine-gun fire in Seaforde Street.  Then on the Friday evening the Seaforde Street area was attacked with unparalleled vigour by Loyalist gunmen and Specials. Barricades were now erected at the top of Seaforde Street and Young’s Row on the Newtownards Road entrance to the district.

The Irish News reported in its columns: “Driven to desperation by the intensity of the onslaught at so many points, the Catholics to maintain their lives and property were compelled to reply and a regular gun battle was in progress.”

In reality, it was the IRA replying with gunfire as the district was coming under attack from every end. B Company was now engaged in the worst period to date of shooting to occur since the outbreak of the conflict.

There was no truce or treaty in effect on the streets of Ballymacarrett as the ritual of the snipers bullets swept the tightly bound streets. The shooting began at 5am and continued throughout the morning. A member of the Loyalist Ulster Imperial Guard was shot by the IRA close to Young’s Row on the Newtownards Road. The UIG was an organization made up exclusively of Protestant WW1 veterans.

An elderly Protestant man was also caught in the shooting as he made his way home from his job as a Night Watchman. He was shot in early morning crossfire between B Company and Loyalists in the Seaforde Street/Newtownards Road area. British troops at Seaforde Street also opened fire during the shooting. The 71 year old man sadly died in hospital twelve days later on 1^st January, 1922.

By the following evening  B Company and those supporting non-members, were engaged in returning fire across the district until the attacks were repelled and faded out. Four people died two from each community and once again raids were carried out in the Short Strand by the military and RIC on the Sunday in a search for weapons. The year ended with the death of 109 people across Belfast. The new year, 1922, continued much as 1921 had ended, with daily shooting through out the Catholic districts of Belfast. February’s death toll reached 47, with up to 100 wounded. Worst was to come as the spring and summer months would boil to a bloody climax.

The killing of five-year-old John Devlin on February 16^th in Seaforde Street when a Loyalist gunman fired a single shot through the barricade at the Newtownards Road entrance at children playing, caused anger in the district despite such shootings being a part of life in a city torn apart by civil war. The same day, Special Constable Mc Adam based at Mountpottinger barrack was shot and wounded in a B Company attack

The shooting of Specials was to increase as the IRA across the city stepped up its offensive actions and in particular began targeting Specials who would have been seen in the same manner in Belfast and the north, as the Black and Tans would have been in the south of the country. Two were shot and wounded on the 4^th March, one of whom, Special Constable Henderson was shot by B Company in the Mountpottinger area.

The 12^th of March began a week long series of sniping and bomb attacks in and around the Short Strand during which raids were carried out by the Military and Specials on the 15^th in a search for weapons. Their presence did not prevent a murder gang penetrate into Thompson Street in the early hours to throw a bomb into the bedroom of a house killing a woman as she slept in bed. Later that morning, two Protestants were shot and wounded as they entered the Glavin stables at the corner of Thompson Street, while a third was shot and wounded in the Corporation Yard on the Short Strand.

That same weekend on the 19^th of March, a B Company sniper shot dead a member of the Loyalist Ulster Protestant Association during a gun-battle around the Seaforde Street area of the district, while four days later on the 23^rd of the month, an IRA ASU shot and killed two Specials at the corner of May Street.

This date-[23^rd March] is synonymous with the brutal slaughter of the Nationalist Mc Mahon family in north Belfast by an in-famous RIC [Police] murder-gang led by District Inspector John Nixon operating from Brown Square barrack in the Peter Hill area. The following day 24th, another murder atrocity was attempted in Altcar Street within sight of Mountpottinger barrack. Three men, alleged to be Specials, entered a house and proceeded to shoot anyone they found there. Peter Murphy aged 61, was the first to be shot followed by Sarah Mc Shane aged 15, before they turned their guns on three years old Mary McCabe. As they ran from the house they fired at, and wounded Nellie Whelan. It was nothing short of a miracle that all those shot survived the ordeal. As with so many murders of that period, proof of identity or justice was not forthcoming.

A week later on the night of April 2^nd 1922 similar style shootings were carried out in succession at three houses in the Carrick Hill district again by the Nixon led RIC gang resulting in a further atrocity during which five people died including a seven-year-old boy, Michael Walshe who was shot along with his young sister Brigid aged 2, while laying in bed having just witnessed their Father, Joseph a former soldier, been dragged from the bed and cudgelled to death. Michael’s sister survived as did his fourteen-year-old brother Frank who was beaten and shot in the small kitchen. Joseph Walsh’s baby son Robert aged 8 months died the following day. This was one of the worst atrocities of the period. The other victims who died that night were Joseph Mc Crory, aged 40 [15 Stanhope Street], Bernard Mc Kenna [26 Park Street] and William Spallin aged 70 [16 Arnon Street].

The Walshe family lived just two doors from the Spallins in Arnon Street. William Spallin had just buried his wife that day and his murder was witnessed by his twelve years old Grandchild who was found gazing in horror at the murdered man.

On the night of the Carrick Hill murders, Volunteer Sean Montgomery, an officer in D Company, 1^st Battalion was in the area and later gave the following account: “Outside [the house], were the RIC, so I went out through the window to put our revolvers on the spouting of the roof. Then I heard a boy shouting that his daddy was shot. I came down the stairs and out we went. We were in an end house. When we got outside an officer of the Norfolk regiment had the driver of a Police Car against the wall, and three soldiers with rifles at the ready to fire. He said to the Special that if he did not tell him [who had killed the Catholics] he would give the order to fire. He [the Special] said he had nothing to do with it, but that DI Nixon was in charge and the Police had told the army they were going to raid. 

Within a week of the attempted Short Strand massacre in Altcar Street, once again in the Mountpottinger area, two Specials were shot and wounded by B Company, one of whom-Special Constable Hale died. In the west of the city on the 14^th March, the IRA also shot and killed RIC Sergeant Christy Clarke on the Falls Road as it was strongly believed he was involved with an RIC murder gang which had operated from Springfield Road barrack in 1920. Clarke, a Catholic, is buried within a short distance of the Mc Mahon family in Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery. A year earlier in May 1921, another Catholic RIC member, District Inspector Ferris based at Springfield Road barrack was cut down in a volley of shots fired by three IRA volunteers as he left St. Pauls Presbytery on the Falls Road.

Ferris was one of several men Rodger Mc Corley of the IRA’s Brigade Staff had marked for execution because of their links to the Springfield barrack murder gang. Ferris survived the shooting, but was seriously wounded. Not so fortunate was Sergeant Glover who was implicated in the killing of Republicans Liam Gaynor and Eamon Trodden both of whom were murdered in their homes. Sergeant Glover was shot and killed on the 10^th June 1921 as he patrolled in Cupar Street along with Constables Sullivan and Sharkey, both of whom were wounded.

Following the shooting carried out by volunteers of the 1^st Battalions D. Company, Auxiliaries carried out indiscriminate shooting around the Falls Road area as they patrolled in trucks prior to curfew hours.

The months of April and May 1922 saw the ferocity of attacks upon the Nationalist areas reach a bloody climax. But while the IRA were stretched to the limit in defending the Short Strand and trying to fight off attacks across the Lagan in the north of the city, they were also called upon through out May into June to engage in a series of offensive actions which included a ‘Burning Campaign’ against Unionist owned business premises.

Supplies of rifles much needed by the Belfast IRA began to arrive from GHQ in Dublin during April, as the 3^rd Northern Division found itself at the core of a rapidly changing policy being conducted by the Pro-treaty GHQ, which played out as part of the internal politics being conducted in a bid to avert a total split within the IRA and on which side Divisional loyalties would emerge, should, what appeared inevitable, happened.

The week of April 17^th to the 23^rd 1922 was one when shooting reached great intensity around the Short Strand and Oldpark districts. Antigua and Sanderson Street in the Catholic Marrowbone area of the Oldpark were burned as casualties mounted amid pitched gun-battles.

The following month as the IRA stepped up its attacks, the final intimidation of Catholic families from the Protestant area of York Road in the north of the city commenced on Thursday 18^th May when any Catholic families still living in Mountcollyer Street were forced to leave their homes. The following day, Friday the 19^th, the small Catholic enclave around Weaver Street on York Road found itself at the mercy of Protestant attackers who armed with revolvers forced 148 families from their homes. The little enclave had suffered in previous shooting and bomb attacks and now a final purge was being made to clear Catholics from the York Road area. Within the following few days’ nearly 1,000 penniless refugees reached Glasgow. The let up in intimidation did not end, as more families would be evicted in the first week of June, 436 families in total.

Several thousand people from across Belfast poured into Dublin and Glasgow, while many others absorbed in some way into the already congested Catholic districts.

The same day as the purge against the Catholics of York Road was underway; [May 19^th] the IRA in a desperate act of retaliation entered Garretts Co-Operative in Little Patrick Street off Nelson Street in the Dock area and proceeded to line the workers up against a wall. Only one was a Catholic and he was singled out to be placed against another wall. This man must surely have thought he was about to be shot, but the guns were not turned on him but on his workers as a hail of bullets struck down the unfortunate men resulting in four dying.

Three days later the week beginning Monday 22^nd May, will not be remembered or recorded in the annals of the conflict for the daily cross divide sniping around the Short Strand which saw two Protestants killed and two B Specials shot and wounded on the Albert Bridge, but more for an event that occurred earlier that morning that was sending shock waves through the Unionist hierarchy. William Twaddell, a member of the Northern Parliament and an outspoken Loyalist was shot dead in the city centre as reprisals by the IRA continued.

The killing of Twaddell prompted the Northern Parliament to introduce Internment without trial.

In Belfast, the death toll for May reached 75, [42 Catholics and 33 Protestants], while the following month, 25 people died, [18 Catholics and 7 Protestants]. Despite the campaign of shooting and intimidation by Loyalists taking its toll on the Nationalist areas, the IRA continued its attacks against the Specials across Belfast and the north.

On the same day, William Twaddell was shot; six Specials were wounded across Belfast in sniping, two of those on the Albert Bridge. Two days later, Wednesday, 24^th on the Mountpottinger Road, a tram carrying Protestant workers was fired on and a Special wounded when a bomb was thrown at a patrol.

The following day Thursday 25^th May, three young children were wounded in gun and bomb attacks in the Seaforde Street area and two Specials, Constables Murphy and Connor died one in the Market, the other in the Falls Road area. That same week, the Marrowbone, Ardoyne and Market districts were subjected to having their streets raked by machine-gun and rifle fire from Specials prior to the nigh time curfew. As was the familiar pattern the IRA returned fire when and where possible. The month of May ended with the deaths of two more Specials, one on the 29^th of the month and another two days later on the 31^st.

The introduction of Internment in the north, coupled with the poor economic and low moral situation in the Nationalist areas along with the outbreak of a civil war in the south of the country over the acceptance of the treaty terms with Britain, all combined to erode the IRA in Belfast as an effective fighting force.

By July 1922, B Company was depleted with a skeleton membership. Volunteers had moved south for integration into the Free State Army, while others had been arrested and interned. The final blow came with the death of Michael Collins in August 1922 and the resulting underhand politics from the new Free State government that resulted in a change of policy toward the north. This effectively spelt the end of the northern IRA.

Only the 4^th Northern Division that operated in the South Armagh and County Louth areas remained as an effective fighting group and in a good state of strength.

Despite a new resurgence in the mid-thirties by the IRA in Belfast, it would be 48 years before they would once more be able to strike at the heart of the Unionist State. This time it would not be a short sharp campaign reliant on Dublin support, but an all out assault of guerrilla warfare that would spell the end of Unionist domination of the north. That assault would begin on the streets of the Short Strand during the night of the 27^th June 1970, the very district that Loyalists had tried to erase from the geographical landscape of East Belfast during the 1920-1922 years of conflict and pogroms.