How many people died in the recent conflict in Ireland? You’d think this would be a relatively easy to answer question. But depending on how you decide to define a death as conflict-related, the total, which is usually given as around 3,700, is probably at least 5,733 and may be as high as 30,000.
A quick trawl of existing databases puts a detailed death toll in the region of 3,640-3,760. This is a considerable figure and itself only a fraction of the number who received injuries or were harmed in some other way by their experience over the same period. But a comparison of some of the components of those totals shows that this is an estimation and a very conservative one and doesn’t seem to fully reflect the extent of loss of human life arising from the conflict. Initially, I was looking at this to see the methods employed to determine what might be the best way to estimate the loss of life in the north (and Belfast in particular) in 1919-23. Instead, I noticed that, depending on how you choose to define whether a death is related to the conflict here, you can argue that the actual death toll is at least 5,733. Or you could even put it as high as 30,000.
The 2006 edition of Lost Lives records 3,720 deaths from 1966 to that date. The database compiled by Malcolm Sutton covers the period from 1969 to 2001 and records 3,532 deaths (in relative terms, this is 149 less than the total for the same period in Lost Lives). It also includes a provisional total of 88 deaths from 2001 to the end of 2017. The second database available via CAIN, prepared by Michael McKeown, records 3,649 deaths over the period from 1969 to 2005. Compared to the same period covered by Lost Lives, McKeown lists 3,622 deaths, 98 less than Lost Lives. Combining the figures in Lost Lives and those on CAIN for the period up to 2017 gives a total of 3,762 conflict-related deaths from 1966 to 2017.
This variability hints at the complications that underlie what deaths are deemed to be conflict-related and how that is defined. It is also still possible to identify some deaths that have been overlooked in all them, such as Erwin Beelitz in Berlin in 1972. Lost Lives does provide discussions of individual cases that illustrates the scope of what is considered as a conflict-related death. It generally just includes violent deaths and so would not typically include, for instance, someone whose health suffered from conflict-related stresses leading to a premature death. The latter may be much more difficult to determine and be quite subjective (although more on this point below).
What got me interested in the divergence from the general quoted figures of around 3,700 was in the officially declared military death toll. I’d thought that a relatively obvious way of checking how robust the available figures were, was to compare figures for individual groups against published records. In December 2012, the UK Ministry of Defence provided a breakdown of British military personnel who died during Operation Banner (the British army deployment to the north). For deaths as a “…result of operations in Northern Ireland or Irish Terrorism in other countries…” it gives a total of 1,441. Lost Lives gives an overall figures for the British Armed Services of 503 along with 206 UDR and RIR. The breakdown for Operation Banner, provided by the Ministry of Defence, though, is 814 regular army, 548 UDR and RIR, and a further 79 for other branches (making up that total of 1,441). This is 732 in excess of the figures provided for in any of the relevant databases. This underestimate, by some 103%, is considerable. As the term used in the letter detailing the figures very specifically says that the deaths were as a “…result of operations in Northern Ireland or Irish Terrorism in other countries…” this would be appear to be the official total.
Critically, to understand the methodology, the existing databases all list every individual who is included. The official figures for Operation Banner do not provide individual details.
It is also possible to look at the figures given for republican fatalities. A ‘Roll of Honour’ was published in An Phoblacht in 2010, identifying the deaths of those named as having being conflicted-related. This gives a total of 336 conflict-related IRA deaths (it also lists 25 Sinn Féin members). Using the tables provided by Sutton, his equivalent figure appears to be 292 (excluding Sinn Féin members) suggesting there were a further 44 deaths on top of those conventionally associated with the conflict. A further 83 republican combatant casualties are recorded by Sutton (including INLA, Official IRA etc). McKeown reports some 271 IRA deaths, of a total 350 republican dead, while Lost Lives provides a combined total of 396. If the An Phoblacht figure reflects deaths deemed to be conflict-related but not conventionally captured by the methodologies employed by Lost Lives, Sutton and McKeown, the existing method may underestimate republican conflict related deaths by around 15%. So, if extrapolated for republican casualties as a whole, a figure of around 455 may more accurately reflect the scale of loss. If it might be argued that similar factors would be at play, the Lost Lives figure for unionist paramilitaries, 167, should probably be revised upwards on the same basis to 192. Neither of these figures would necessarily capture conflict-related deaths that are due to factors connected to their experience as combatants, incarceration or self-harm.
The issue of self-harm, more particularly suicide, is one that arises in a variety of contexts. The number of recorded RUC fatalities is given as 301 by Sutton, 303 by Lost Lives and 304 in McKeown. But on a number of occasions, official statements and figures have been given for suicides among serving RUC members, with 55 recorded by 1996 and 75 recorded by 2007. Without trivialising such a complex and emotive issue as suicide, it may never be known how many of these could be directly attributed to conflict-related factors. However, as noted with the difficulty of assessing the factors in any individual death, a review of overall figures might show any increased mortality that, in the context of the north during the conflict, is likely to have arisen from factors related, at least in part, to the conflict.
Occasionally, individuals who took their own lives are included amongst the conflict-related deaths. Patrick Sheehy, an IRA volunteer who appears to have shot himself in Nenagh in County Tipperary on 1st January 1991 is listed in Lost Lives (3170), although not in either Sutton or McKeown. It seems difficult to argue that it wasn’t related to the conflict and so it’s inclusion seems reasonable. On the same basis, it would seem that RUC fatalities should also be included. Taking Samaritans figures, it is possible to make wider comparisons with suicide rates across Ireland and Britain to see if the broader impact of the conflict on mental health is reflected in elevated suicide rates. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence for this until 2007, after which time an apparent rise by about 6 deaths per 100,000 since around 2007 is considered by some to be attributable to earlier conflict-related stresses. This would amount to around 1,080 deaths and continues to this day.
Combined with other additional deaths noted above for Operation Banner, the IRA, RUC etc, this would suggest the total number of deaths is closer to 5,733.
To follow this through, a similar comparison of general mortality for the north in the 1970s through to about 1998, makes for equally grim reading. Typically the male mortality rate was at a level significantly below that of the UK and the south of Ireland, by around 200 deaths per 100,000 per year. By the early 1980s, this had closed to around 100 per year and the mortality rates were then roughly comparable throughout the 1990s. The female mortality rate was significantly higher in the north than the UK and south of Ireland average in the early 1970s, by around 210 (per 100,000 per year), staying just under 200 higher in the early 1980s, rising to around 220 higher in the 1990s and the dropping back to just under 200 deaths higher (per 100,000 per year) by the end of the 1990s. Taking the overall differential in the mortality rates over the period from the early 1970s to 1998 suggests that maybe 24,000 more people died than would be expected, based on the rates prevalent in the UK and the south. Are there a series of complex factors underlying the increased mortality rate? Undoubtedly, but it is hard to see how it is likely that any complex factors are not, in themselves, somehow connected to systemic and structural issues related to the conflict. In that sense, it could be argued that these 24,000 should also really be regarded as conflict-related and arise from what is known as ‘structural violence’ where socio-economic places limitations on a population’s quality of life causing harm and increased mortality.
So is it plausible that we should consider the death toll from the recent conflict to be 30,000 or roughly 5,733 rather than around 3,700? The currently used conservative estimates of the quantum of deaths arising from the conflict has at least two origins. A concern of many of those who complied the databases was in painstakingly researching and detailing each individual death. Where the deaths are anonymised into collective data (such as the casualties from Operation Banner), it seems that there is no mechanism for either Lost Lives or the likes of Sutton or McKeown to include them.
Another factor, though, is that acceptance of the reduced figures is also an artefact of the same security policy that sought to minimise the nature and intensity of violence and brought us terms like ‘ulsterisation’ and ‘criminalisation’ but didn’t speculate on the capacity of those same policies to inflict structural violence on a population. This isn’t to imply that Lost Lives, Sutton or McKeown are somehow complicit in furthering the same policy. They are simply following convention and documenting instances of violence in which lives were lost. This differs significantly from British (and Irish) government strategy that sought to present violence in the conflict in the language of decontextualized, criminal acts. A logical outworking of this would be to continue to adopt a minimalist approach in assessing the human cost of the conflict even where, for instance, the official death toll of Operation Banner is way in excess of the figure normally cited for military losses. Unfortunately this attempt to promote a conservative estimate minimises the actual impact and adds to the dissonance between the official narrative and the impact of structural violence as experienced by individuals, families and communities. For them, perhaps we need to recognise that the scale of related fatalities is much greater. In that regard, a fresh consideration of how we define the death toll from the recent conflict may be worth further exploration and debate.
A pivotal moment in the relationship of London and the European community, Unionist votes holding a precarious balance of power, Conservative government policy (including security policy in the north) subject to the need to keep the Unionist votes on side. While no-one seems to have drawn the parallel, we have been here before and the outcome is perhaps worth noting.
Over the course of 1971 and 1972 Edward Heath was trying to push his European Communities Bill through a reluctant House of Commons. The Bill was instrumental in the UK joining the European Economic Community (as the EU was then known). Following the 1970 General Election, Heath had come to power intent on legislating for UK membership of the EEC. With 330 MPs he had a slim majority of 14 and that included the 8 Unionist Party members returned in the north (along with Ian Paisley, Gerry Fitt, Bernadette Devlin and Frank McManus).
Over the summer of 1971, in the lead up to the early stages of the Bill, the press speculated on the extent to which Heath’s reliance on the Unionist votes was a factor in deciding security policy, including in the lead up to the widespread arrest and internment of Catholics in August 1971. At an early stage, in October 1971, most of the Unionist MPs (who were joined in a formal parliamentary grouping with Heath’s Conservatives) voted against the Bill. All of this provides a notable backdrop to the Heath’s perceived need to win Unionists support for his European project for the crucial votes that would happen later in 1971 and early in 1972. Notably, over this period, security policy continued to fall in line with Unionist demands. Political reform was largely ignored (you can see the types of proposals under consideration at the time). And formal scrutiny of recent events was heavily sanitised, such as the Compton report issued in November 1971. During critical events such as the McGurks Bar bombing in December 1971 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972, UK government policy remained favourably aligned on Unionist needs and wants despite significant international opprobrium.
On 17th February 1972, Heath finally got his European vote over the line with a bare majority of eight (the sum total of the Unionist MPs). His biographer, John Campbell, called it ‘Heath’s finest hour’. Within weeks, there was a shift in security policy as first Stormont was prorogued and then the British government began talks with the IRA that appeared to open up all sorts of political possibilities of British withdrawal to the IRA.
This isn’t to suggest that the guiding factor in Heath’s security policy in the north in 1971 and 1972 was predicated upon needing Unionist support to pass the European Communities Bill. But, whatever it’s significance, it was a factor. And once the need for those Unionist votes was passed, the shift in emphasis in political policy against the Unionists was relatively swift.
The following editorial captures all this under the headline “Heath’s Close Call”, it appeared in the Irish Independent on 18th February 1972.
To Irish people who are used to Dáil cliff hangers coming out in a majority of two or three for the Government, Mr. Heath’s majority of eight in Westminster last night on the crucial E.E.C. Bill will seem small beer. But in a Parliament with over 600 members this vote was proportionately as close as any we have seen in Leinster House in recent times. Now that Mr. Heath has won his vote, however, it is fair to say that the crisis is over for him on this issue. He can expect a gradual improvement from last night’s lowest ebb. With luck the coal and power crises will be things of the past in a few months’ time; a “handout” budget can be expected in an effort to stimulate the economy and fight unemployment; and Rhodesia has already caused the Westminster Government its fill of embarrassment. There remains Northern Ireland. Certainly Mr. Heath has personally taken political punishment as a result of his handling of the North. However, last night’s critical vote may now free his hand a bit to make some concessions to the minority viewpoint. Up to this, with this crucial vote pending, Mr. Heath has had to be careful what political initiatives he even hinted at for fear of alienating the Unionist vote for last night’s test. Six of the eight Unionist M.P.s had voted against the principle of the Common Market on October 28th; but last night’s vote had turned into a straight political fight, an issue larger that the E.E.C. question. Three of the six anti-Market Northern Unionists were thus free to support the Government on the basis, presumably, that the E.E.C. with Heath was preferable to Wilson with no E.E.C. His failure to secure a bloc Unionist vote, however, on an issue which had turned into a vote of confidence in the Government means that Unionist opinion is not solidly behind him. One reason for this could be that some Northern Unionists feel that he is about to “do a deal” with the Northern minority. His hands certainly seem less tied after this vote than before it.
I was recently asked to see if I could find anything on William Falconer who, as a 46 year old, had fought with the International Brigade in Spain in support of the Spanish Republic. He was at Jarama and Brunette then, due to ill health, was repatriated from Spain (this, as with the image below, are courtesy of @hullbhoy).
Falconer’s name appears on lists of Irish volunteers in the International Brigade (eg see information compiled by Ciaran Crossey). It was also believed that, although Falconer had left from Hull in England, that he was from Belfast. Electoral records show that William Falconer was already in Hull in early 1920 and was enlisted in the Labour Corps having formerly served, during the first world war, in the East Yorkshire Light Infantry.
Given Falconer’s age, the only real potential match in the census and birth records for Belfast was born on 27th June 1891 to Samuel and Eliza Falconer in Westmoreland Street off the Shankill Road (roughly where Dover Place is today). The family used the spellings Falconer and Faulkner making them difficult to track through various records. Samuel and Eliza Hamilton had been married in Templepatrick in 1888 when he was 30 and she was 23, his family appear to have been from Ballyrobin while the Hamilton’s were from nearby Ballynabarnish. The couple then moved to Belfast where Samuel found work as a carter and they lived in the area to the north of the River Farset. While other carters and general labourers lived in Westmoreland Street there were also skilled workers and oher better off residents. The family then moved across the Shankill Road to Hopeton Street. Samuel and Eliza had a big family with Samuel (1888), William (1891), Mary (1893), Annie (1894), Maggie (1896), Lizzie (1899), James (1900) and Ruby (1905).
Westmoreland Street, Belfast just off the Shankill Road.
No name survives for a ninth child that likely died very young. Child mortality was high in city districts like the Shankill, Millfield and the Dock Ward due to tuberculosis and respiratory diseases. This reflected endemic poverty, poor diets and housing and sanitary conditions. The same tragedically poor life expectancy haunted the Falconers. Their eldest son, Samuel, died in April 1903, aged only 14. His youngest brother, James, died at the age of 3 in 1904. Eliza herself died of tuberculosis in November 1908. After Eliza’s death the family moved to Charleville Street Upper (off Crimea Street).
When William reached the age of 14 he went to work in the Ulster Spinning Company at the corner of North Howard Street and the Falls Road. There he apprenticed as a fitter and was later described by the factory manager, Richard Gribben, as sober and quiet. Then, in July 1908, he left the Ulster Spinning Company and enlisted in the Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers at their depot in Omagh. He was first attached to the Iniskillings 3rd Battalion then, from October 1908, to the 2nd Battalion (his regimental number was 9449). His mother Eliza had already contracted her fatal dose of tuberculosis when he had enlisted.
Despite the setback of his mother’s death, William had progressed himself within the regiment. He had completed second- and third-class army certificates of education. He had passed the third-class certificate at the Iniskillings depot in Omagh in September 1908, before his mother’s death, and the second while posted in Dublin in May 1909. These certificates had been introduced by the army in 1861 (see Skelley’s The Victorian Army At Home: The Recruitment and Terms and Conditions of the British Regular, 1859-1899.). The third-class certificate was required for promotion to the rank of corporal. To be awarded the certificate, a candidate had to read aloud and to write from dictation passages and to demonstrate he could complete examples of the four compound rules of arithmetic and the reduction of money. To be awarded a second-class certificate, a soldier had to complete writing and dictation from a more difficult text (than third-class) and show familiarity with all forms of regimental accounting including proportions, interest, fractions and averages. The second-class certificate was a requirement to progress to the rank of sergeant. Continuing on to completion of a first-class certificate meant the possibility of being commissioned from the ranks.
Evening Telegraph, 10 July 1909
But tragedy was to strike again in the Falconer family as William. His sister Annie had contracted tuberculosis and had been moved to the sanatorium in Whiteabbey, where she died in July 1909 (see death notice above).
Two months after Annie’s death, William was promoted to Lance Corporal having already completed the necessary army certificates that would allow him to advance as far as sergeant in the future. Yet William’s own army career was also cut short by illness. After attending an assessment in Dublin on 19th March 1910 he was deemed medically unfit and formally discharged from the army on 11th April 1910. He then moved back to the Falconer family home to Charleville Street Upper.
The army files give no hint as to the reasons but, by the summer of 1911, William himself had been certified with tuberculosis. It was to be the scourge of the Falconer family. William’s younger sister Mary died in March 1912 and Maggie in December 1912. Two years later, in 1914, one of his two remaining sisters, Eliza, also died. His youngest sister, Ruby, only five years old when he was discharged from the army, was also to die from tuberculosis in May 1917 having moved from Belfast to Ballynabarnish near Templepatrick to live with her late mother’s family, the Hamiltons. Her father, Samuel, had remained in Charleville Street Upper. But by 1920 Samuel had been moved to a lodging house, Carrick House, run by Belfast Corporation (on Lower Regent Street). Samuel then was hospitalised in the former union workhouse on the Lisburn Road where he died from heart problems in April 1920.
Samuel Falconer’s mark (X) even though he identified as able to read/write in 1901 and 1911 census (was that a false claim due to shame over illiteracy/poverty).
At 62 years of age he had been predeceased by his wife and all nine of his children, including William, who had succumbed to tuberculosis on 6th April 1912, only weeks after the death of his sister (and Samuel’s daughter) Mary. William had been brought to the Abbey hospital (in Whiteabbey) after being diagnosed in the summer of 1911. Samuel himself was present at his son’s death. Samuel had to mark an ‘x’ rather than sign his name as witness to his son’s death. While this may be age related, Samuel had recorded that he could read and write in the census of 1901 and 1911. But had Samuel did that out of shame to hide his own illiteracy (in the 1901 census less than 10% of carters recorded that they couldn’t read or write). Noticeably, Samuel only used the spelling ‘Falconer’ consistently from when his children were of school age, prior to that and in his last years he used both ‘Faulkner’ and ‘Falkner’. He may even have hidden his own lack of literacy from his children.
Clearly though, this William Falconer wasn’t the William Falconer who lived in Hull and joined the International Brigades in Spain to fight for the Spanish Republic (seems more likely he was from Scotland). But this William Falconer’s own family’s story of poverty and disease was all to familiar to those who travelled from Belfast, including those from the Shankill Road and what the brigadiers witnessed there in their own childhoods undoubtedly inspired many of them to fight in Spain.
Among those listed as interned in Frongoch in 1916 is an Edward Tierney whose address is given as the Falls Road, Belfast. There is also a Tierney tentatively listed among the Belfast Battalion volunteers who mobilised that Easter. So who was Edward Tierney?
Tierney’s name and address appear in the list of Frongoch internees compiled by Sean O’Mahony (in Frongoch: University of Revolution). No other details, other than the surname appears on the list of Belfast Battalion volunteers who mobilised in 1916 that is held in the Military Archives in Dublin. However, it is clear from the internment records that the Edward Tierney in Frongoch was more usually known by a Gaelicised form of the name, ‘Eamon O’Tierney’. O’Tierney had arrived in Frongoch quite late, having been transferred there in July. Harry Colley later recalled that he and O’Tierney were taken into military custody from the hospital in Dublin Castle. They were marched to Kilmainham before being transferred to Frongoch. According to Colley, he and O’Tierney struggled to complete the next march from Kilmainham to the North Wall, where they were shipped to Frongoch (below). Like Colley, O’Tierney had been in the hospital since the surrender of the republican forces at the end of the Rising.
O’Tierney, who was described by Jeremiah O’Leary as always having being highly-strung, had suffered some form of collapse after being taken prisoner. One account states he was unconscious for as many as six weeks in the hospital. For a number of weeks afterwards, O’Tierney was also subject to severe headaches and what was described as ‘confused episodes’ and ‘loss of reason’. An account of his experience during the Rising appeared in the Irish Independent in January 1953. The area in which he fought, North King Street, witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the Rising.
O’Tierney was reportedly dubbed the ‘Hero of Reilly’s Fort’ for his exploits in recovering an Irish Republic flag under fire during the Rising. The flag had been placed on a lance that had been stuck into the ground at the centre of the North King Street and Church Street crossroads. The Volunteers F Company had used a pub on one of the corners of the crossroads as a stronghold which became known as Reilly’s Fort. It had then come under sustained attack from British troops supported by armoured cars.
By the Friday, Reilly’s Fort had been under constant fire for sixteen hours and the decision was taken to evacuate it and retreat up Church Street to a barricade outside the Franciscan Church. The defenders were then joined by O’Tierney and others who had been defending the barricade in Mary’s Lane. When the Reilly’s Fort garrison was criticised for not bringing the Irish Republic flag and lance with them, O’Tierney went out, apparently under intense fire, and retrieved the flag and lance.
O’Tierney’s collapse after the Rising seems to be a manifestation of post-traumatic stress, presumably arising from his combat experience. In Frongoch, O’Tierney took part in the hunger-strike which began in early November. After several days on the hunger-strike, O’Tierney began to present further psychological reactions, but due to the conflict with the authorities in Frongoch he was denied medical care. For some ten days he experienced further confused episodes, including paranoid delusions about being conscripted into the British Army. On the 20th November he again collapsed, which the other prisoners again described as being down to ‘loss of reason’. A few days later, on 24th November, the internees’ leaders, including Michael Collins, wrote to the authorities expressing their concern at O’Tierney’s condition and stating that he had been denied medical treatment. On 25th November, he was moved to an asylum at Denbigh where he stayed until 1917.
The 1953 series by Piaras Beaslaí that described the ‘Hero of Reilly’s Fort’.
So how had O’Tierney ended up in Dublin for the Rising?
Despite his recorded address, O’Tierney had actually arrived in Dublin from London, not Belfast. Immediately prior to the Rising, he had been in a party of eight that carried over twelve suitcases of arms and ammunition, arriving in Dublin on Good Friday 1916. Realising the Rising was about to take place, he refused to leave. O’Tierney had used the cover of a G.R. (Georgius Rex) armband of the British Home Guard when travelling between London and Dublin. The role of London-based Irish republicans in the Rising and subsequent independence campaigns has often been overlooked (eg Michael Collins spent over nine years in London and was an active revolutionary for a time longer in London than he was to be in Ireland after 1916).
O’Tierney had been one of those who had built up the connections with Germany using letters addressed to prisoners of war. This was possible through his work in shipping as he was directly in contact with boats and captains travelling to Scandinavia and Germany. O’Tierney’s shipping connections meant he was then invaluable in the attempts to procure arms and he was involved in organising the shipment of arms that was to come with Casement prior to the Easter Rising. He had even brought back one consignment of ammunition from Hamburg personally. William Daly, another member of the Irish Volunteers in London, later described O’Tierney as the main link between Casement, the German arms and the Irish Volunteers. Richard Connolly, the London representative on the I.R.B.’s Supreme Council, mentions an I.R.B. man named ‘Tierney’, who he describes as a steward on a Norwegian vessel, attending meetings with Sean MacDiarmada in London at the early stages of planning for Easter Rising. Given his connections to shipping and occasional trips on vessels, this is possibly Eamon O’Tierney and would indicate that he was also an I.R.B. member.
He had also been among the original members of the Irish Volunteers in London, commanded by Michael Collins. Their volunteer unit had, at first, created a relief committee for those affected by the 1913 lockout which then became the United Irish Associations (with O’Tierney as secretary). O’Tierney was also active in the Irish Self-Determination League.
Another one of the early recruits to the Irish Volunteers in London, Jeremiah O’Leary, records that Eamon O’Tierney had actually been born Edward Turnley. An article in Honesty in 1929 refers to O’Tierney as an ‘Ulster Republican’. In the 1940s, Seamus Kavanagh recalled that Turnley had told him that his family background lay in Fermanagh and Monaghan and that his father was Grand Master of a Masonic Lodge there (Turnley himself was Presbyterian although he apparently converted to Catholicism while in hospital in Dublin Castle). Turnley reputedly said he had come over to London as a child to be educated and ended up fluent in twelve languages. His obituary, though, states that he came from a prominent unionist family in Antrim, rather than Fermanagh or Monaghan. Piaras Beaslaí (in the 1953 Irish Independent article) states that Turnley originally came from Fermanagh and that his father was a freemason and he had an uncle who was an admiral. However, the quality of Beaslaí’s information is shown by him mistakenly giving the English form of Turnley’s surname as ‘Tormley’.
Seamus Kavanagh states that Turnley did first joined the Gaelic League to learn Irish, then, as he met various active republicans including some with Belfast connections like Henry Shiels, Alf Monaghan and the Wards, he became an active republican himself. His interest in the Irish language supposedly arose after a period of time in which he had been a heavy gambler and was drinking excessively. During one such night, a British army officer made, and then lost, a huge amount of money gambling. The officer immediately left the room and shot himself. Seemingly, that turned Turnley from drinking and gambling and he took up the study of Irish instead. In the Gaelic League he met Michael Collins and it was Collins that is said to have made an Irish nationalist out of Turnley. Turnley remained active in the Gaelic League as well as the Irish Self Determination League in London. He had first joined the Clapham branch of the Gaelic League in 1910. His name appears among donors to an Irish language fund in The Irishman in October 1911 and he spoke at an Irish Industry and Art event in Westminster a month later (it was organised as ‘An Aonach’ by the Gaelic League). By 1912 he was active in sponsoring motions at Gaelic League meetings.
In 1917, Turnley was eventually discharged from Denbigh asylum. A letter writer to the Irish Independent in 1953 (in response to Beaslaí’s article) recalled that Turnley was then constantly followed by Scotland Yard in London. His professional skills were such, though, that even after his release, he was still in demand by employers. At the same time, and despite the surveillance, he remained heavily involved in republican activities in London under Sean McGrath and Sam Maguire. He also gave political speeches at various events, such as one where we spoke with Countess Markievicz and Herbert Devine at the Roger Casement Sinn Féin Club in London on 5th December 1919 and he was promiment at various Gaelic League and Irish Self-Determination League events. Newspaper reports from early 1920 name him as being director of publicity for the Irish Self-Determination League. He was also involved with the London Loans Committee (which sought to raise funds for the work of Dáil Éireann among the Irish in London). Within London itself he helped fund raise in Balham and Tooting, from where £600 was donated. At the start of May 1920 he helped organise a protest outside Wormwoods Scrubs in support of republican hunger strikers. According to the Freeman’s Journal he “…sustained serious injuries while protecting young girls from the attack of the London mob.” The shipping company that employed him then insisted he sign an undertaking to disassociate himself from his political activities. Turnley refused and then moved from London to Cork in late May 1920. President of the O’Donovan Rossa Club in London, he was made honorary President on his departure. He was also a secretary of the Gaelic League in London.
Aodh de Blacam, who knew Turnley well in London, mentions him in his novel about the London Irish, Holy Romans. He also included a brief memoir of Turnley in the London Gaelic League’s occasional magazine, Guth na nGaedheal, in March 1922. He quoted what he claimed to be Turnley’s own words, “…That we shall win our freedom I have no doubt; that we shall use it well I am not so certain… That should be our final consideration, and we should make this a resolution – our future history shall be more glorious than that of any contemporary State. We shall look for prosperity, no doubt, but let our enthusiasm be for beautiful living; … we shall take pride in our institutions …. as securing happiness of the citizens, and we shall lead Europe again as we led it of old. We shall rouse the world from a wicked dream of material good, of tyrannical power, of corrupt and callous politics to the wonder of a regenerated spirit, a new and beautiful dream; and we shall establish our State in a true freedom that will endure for ever.”
Also included in the article were what de Blacam described as verses that Turnley had loved:
I cannot count the years That you must drink like me The cup of blood and tears, Till she to you appears- But Éire, our Éire shall be free ! You consecrate your lives To her, and you shall be The food on which she thrive Till her great day arrives : When Éire, our Éire, shall be free. She ask you but for faith : Your faith in her takes she, Amidst defeat and death As draughts of Heaven’s breath – And Éire, our Éire shall be free!
In May 1920 Turnley moved from London to Cork where he transferred to the local I.R.A. unit (2nd Battalion). He may have continued to travel to London as later accounts claim he helped organise security for Irish people holding a vigil outside Brixton Prison during Terence McSwiney’s hunger strike in October 1920 (although this may be a garbled version of the Wormwood Scrubs protest from May 1920). After a ’bout of appendicitis’ he needed an operation from which he didn’t recover and he died in the Mercy Hospital in Cork on 17th December 1920. It was later claimed in the Freemans Journal (20/9/1924) that it was in Cork while “actively engaged in the Munitions Department of the IRA in that city that he lost his life in accident while engaged in the manufacture of munitions for the army.” No further details are given and the event cannot, as yet, be identified in the various records in the Military Archives. Five men (all I.R.A. volunteers) were killed in two separate accidents in Cork involving grenades on 25th and 27th November 1920. These were reported in the press and public knowledge. As the recorded cause of Turnley’s death, appendicitis, appears to be falsified, whatever the accident was at an I.R.A. munitions factory had obviously not become public knowledge.
So who was Eamon O’Tierney?
Eamonn O’Tierney was indeed born as Edward Douglas Turnley at St George Hanover Square in London in 1890 (this was also the name under which his death was registered in Cork in 1920). His family moved to Ashford, Staines in Middlesex around 1894 after his brother Alfred was born, although their mother died soon after Alfred’s birth. His father, Edward Echlin Turnley remarried in 1895, to Emmie, and had four further children and continued to live in Ashford. Edward Turnley was a senior civil servant. A clue to his Irish connection is given in the name of his house in Ashford, ‘Drumnasole’. Drumnasole, near Glenarm, was the Irish seat of the Turnley family. Edward Turnley himself had been in born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1855 to William Echlin Turnley and Maria White. William Turnley was a British soldier who had join the 54th Foot at the age of 14 in 1845, rising through the ranks to become Quartermaster in 1863 (with the equivalent rank of Captain) and then transferring to the more prestigious 1st Foot Regiment in 1871 and retiring with the equivalent rank of Major. After his retirement he lived in East Brixton and Lambeth in London. Turnley’s military records show that he was born in Belfast in 1831. At his marriage in 1851, his father’s name is given as John Turnley. The name Echlin used by the family suggests that there is some connection here between the Turnley and Echlin families, both of whom had residences near the mouth of Strangford Lough (where John Turnley and John Echlin were Justices of the Peace in the late 18th and early 19th century).
John Turnley had built a new house for himself, Rockport House (now a school), at Craigavad on Belfast Lough while his brother Francis, who had amassed a fortune in the East Indies, built Drumnasole House. The Turnleys were actively involved in Belfast’s business community and there was even a Turnley Street in the city centre (roughly where Stewart Street meets East Bridge Street today).
William (Edward Douglas Turnley’s grandfather) may have been a son of John Turnley of Rockport, although references to him suggest he had no legitimate children. Either way, the Turnley family clearly had some connection to the Drumnasole Turnleys. William, a retired army major, lived not far from his son Edward Echlin Turnley and his grandson Edward Douglas Turnley and died in 1904. It is possible Edward was given some sense of his Belfast roots by his grandfather. This is presumably what later prompted Edward Turnley to give his address as Belfast. How far the Turnley’s were prominent in unionism isn’t clear, though. A Mayo-based relative, Francis Turnley, stopped and banned nationalist events on properties he managed in Cushendall in 1906 (see Sinn Fein 23/6/1906). The surname and Drumnasole appears on the lists of donors to the UVF in the 1910s but there is nothing to indicate that the Turnleys were particularly prominent in unionist politics. Turnley features in reports of Gaelic League activity in London using both ‘Turnley’ and ‘O’Tierney’ in 1911-12.
Some of the inaccurate memoirs recorded about Turnley may have been badly remembered. But he may also have casually gave out misleading information about himself as a standard security precaution, or as the family had roots in Antrim that was where he stated he was born. Certainly the cumulative impact of his clandestine work importing arms and the physical danger of the Rising itself appears to have brought on some sort of breakdown. At least the Gaelic League in London did remember him, though. From 1937, Feis Lonndhain included an annual essay competition named in his honour which continued until at least the late 1950s.
This is an update of a previous post (see here). And if anyone can help – I’d like to track down a photo of Eamonn O’Tierney sometime.
Here’s some cartoons from the Sunday Independent in early 1922. Given the papers recent ethos, their political emphasis is maybe surprising. The cartoons were all apparently drawn by Gordon Brewster. The first three date from the period in February and March 1922, in the immediate aftermath of the Weaver Street bombing. The second three are from the end of May and June 1922. The cartoons mainly feature Winston Churchill and James Craig, both considered at the time to be the architects behind the violent reprisal policies in Ireland. The Bogie Man in the cartoon isn’t actually Gerry Adams but is supposed to represent the prospect of an IRA invasion over the border as a jack-in-the-box pulled out by unionists to scare people.
When Fianna Fáil entered government in Dublin in 1932, Frank Aiken was appointed Defence Minister, barely ten years since he ordered the killing of six Protestants at Altnaveigh near Newry.
The Irish Press front cover on 10th March 1932 showing de Valera’s first Fianna Fáil cabinet with his Minister for Defence, Frank Aiken, on the right end of the front row, less than ten years after Altnaveigh.
A founding member of Fianna Fáil and a TD since 1923, Aiken had been the Commandant of the IRA’s 4th Northern Division during the war for independence. He ordered the IRA to cease offensive operations against the Free State government within weeks of becoming IRA Chief of Staff in 1923. His 31 year ministerial career with Fianna Fáil was to include holding briefs for Finance, External Affairs. In the 1960s he spent four years as Tanaiste and turned down the opportunity to succeed Eamon de Valera as the Fianna Fáil candidate in the 1973 Presidential election (Erskine Childers stood for Fianna Fáil and won).
Aiken’s presence or absence during the killings at Altnaveigh has been debated. A new book by Gregory Knipe, The Fourth Northerners, documents Aiken’s 4th Northern Division and provides more detail on the Altaveigh attack.
Here’s a brief account of Altnaveigh from Gregory:
In the early hours of Saturday 17th June 1922 a special group of about thirty heavily armed IRA Volunteers travelled overland from Ravensdale Forest in County Louth to the village of Altnaveigh in South Armagh – a distance of about 8 miles. Altnaveigh was a small predominantly Protestant village and is described in the memoirs of former IRA members as the ‘stronghold of the ‘B’ Force murder gang’.
Each volunteer from the Newry 2nd Battalion was armed with a service rifle, 230 rounds of .303 ammunition, a service revolver and grenades for this special mission – a murder mission. The purpose of the mission, as stated by one of the participants was to burn every house and shoot every male that could be got. On completion the Volunteers returned to Ravensdale Park.
One of the IRA documents in the Military Archives that simply notes the Altnaveigh attack took place but omits any details or lists any of the participants (compare this to those on the days before and after on the same page).
The outcome of the raid was the killing of 6 Protestants and the wounding of many more (those killed included Thomas Crozier, Elizabeth Crozier, Joseph Gray, John Heslip, Robert Heslip and James Lockhart). The concern within the ranks of the participants were such that no reference was made to the event in the official records. A large number of the participants also left Ireland after the Truce.
Subsequently, I.R.A. members said that the attack was in revenge for four Volunteers killed by the ‘Specials’ and Altnaveigh was seen as a village of loyalists which had a high recruitment into the Ulster Special Constabulary.
Regardless of the controversy over whether he was present or not, as O.C. of the 4th Northern Division Frank Aiken would have to have given approval for such a mission. He was named by one Volunteer as being present on the attack, but this is disputed as he was involved on another mission on the same day – this was an attack on ‘A’ Specials at McGuill’s pub. This was as a response to a raid on the pub of a local republican and close friend of Frank Aiken.
Another file relating to the event cover up the murder of the Altnaveigh Protestants is shown in the image below.
In this record of operations carried out by Aiken’s 4th Northern Division, Altnaveigh is only alluded to half way down the page as ‘Special job carried out at – – -‘. It is notable that when these documents were created in the 1930s, Aiken was Minister for Defence.
So while Aiken wasn’t present at Altnaveigh, he was the one who had issued orders to the two IRA parties that left Ravensdale that night.
An old post worth revisiting on the 100th anniversary of the Treaty.
Some commentary in recent years focused on debating the origins and ‘ownership’ of the civil rights campaign. What has been missing from the discussion has been a timely reminder of the actual abuses that prompted the campaigns.
At heart, the civil rights campaign was addressing a fundamental democratic deficit created by Unionists limiting the right to vote. This is starkly visible in comparisons of the registered electorate for Westminster elections at which Unionism had no facility to curtail voting rights, and, Stormont and local government elections at which the qualification to vote could be manipulated and controlled. Taking the 1970 Westminster elections and 1969 Stormont elections into account, the former had a total electorate of 1,017,303 while the latter, only one year earlier, was 784,242. This is a difference of 233,061 votes, or almost 22.9% of the electorate (only some of which can be explained away by changes in the voting age in 1970). Qualification for the franchise was rooted in eligibility to pay rates and other restrictions that had long been lifted elsewhere. And economic status was the key to eligibility.
Unionism viewed this issue as explicitly rooted in religious identities. But in the United Kingdom, overt religious discrimination was, and is, only formally permitted at the highest levels (in terms of its monarchy and, technically, political offices such as Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor). So this could not be done in public. Instead, Unionism had to curate and exploit economic barriers to acquiring the right to vote, like employment, access to education and training (Catholic schools only received equality of resource allocation in the 1990s) and housing rights. Irish language rights were entirely suppressed. Conveniently for Unionism, the UK as happens elsewhere, happily tolerates overt income-based discrimination while prohibiting other forms of discriminatory practice.
Unionism wasn’t particularly shy in articulating the relationship between economic status, religion and politics. In 1933, writing in the Northern Whig, the Unionist Party’s Sir Joseph Davison neatly links votes, religion and employment: “…it is time Protestant employers of Northern Ireland realised that whenever a Roman Catholic is brought into their employment it means one Protestant vote less… I suggest the slogan should be ‘Protestants employ Protestants'”. Unionist boasts of ‘a Protestant Government for a Protestant People’ were usually in the context of demanding the employment of Protestants over Catholics (who were described as 99% disloyal) to ensure continuation of that same government.
And Unionist language on the issue could be brutal, with little fear of public rebuke. “The Nationalist majority in the county, i.e., Fermanagh … stands at 3,684. We must ultimately reduce and liquidate that majority. This county, I think it can be safely said, is a Unionist county. The atmosphere is Unionist. The Boards and properties are nearly all controlled by Unionists. But there is still this millstone [the Nationalist majority] around our necks.”, this was said by the Unionist MP for Enniskillen, Erne Ferguson, in 1948. Ferguson later resigned as an MP to take up the role of Crown Solicitor for Fermanagh.
When the British government appointed Sir John Cameron, a Scottish judge, to look at the violence that had been used against the early civil rights campaign, he stated (in his 1969 report, Disturbances in Northern Ireland) that: “We are satisfied that all these Unionist controlled councils have used and use their power to make appointments in a way which benefited Protestants. In the figures available for October 1968 only thirty per cent of Londonderry Corporations administrative, clerical and technical employees were Catholics. Out of the ten best-paid posts only one was held by a Catholic. In Dungannon Urban District none of the Council’s administrative, clerical and technical employees was a Catholic. In County Fermanagh no senior council posts (and relatively few others) were held by Catholics: this was rationalised by reference to ‘proven loyalty’ as a necessary test for local authority appointments. In that County, among about seventy-five drivers of school buses, at most seven were Catholics. This would appear to be a very clear case of sectarian and political discrimination. Armagh Urban District employed very few Catholics in its salaried posts, but did not appear to discriminate at lower levels. Omagh Urban District showed no clear-cut pattern of discrimination, though we have seen what would appear to be undoubted evidence of employment discrimination by Tyrone County Council.”
As well as the economic measures, the civil rights campaign also addressed inequities and inequalities in the administration of justice. Back in April 1922, the Unionists had enacted supposedly temporary measures in the Civil Authorities (Special Powers Act) which was intended to ‘restore order’. But the Act was continually renewed until it was just made permanent. It contained provisions to intern individuals without a charge, a trial or a release date. Hundreds were interned from 1922-24, 1938-45 and 1956-62 with smaller groups interned on other, lesser known, occasions (such as 1925 and 1951). Sentencing policy varied relative to your political background. An identical firearms offence attracting a £2-£5 fine for a Protestant would become a ten year penal servitude sentence (possibly including 10 strokes of the whip) for a republican. Habeus Corpus could be suspended, meaning, among other things, that it was possible to take and hold prisoners and refuse to admit they were being held prisoner.
Other measures were continually used to suppress opposition political activity. Public meetings and assemblies could be, and were repeatedly, banned. Individuals could be expelled from the north if they refused to abide by a restriction making them live in either Limavady if they were a republican or Clogher if they were a communist [Ed – No, I’ve no idea why Limavady and Clogher]. Publications including posters could be banned. Anything the Unionists’ deemed seditious, including concerts, memorials, publications, emblems and flags could be banned, seized and the owner prosecuted. In practice, under the Special Powers Act, individuals were detained and held for up to 7-8 weeks without charges or any form of hearing. The RUC could even deny holding them. Nor was there any form of redress once released if they weren’t charged or interned.
After the first ten years of operation of the Act, there were a series of unemployment protests in Britain, culminating in the hunger marches and rally in Hyde Park which was broken up by the police, injuring 75 people. This coincided with the Outdoor Relief riots in Belfast. The long term impact of the hunger marches was the formation of the British National Council for Civil Liberties in 1934. It’s focus was on abuses by the state including the suppression of political opposition, the use of police, and the promotion of democratic norms. After thousands of Catholics were attacked and forced from their homes and jobs in Belfast in the summer of 1935, the Council for Civil Liberties created a commission to report on the use of emergency powers and draconian legislation by the Unionists. It delivered its report on 23rd May 1936 and the main conclusions were:—
Firstly, that through the operation of the Special Powers Acts contempt has been begotten for the representative institutions of Government.
Secondly, that through the use of special powers individual liberty is no longer protected by law, but is at the arbitrary disposition of the Executive. This abrogation of the rule of law has been so practised as to bring the freedom of the subject into contempt.
Thirdly, that the Northern Irish Government has used special powers towards securing the domination of one particular political faction and, at the same time, towards curtailing the lawful activities of its opponents.
Fourthly, that the Northern Irish Government, despite its assurances that special powers are intended for use only against law-breakers, has frequently employed them against innocent and law-abiding people, often in humble circumstances, whose injuries, inflicted without cause or justification, have gone unrecompensed and disregarded.
It believed that the Unionists were “…in a position paralleled only by continental dictatorships…”.
With no sense of irony, the Belfast Newsletter (25 May 1936) dismissed the report as ‘bitter attacks on Ulster’. It then followed the Commission’s conclusions with a response from the County Grand Master of Belfast Orangemen, Sir Joseph Davison (same as above), who stated that “…to the best of his knowledge responsible members of the Protestant community did not give evidence at the inquiry which could, therefore, scarcely be impartial. ‘I have not made a careful study of the report of the Commission,’ he said, ‘but it is clearly very one-sided.’”
The British National Council for Civil Liberties report was regularly cited for the next twenty years in reference to the failures of Unionism to administer justice. None of the political groupings in the north initially embraced any form of rights-based campaign. Certainly individual issues were cited by the likes of the Nationalists and various Labour political factions. Republicans, politically disengaged from the structures of the northern state, highlighted the nature of the administration of justice. As republican meetings, commemorations and publications were regularly banned and led to arrests, the mere act of protest often was restricted by the Unionists’ use of the Special Powers Act. This included campaigning for political status for prisoners and the release of internees and political prisoners. Campaigns to release internees and sentenced prisoners took place from around 1944 to 1950 and again from 1957 to 1962. The end of the latter campaign saw republicans co-operate with the British National Council for Civil Liberties to highlight the Unionists’ use of the Special Powers Act.
In 1950, Geoffrey Bing, a Belfast born Labour MP for Hornchurch who was associated with the Council for Civil Liberties, published a 24 page pamphlet called John Bull’s Other Ireland, highlighting what he saw as the abuses the Tories enabled Unionism to perpetrate. He wrote that “The outward and visible manifestation of Tory policy in Northern Ireland is sectarianism. The Catholics are, like the Jews under Hitler, to blame for everything. A politician has only to wave the Orange flag and there is no need for him to concern himself with tiresome questions of national welfare.” Several million copies of Bings’ pamphlet were sold. He concluded that “…the creation of Northern Ireland was the greatest of all gerrymanders.” and that the British government and parliament, ultimately, was enabling the Unionists to carry on in this way and needed to take the lead in forcing change to take place.
Later, in the 1960s, at the preliminary meeting in Belfast that agreed on the need to found the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, a Dublin-based lawyer, Ciaran McAnally, identified the range of civil rights that should be upheld by society (as reported in the Irish Democrat, January 1967):
The right to personal liberty and freedom of movement. This should only be forfeited following conviction in a fair trial on known charges;
The right to freedom of expression in speech, writing or publication subjects to the norms of truth and justice. In other words, this right should not be used to the (legal) injury of others;
The right to freedom of conscience to hold and change religious beliefs, and the right to proselytise;
The right to assembly. This right is implicit in the right to free expression and personal liberty;
The right to form associations that not harmful to society. This follows from the right of assembly;
The right of access to courts of law to obtain the enforcement of the aforesaid rights. This entailed the provision of legal aid to people who otherwise would be prevented from having access to the courts;
The right to protection against discrimination in public employment and fair and impartial access to the public services, housing, social security and the other facilities provided today by central and local government authorities.
The right to freedom from conscription for conscientious objectors.
The initial press releases from the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association concentrated mainly on the administration of justice, rather than the socio-economic issues. These were: to defend the basic freedom of all citizens; to protest the rights of the individual; to highlight all possible abuses of power; to demand guarantees for freedom of speech, assembly and association; to inform the public of their lawful rights.
But as the civil rights campaign developed, the socioeconomic issues began to be equally stressed drawing together what was to form the two most recognizable strands of the civil rights campaign.
This is the story of Joe McKelvey GAC, a GAA club formed by the IRA in Belfast. Founded in 1924, the Joseph McKelvey Gaelic Athletic Club was named after the executed former commandant of the IRA’s 3rd Northern Division. McKelvey had been a founder member of the O’Donovan Rossa GAA club in Belfast. The choice of the name and the founding of McKelveys GAC followed the return of Lt. Gen. Joe McKelvey’s remains to Belfast from Dublin for burial in October 1924.
McKelveys burial was regarded by many Belfast republicans as the event which prompted the post-Civil War re-organisation of the IRA in Belfast. Clearly many in the Belfast IRA saw echoes (or wanted to see echoes) in the parallels with the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa. That funeral had catalysed republicans prior to the declaration of a republic in April 1916. The Belfast IRA, including McKelvey, had formed the O’Donovan Rossa GAA club in his memory. At the time the symbolism of forming a club in McKelvey’s name was no doubt well understood. In case it wasn’t, McKelveys GAC made it explicit: while Rossa played in white jerseys with a tricolour panel on the front, McKelveys played in a black jersey with a tricolour panel on the front.
Early photo of McKelveys team, dating to around 1926 (published in Ray Quinn’s A Rebel View.)
In 1925 McKelveys fielded a team in the South Antrim Junior Hurling League. A surviving line-up from a hurling league game against Sarsfields in Donegall Park in June 1926 gives a flavour of the club’s early playing members. That day the team was G. Donnelly, Davy Matthews, J. O’Boyle, Hugh Matthews, Joe McGurk, A. Johnston, Frank Pimley, J. Ralph, Hugh Corvin, F. McGoldrick, M. Maguire, O. McGeough, A. O’Donnell, J. Curran and James Thompson. The report on the games notes that regulars N. Donnelly and George Nash were both missing (McKelveys still won 2-1 to 1-0). The same year, McKelveys’ footballers beat Parnells, then lost to Stephens in the South Antrim Junior Football Championship semi-final. The Irish News report on the semi-final (which McKelveys lost 3-4 to 4-0) includes the following line-up: E. Colligan, J. Meighan, J. Dempsey, H. Laverty, J. Doherty, O. McGeough, N. Donnelly, G. Nash, J. Havlin, D. Matthews, A. O’Donnell, H. Corvin, F. Pimley, G. Donnelly and E. Quinn. McKelveys N. Donnelly also played on the Antrim team that defeated Cavan in the final of the Northern Division of the National Football League in 1926.
Hugh Corvin (the Belfast IRA O/C), Davy Matthews (who was later Belfast IRA O/C), Hugh Matthews (Davy’s brother and another future Belfast IRA O/C) and George Nash, O/C of one of the Belfast IRA companies were all prominent Belfast IRA staff members. Others, like Joe McGurk who had been imprisoned the previous year for possession of arms and weapons, are well-known IRA men. Visibly, McKelveys was very much an IRA team drawing on the small pool of active republicans left in Belfast. It was also very much an anti-treaty IRA side. The O’Donovan Rossa club, which McKelvey helped found, was associated with Belfast IRA staff who had taken and, in 1924, still remained, on the pro-treaty side. If other prominent South Antrim clubs, like Morans, Kevin Barrys (also originally an ‘IRA club’), Stephens, Parnells and Ardoyne had any associations it could equally have been to organisations such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians or Irish National Foresters. In that regard, McKelveys being left as the sole IRA-sponsored GAA club may be a reflection of the political landscape of nationalist Belfast in 1924-25.
An early photograph (above) survives of a McKelveys’ football team, which appears to date around 1925-26 and must presumably be one of the first junior football teams fielded by the club. Those that can be identified in the photo include Hugh Corvin, Jack McNally, Davy and Hugh Matthews, Joe Hanna and Jimmy Steele. McNally, Hanna and Steele were also intimately involved in the IRA in Belfast from 1924. McNally dropped out of republican activities for a number of years after 1927 and doesn’t seem to feature in any recorded line-ups for McKelveys from that date onwards, suggesting this photo dates to 1927 at the latest.
The club had a base in Rockmount Street, just off the Falls Road, where an old wooden building, known as the McKelvey hut, was used. It is also clear, from various accounts in the 1920s, that it was openly known to be a base of the Belfast IRA as individuals who wished to join the IRA went there to ask about joining. Its official name, when it is mentioned in the press, was McKelvey Hall, later (in the 1930s) being known as the McKelvey Recreation Club. By the mid-1930s McKelveys also used Pearse Hall, in the city centre, as their base.
By 1927, McKelveys had attracted a number of transfers, including Jack Gaffney from Morans and Art Thornbury from O’Connells, both of whom were closely associated with the IRA. While the McKelveys’ footballers came bottom of the South Antrim Senior Football League, they did well in the Senior Football Championship that year and came up against Jack Gaffneys former club, Morans, in the semi-final. The line-up for the semi-final in Shaun’s Park was A. O’Donnell, J. McCrealey, Jack Gaffney, P. Rafftery, M. Maguire, R. Boomer, H. Lavery, Art Thornbury, T. Carabine, D. McGregor, J. McKeown, J. Steele, Hugh Corvin, E. Quinn and A. Johnston.
Morans were too strong for McKelveys, though, winning 2-9 to 1-1. The Irish News reports that the best back was McCrealey, Corvin and Steele best of an indifferent forward line, and Thornbury was the outstanding player on the pitch. Jack Gaffney, only returned from six weeks out due to illness, was described as not fully fit. The hurlers made it to the South Antrim Junior Hurling Championship final in 1927, losing heavily to Parnells, 8-4 to 2-0, who were winning their first honours, while the footballers made it through to the South Antrim Junior Football Championship final the same year.
In 1928, McKelveys lost Art Thornbury and Jack Gaffney who were arrested along with others at an Easter Commemoration in Milltown cemetery. They also lost George Nash to a three year sentence for illegal possession of documents. But McKelveys did make the final of the South Antrim Junior Football Championship where they met Kevin Barrys on 20th May at Corrigan Park. By half-time, McKelveys were 1-4 to 0-0 ahead. They didn’t score again in the second half and two Kevin Barrys goals reduced their lead to a single point. But that was how the game ended and McKelveys survived to become South Antrim Junior Football champions. They then played Lamh Dearg, Toome a week later in Toome in the final of the Antrim Junior Football Championship. By half-time, McKelveys were 1-1 to 0-1 behind. McKelveys inched closer during a scrappy second half, trailing by 1-2 (5 points) to 0-3 (3 points) with a few minutes to go. But, a goal from Lamh Dearg put the final result beyond doubt and it ended 2-2 to 0-3.
McKelveys also made the final of the Ben Madigan Cup on the 10th June where they played O’Connells in Corrigan Park. The McKelveys’ team was A. O’Donnell in goal, D. McCann, J. McCreely and J. McKeown in the full-back line, Joe O’Neill, T. Carabine and H. Laverty in the half-back line, Frank Pimley and Davy Matthews in midfield, Hugh Corvin, Jimmy Steele and J. Conkey in the half-forward line, T. Cunningham, P. Rafferty and A. Johnston in the full-forward line. Jimmy Steele scored one of the first half goals (the Irish News describing him as a live wire during the game), as McKelveys went into a 2-2 (8 points) to 0-0 half-time lead. The second half was fairly tame and McKelveys cruised home 3-2 (11 points) to 0-1 (1 point).
By 1929 McKelveys’ players like Matthews, Boomer, Pimley, Ward and O’Neill were being called up to the Antrim county sides, both football and hurling, and in Art Thornbury, the club had a dual inter-provincial player who was the outstanding player in the county, in both codes, in the 1920s. He had won a number of Ulster Senior Hurling championships. He playing on the side that defeated Cavan 4-3 to 3-1 for the 1926 Ulster title. Cavan had led for much of the game until Thornbury set up McCarry for the crucial third goal. In the 1927 final, Thornbury also played a lead role as Antrim again overcame Cavan, this time on a score-line of 5-4 to 3-3 at Breffni Park on 3rd October. Thornbury continued to star in Antrim’s defence throughout the 1920s, and played on Antrim teams which won further Ulster titles. In mid-April 1931, when Antrim entered the National Hurling League for the first time, Thornbury was a central part of the squad (he had also played regularly in the National Football League for Antrim). Antrim filled a place in Group B in 1931 that had been vacated by Wexford’s withdrawal. The first game, on 24th May 1931, at Portlaoise, finished Laois 4-4 Antrim 0-4. The other game was played against Dublin at Corrigan Park in Belfast on 2nd August and Antrim again lost, this time on a score of 4-4 to 2-2. Antrim weren’t to re-enter the National Hurling League until 1945 (although in some seasons a Northern Division was contested by some Ulster counties).
A lot of Belfast republicans were subjected to routine harassment by the northern government and some, including McKelveys players, were charged and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. As in 1928, Thornbury missed a portion of the 1930 season as he was arrested again at the 1930 Easter commemoration and received three months in prison, along with Hugh Matthews.
Despite the loss of players to arrest and imprisonment, by the early 1930s, the club was fielding teams in the Senior and Intermediate football, hurling and (from 1929) camogie leagues. McKelveys won the South Antrim Senior Football League in 1930-31 (the league itself was completed in November 1931) as well as the Senior Football Championship and the South Antrim Cup in football. As South Antrim champions, McKelveys contested the final of the Antrim Senior Football Championship against Cuchullains Dunloy on July 12th 1931 at Dunloy.
McKelveys were without Thornbury and Ward who had been suspended the previous week for being sent off when playing for the Antrim county side. Cuchullains, playing with a strong breeze in the first half, led 1-3 to no score at half time. McKelveys, who (The Irish News notes) also had to contend with playing uphill in the first half, began the second half strongly. As per regulations at the time, both clubs had supplied umpires to the referee, John Osborne, but on a number of occasions the umpires disagreed over scores. Carabine and Jimmy Steele were both guilty of wasting chances before Joe O’Neill got McKelveys’ first point of the game. Chances then began to come for McKelveys and Joe Pimley had a shot saved, then Finnegan had a shot deflected wide. Carabine managed to win the ball after a placed kick from O’Neill, and directed a shot on the Cuchallains’ goal. The score was signalled with a red flag by one umpire (indicating a goal) and a white flag by the other (indicating a point). A Cuchallains’ player then pulled the red flag from the umpire and a McKelveys’ forward tried to influence the other umpire to award the goal (The Irish News, which published a report of the game on 14/7/31 diplomatically does not name those involved). The referee decided to award a point but such a heated row then followed between the spectators and umpires that the referee decided to halt the game. The County board decided the game had to be replayed.
The replay was on 10th August and was refereed by the chairman of the County Antrim board, Padraig McNamee with selected umpires. McKelveys had Thornbury back for the replayed game, although Ward was still absent. The team that started the game was A. O’Neill in goals, James Pimley, Jack Gaffney and W. Connolly in the full-back line, Joe Pimley, Art Thornbury and P. O’Neill in the half-backs, P. Boomer and Joe O’Neill in midfield, W. Cochrane, Gene Thornbury and M. Finnegan in the half-forwards and Jimmy Steele, T. Carabine and R. Boomer in the full-forward line. There was a strong cross-wind that reduced the accuracy of the passing and the game was frequently interrupted with frees for minor infringements and some bad blood that spilled over from the abandoned first game. McKelveys, playing uphill for the first half, were 0-4 to 0-0 behind at half time. Joe O’Neill then got McKelvey’s off the mark at the start of the second half but a Cuchullains goal left them 1-4 to 0-1 behind. The game then got scrappier and Gunning (Cuchullains) and P. Boomer were sent off. Joe O’Neill then gave McKelveys some hope with two further points to reduce the gap to 1-4 (7 points) to 0-3 (3 points). Cuchullains continued to break up the game and also had Dillon sent off, later followed by R. Boomer (McKelveys). But time ran out and McKelveys lost.
The season wasn’t yet over, though, as McKelveys had also reached the final of the South Antrim Senior Hurling Championship against O’Connells. This was played at Corrigan Park, and the McKelveys’ team was S. McKeown in goal, James Pimley, Davy Matthews and W. McFadden in the full-back line, Joe O’Neill, Art Thornbury and J. Walsh in the half-back line, T. Carabine and P. O’Neill in midfield, Joe Pimley, P. Boomer, and Jimmy Steele in the half-forward line, and, W. Connolly, R. Boomer and Gene Thornbury in the full-forward line. The game started up even enough, tying at 0-1 to 0-1 but O’Connells added a goal and two points before McKelveys scored again. Another goal before the break left McKelveys 2-3 (9 points) to 0-2 (2 points) down at half-time. Despite the best efforts of the Thornburys and Boomers, McKelveys couldn’t reduce the gap and a third goal for O’Connells effectively killed off the game. At the final whistle, O’Connells won by 3-5 (14 points) to 0-6 (6 points).
Hugh Corvin’s absence from the McKelveys’ teams by 1931 is interesting. In 1927, he had stepped down as O/C of the Belfast IRA but was to remain prominent in the McKelveys club for the next couple of seasons. His replacement as O/C, Davy Matthews, was one of those who represented the club at South Antrim Divisional Board. By 1930, Corvin appears to have less association with the club (and the IRA).
In 1931-32, the South Antrim Senior Football League contained nine teams, O’Connells, Rossa, McKelveys, Sarsfields, Ardoyne, St Galls, St Johns, Tir-na-nOg and Shamrocks (Aughagallon), while there were eighteen teams in the Intermediate and Junior leagues. But for the new 1931-32 season McKelveys struggled. In the same year the club also played games against clubs from outside Antrim, such as against a Lurgan team as part of a benefit tournament in January 1932, (which McKelveys lost 3-1 to 1-2). They struggled early in the league in 1932 at which time Art Thornbury and Jack Gaffney were suspended (along with two other senior players). Thornbury, along with another IRA man, was arrested over an attempted arms raid that month and subsequently sentenced to eighteen months in prison. His brother, Gene, also was dragged into the case. Other McKelveys men, such as Willie McCurry, were arrested and imprisoned over the summer (in McCurry’s case, for printing posters protesting Thornbury’s imprisonment).
McKelveys lost to Tir na nOg in January 1932, by which time they had dropped 3 points in the league, as much as in all of the previous season. They then lost to Ardoyne, although they did beat St Galls and St Johns in February. By the time the 1932 South Antrim Senior Football Championship came around in April, McKelveys were no longer contending for the league but easily beat Sarsfields in their first round tie, although eventually going out in a heavy defeat to Tir-na-nOg, 4-5 to 0-1 in October (when many IRA members in Belfast were involved, albeit unofficially, in the Outdoor Relief riots).
The political leanings of the GAA in Antrim at this time was heavily influenced by McKelveys, as can be gauged by its sponsorship of motions with regard to the status of British soldiers, sailors and police being beyond the pale of the GAA in 1930 and again, specifically proposed by McKelveys, in 1932. The later motion called for a definition of the position of the Civic Guard and Army in the Irish Free State, and specifically referred to the issue of the naming of clubs. The motion was eventually withdrawn and referred to the GAA’s Central Committee. McKelveys also had Art Thornbury proposed for position of secretary of the Ulster Council, but he lost out in a ballot.
That summer, McKelveys organised a training camp at Harp Hall near Carnlough. On July 19th, at 4 am, the RUC stormed into the camp. In the main hut, Farrell John Leddy from Rockdale Street in Belfast, a 22 year old doctor and son of a former RIC man, was detained. A bugle was reportedly found in Leddy’s bag, whilst a book with notes about the use of arms was found on a table in the hut. The twenty-five young men found at the camp had their details taken then were transport back to Belfast and released.
The camp had consisted of a wooden hut for the officers and instructors, and, four canvas tents for those attending the camp (the hut was owned by a J. McKeown of Belfast, who also happened to be secretary of the Antrim County board). A tricolour was flown from a flag pole (the flag was confiscated by the RUC). It is clear from accounts of the camp that it was an IRA training camp organised by the McKelveys club. At the start of August the wooden hut used at Harp Hall by Farrell Leddy was burnt down.
The McKelvey’s Senior Hurling team were heavily beaten in Glenarm a week after the camp was raided (they received another heavy defeated from Glenarm in October the same year – somewhat offset by beating Queens University in the Senior Football on the same day). That autumn, McKelveys fortunes were mixed, losing heavily (3-3 to 0-2) to St Galls in October, and then to O’Connells in November (2-1 to 1-2) and narrowly to O’Donnell’s in December (0-3 to 0-2), although going well in the Intermediate Football. That October, the Outdoor Relief riots saw significant street disturbances in Belfast, many involving IRA members (and McKelveys heavy loss in the championship).
Despite the distractions, McKelveys fared a bit better in the 1932-1933 league campaign, with Finnegan, O’Neill and Cochrane playing well, but were hampered by the increasingly regular loss of players to arrest and short-term detentions (as well as longer term imprisonments of a few months). When Art Thornbury was released from prison in October 1933 he was hounded by the northern government, detained again for a month, then deported to the south. This was against the backdrop of a further outbreak of violence in Belfast. It was hoped to run Thornbury as an election candidate that autumn and the RUC, expecting a selection convention to be held, raided McKelvey Hall in November 1933. The convention was held elsewhere and Thornbury was selected (although, as the prison authorities prevented Art signing the nomination papers, his brother Patrick stood in his place in the end). As the convention wasn’t taking place, the RUC arrested fifteen 14-19 year olds who were present instead. They were charged with drilling and, in the end, eight received two months including John McKenna (who got hard labour for refusing to recognise the court), Patrick Lavery, Thomas Graham, Francis Doherty, Patrick McCann, Rory Campbell, Vincent Kelly and Francis McGoldrick. In court, it was claimed that McKenna was giving words of command to the others, such as “’Shun! About turn!”, “Form fours!” and “Quick march!”.
Doherty died soon after his release from prison and was commemorated in the song Belfast Graves, the original version of which was written by Jimmy Steele. The lines of the song mentioning Doherty also feature in Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy.
As well as the youths arrested at McKelvey Hall, that November, more senior players and former players were sentenced to between one and three months in prison for refusing to answer questions put to them by a magistrate. Refusing to answer was an offence under the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Acts. Those arrested included George Nash, Jimmy Steele, Jack Gaffney, Frank Pimley, William Connolly, William McCurry, Davy Matthews and Hugh Matthews. A club delegate to various county meetings, Brendan Kielty (who was later to travel to Spain with Eoin O’Duffy), was arrested for speaking at an illegal rally in support of republican detainees on 5th November 1933.
In his biography, Harry, Harry White recalls that he would drop in at the McKelveys’ base “…and look up the line-out and composition of the team only to find there were gaps – some of the lads had been arrested; they were replaced by that well-known chap, A.N. Other.”
And the arrests did not end in November. On 15th January 1934, Gerald O’Toole from Spinner Street was in the McKelvey Republican Hall in when the RUC entered. A Constable Fannin questioned O’Toole and three others about their activities and they said there were arranging football fixtures. Fannin then searched O’Toole (who he says refused to answer any more questions) and found a letter on him from a man named Crilly addressed to Jimmy Steele.
There were other problems for the club that month. Davy Matthews had taken an opportunity to sign out of prison for Christmas, as did George Nash. This was against IRA policy as it was giving recognition to the courts and prison service. Matthews was expelled from the IRA. Neither he nor Nash are mentioned again in accounts of McKelveys.
On the field the team was depleted for a visit to Aughagallon to play the Shamrocks in January 1934, where they were beaten 1-8 to 2-1, despite goals from Jack Gaffney and Maguire and a point from Joe O’Neill. That month the team continued to have ‘team troubles’ due to arrests and fielded without key men like Ward, Gene Thornbury and Pimley (although they could still rely on the likes of Jack Gaffney, McGeough, Boomer, O’Neill and Cochrane). They also lost out to Ardoyne in the Senior Football Championship in January 1934, after a replay.
The team continued to struggle, though, even when players returned. On top of being outside contention for the league, McKelveys struggled to be competitive at all in 1934, despite the likes of Gene Thornbury, Adams, Joe O’Neill, P O’Neill, Cochrane, McKeown, Pimley and Boomer doing well. They shipped heavy defeats to the likes of St Galls (3-4 to 0-1) in February and narrowly to O’Connells (1-4 to 0-5) the same month. For the next season, O’Connells also put McKelveys out of the Senior Football Championship in the first round in April.
At the end of 1934, the club proposed a motion on political prisoners that was ruled out of order at the Antrim Convention, at which there appears to have been some dispute as to the maintenance of the ‘non-political’ nature of the GAA.
The club had also continued to field a team in the senior hurling in 1933 but, paralleling the decline of the footballers, slipped down to the Intermediate League where they continued to struggle. At the end of the 1933-34 season, McKelveys’ footballers were relegated and fielded in the Intermediate and Junior Leagues in the winter of 1934 (as well as the Ben Madigan Cup instead of the South Antrim Cup). The 1934 season began equally badly as they struggled in the Intermediate League, losing to Rossa II, O’Donnells, Gaedhil Uladh and Davitts, eventually picking up points by beating St Galls II in January 1935, 2-0 to 0-1. The decline also saw the loss of the players, with the likes of Pimley moving to Gaedhil Uladh to continue playing senior football.
Further violence, including an attempted pogrom in Belfast that summer, as well as arrests at a Belfast IRA training camp in Louth further weakened the club in 1935. In the autumn resumption of the league, McKelveys began strongly in the Intermediate Football League beating O’Donnells 1-2 to 0-2 in November 1935, then St Galls 3-1 to 1-0. In February, Ardoyne were beaten 1-3 to 1-2. By late February, McKelveys were close to the top of the Intermediate League but not in contention for promotion (at the same time the junior team were struggling badly, close to the bottom of their league).
Of the McKelveys’ senior footballers who lined out against the Shamrocks in the Ben Madigan Cup in March 1936, only Jimmy Steele survived from the side who had played in the 1931 Antrim Senior Football Championship Final. The full McKelveys’ line-up was J. O’Rawe, P. Quinn, J. Kelly, J. McManus, J. McCaughan, T. Morris, P. McKenna, M. Clarke, L. Dooley, M. Higgins, J. Steele, H. White, J. Teague, J. Hamill and W. Mooney. McKelveys lost the game 0-3 to 0-0. In its report on the game, The Irish News singled out Morris, McKenna, Steele and McManus for praise. The next week, McKelvey’s made amends, winning the Biggar Cup. By May, Steele too was gone following the Crown Entry raid. By the end of 1936 the club could only field a team in the junior league.
Pearse Hall, which was also used by the McKelveys, was destroyed in a bomb explosion on May 27th 1938. On November 23rd 1938, a raid on the McKelvey Recreation Club off the Falls Road led to the detention of nineteen young men under the Special Powers Act. Those arrested included Matthew Bunting, Thomas Cairns, Kevin Barry Hughes, Michael Mullan, John O’Rawe, Thomas Gourley, David McKay, Joseph McKenna, John McKee, Billy McKee, Frank McCusker, Harry McGurk, Joseph Adams, Hugh Molloy. Most were aged 16-18 and it was claimed in court that they were members of Fianna na hÉireann and were being drilled by John McKee in the hall. All were found guilty and John McKee was given two months, while the others received fines or imprisonment.
On 28th November an attempted bomb attack on the McKelvey Hall damaged the adjoined Rockmount Social Club. By the end of the 1938, the McKelvey club was barely competing even at junior level and, in the face of the introduction of internment and the continued loss of members it eventually folded in 1939. In Antrims Patriot Dead, published in 1966, Jimmy Steele (clearly stating that McKelveys was an IRA club) says that those arrests and internment finished the club in 1939.
In 1940, McKelveys’ veteran Jack Gaffney died on the prison ship Al Rawdah. After his funeral in St Johns, his remains were brought to Milltown. At the funeral, the tricolour was produced which had been placed over Joe McKelvey’s coffin when he had been buried in Belfast in 1924. It was placed on Gaffney’s coffin in the church. It was again placed on Gaffney’s coffin when it was brought to Milltown where he was buried in the republican plot.
When the internees and sentenced prisoners, including many McKelveys’ men and women, were released after 1945 the club was not reformed, instead the main republican GAA club in Belfast was named after Tom Williams, who had been hung in 1942.
On the night of 11-12 December 1920 members of two Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) units, the Special Reserve and Auxiliary Division, shot burned and looted their way through parts of Cork city centre killing and wounding a number of people and causing damage estimated at $194m/€175m (in today’s value). In the immediate aftermath much of the press, particularly the British press, either claimed no-one was able to identify those involved or else attributed to the violence to ‘Sinn Feiners’ (meaning the IRA).
In the days after Cork was burnt by the Black and Tans (as the RIC’s Special Reserve was known) and Auxies (as the Auxiliary Division was known), English newspapers like the The Graphic reported merely that ‘incendiaries’ had set fire to the city. The Illustrated London News claimed it was “impossible to say” which ‘faction’ was responsible but that citizens had requested that General Strickland deploy military patrols to guard the city centre. Within a couple of days, Sir Hamar Greenwood, the British government’s Chief Secretary for Ireland, went even further. He explicitly denied any involvement of the British forces and, instead, unequivocally blamed the burnings on the IRA.
Below, you can see a selection of photographs of the aftermath in Cork as published in contemporary newspapers.
The response was to get Professor Alfred O’Rahilly (of University College Cork) to produce a book containing eye-witness accounts of events over the night of 11-12 December 1920, which were published in January 1921 under the name of the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress. The book was called Who Burnt Cork City? (you can get a copy here). It so successfully counteracted the propaganda put out in the English press that it was to be the model for the Facts and Figures of the Belfast Pogrom which was to appear in August 1922 (also now back in print).
A German killed by Germans in Germany probably sounds like the most unlikely fatality of the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland. Yet, in 1972, sixty-six year old Erwin Beelitz was killed by a bomb planted in Berlin in ‘solidarity with the IRA’. His name doesn’t typically feature in any lists of those who died during this period, but this is his story.
On the evening of Bloody Sunday, a young German, Michael Baumann, had watched a television report on events in Derry that day. Like many of the post-war generation in West Berlin, there was a certain level of resentment at the continued occupation by the victorious allies of various sectors of Berlin. This lent itself to empathising with others they perceived to be sharing an experience of military occupation, whether that was in places like Vietnam or, since 1969, Ireland. And, just as the presence of US troops in Germany had created a target for protests over US actions in south-east Asia, the presence of British troops meant that there was a highly visible focus for protests over British actions in Ireland. At the time, watching reporting of Bloody Sunday in Derry on television, Michael Baumann claimed he was so moved by events that he decided that he “…had to do something about it”.
Next day, Monday 31st January, Baumann and a friend, Hans-Peter Knoll, met with Verena Becker, Harald Sommerfeld and Inge Viett who had also concluded that the killings of unarmed civilians by the British Army demanded a response. Becker, Sommerfeld and Viett had been members of Schwarzen Hilfe, a support group for political prisoners, but had recently joined Baumann and Knoll in Bewegung 2 Juni or B2J (the June 2nd Movement).
B2J had been founded the previous year by individuals associated with some of the German groups that had emerged from the student and radical campaigns of the late 1960s. Even the B2J name commemorated the day in 1967 (June 2nd) when unarmed Benno Ohnesorg was shot by a police detective, following vicious police repression of a protest against a visit by the Shah of Iran to Berlin. The events of that day were repeatedly cited by many individuals involved in the radical groups as a pivotal moment in their transition from peaceful and largely conventional protests to more militant actions.
Like many of the German radical groups, B2J were trying to adapt urban guerilla tactics, largely following the outlines sketched by Brazilian Marxist-Leninist Carlos Marighella (in his Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla). They hoped that the example of actions by a small, elite, guerilla group would catalyse support for their aims. Ultimately, this was meant to lead to ‘the people’ seizing power from the conservative, capitalist forces that controlled the state. This marked a departure from the successful, ‘focalist’ model used in the likes of Cuba and Vietnam, where the impetus began in remote rural areas prior to marching on, and seizing, the urban centres. In the metropolitan western states, the focus needed to be on building support in the urban areas rather than rural districts. The Tupamaros in Uruguay and, historically, the urban IRA operations organised by the likes of Michael Collins were seen by Marighella and others as exemplars of the urban guerilla method. Up to 1972, B2J had mainly confined itself to robberies and shootings. A response to Bloody Sunday seemed to provide an opportunity to progress to widen its campaign. This was largely following the template set out by Marighella in his Minimanual.
B2J itself was a loose coalition of anarchists unlike the better known Marxist-Leninist group, the Rotte Armee Fraktion (R.A.F.). The latter is usually rendered in English as Red Army ‘Faction’ although ‘Fraction’ is more accurate and reflects the intention to identify the group as an integral part of wider society (i.e. a ‘fraction’), rather than a discrete entity in its own right as the term ‘faction’ implies.
Famously, the R.A.F. included Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler and Ulrike Meinhof. A name that was often, erroneously, given to the first generation R.A.F. was the ‘Baader-Meinhof’ Group or just ‘B-M’ (mistakenly taking Meinhof to be a leader). The R.A.F. didn’t really have leaders, per se, but the most prominent female figure was Gudrun Ensslin rather than Meinhof. Emerging from those same left wing challenges to the aging conservative establishment in West Germany, the R.A.F. held a particular appeal to young Germans. In a television era, imagery and optics were important and the group’s public personae, consciously or subconsciously, resonated with a sort of revolutionary chic. For instance, a mythical preference for using stolen BMWs (dubbed the Baader-Meinhof Wagen) is believed to have brought the then provincial and largely unheralded BMW brand to prominence. And when Baader was arrested in 1972, he had a bleeding gunshot wound in his thigh, he still managed to keep his Raybans on for the cameras. The high profile female voices within the organisations, like Ensslin and Meinhof, similarly signalled an aspiration towards gender equality that both increased their youth appeal, and, differentiated them from the older male-dominated West German establishment which was also tarnished by the country’s history under the Nazis.
I think you can see influence of the projected media image of the likes of Ensslin and Meinhof in Irish republican depictions of female activists in the early 1970s, much of it resonating with second wave feminism. Presumably this would equally apply to media imagery of women involved in loyalist organisations in the 1970s (check out the new Her Loyal Voice blog which might explore some of the history there). Bob White’s documentary on Cumann na mBan, that I posted about recently, suggests there is scope for more exploration of the interplay of second wave feminism and interaction between the IRA and Cumann na mBan (keep an eye out for Dieter Reinsich’s work in this area too, eg see here).
While there had been widespread student and radical protests in Europe in the late 1960s, only really Germany, Italy and Ireland had also saw the development or renewal of a range of militant groupings. The publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who was connected to both German and Italian radicals, provided some of the thinking and resourcing behind the development of the Italian groups. He was instrumental in setting up the Gruppi di Azione Partigiana (Partisan Action Groups) which was founded around the same time as other left radical groups like Lotta Continua and Gruppo XXII Ottobre (October 22nd Group) in 1969, soon to be followed by the more durable Brigata Rossa or ‘B-R’ (‘Red Brigade’, later ‘Red Brigades’ as it absorbed members of the other groups as they disbanded). Unlike the German groups, there were very few prominent women in the Italian organisations.
In Italy, right wing groups were also active. They carried out occasional bombings and shootings from 1969 onwards to which the left wing radical groups responded in kind. Media coverage meant that left wing protests around the world quickly reached a much wider audience (just as from October 1968 onwards, Irish events also began to feature on television news bulletins). The patterns of militant activity and scale of fatalities in Italy and Germany (and indeed Ireland) were not vastly dissimilar for much of 1969 and 1970. While there were points of contact between the various groups, there was little in the way of formal links. However, all were constantly aware of, and sympathetic to, events in other countries. As late as 1985, the third generation R.A.F. had a unit called ‘Kommando Patsy O’Hara’.
For that reason, Baumann and the others identified with events in Derry on Bloody Sunday. In West Berlin, a peaceful protest by fifteen hundred people on the Tuesday following Bloody Sunday had converged on the British Consulate-General. The protesters had demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. Trouble flared afterwards and eight windows of the BBC’s Berlin office were broken by stone throwers.
While that was going on the former Schwarzen Hilfe members in B2J, Verena Becker, Inge Viett and Harald Sommerfeld and another inexperienced member, Willi Räther, were scouting for British military targets to attack in the Gatow and Kladow districts along the western outskirts of West Berlin. Figuring most were too well protected, they happened upon a sign for the British Yacht Club on the Havel, just off Kladower Damm which was mainly used by British officers. They reconnoitred the club and decided it would make a suitable target. As it was out of season, it was deserted and so there was little risk of anything more than damage to property.
Up to then, B2J had mainly been involved in a handful of encounters with German police and bank robberies to raise funds. Baumann and Knoll had went to see other leading figures in a Schoneberg apartment including Heinz Brockmann, Ralf Reinders and ‘Ina’ Siepmann to see what could be done. It was agreed that Brockmann would manufacture explosive devices to be used in mobile attacks. Next day Baumann acquired the necessary materials and brought them to an apartment in Sybelstrasse where Brockman manufactured three bombs using fire extinguishers, water pipes, clock parts, gunpowder and fireworks. Baumann made explosives from weed killer and sugar. Meanwhile, Becker and the others reassembled in Eisenbahnstrasse and prepared a letter to leave at the British Yacht Club stating that the attack was in solidarity with the IRA and in revenge for the British Army’s actions in Derry.
The bombs were all set to detonate at 2.15 am on 2nd February.
The inexperienced Becker, Viett, Sommerfeld and Räther were to plant one bomb at the deserted British Yacht Club. They drove to Gatow by car where Viett stayed in the car with the lights on and engine running while Becker, Räther and Sommerfeld climbed the fence. Once inside, Becker kept watch as Sommerfeld and Räther carried the bomb around to the side of the clubhouse facing out onto the Havel. Räther placed the bomb on a chair and set the time for the ignition, delaying it until 2.30 am to allow them more time to get away. Having attached the cables so the bomb was now live, he covered it in a bag while Sommerfeld left the A3 sheet with their statement by a window of the building. Without waiting for the detonation, they headed for home.
The remote British Yacht Club was assumed to be a safe target. The other two bombs, on a public street, brought a much higher risk of passersby becoming casualties. Those two bombs were carried by the more experienced B2J members around Charlottenburg in Berlin. They drove around with the armed bombs looking for targets of opportunity. Brockman spotted a car with British plates in Theodor Heuss Platz, where he planted one of the bombs under it himself. Baumann and Knoll planted the second after finding a similar car.
At quarter past two in the morning, the two Charlotteburg bombs exploded. Even allowing for the slight delay, the Yacht Club bomb didn’t explode. At 8 am the next morning, a boat builder employed at club for twenty years, sixty-six year old Erwin Beelitz, found the bag covering the bomb on his morning inspection of the premises. He took it to his workshop where he put the contraption in a vice to open it up. The bomb exploded, blowing fingers off Beelitz’s right hand and sending fragments into his stomach and thigh. Three students visiting the club later that morning find him bleeding and dying.
Erwin Beelitz (Getty Images)
Shortly afterwards, B2J started officially using the name Bewegung 2 Juni on communications. By May 1973, Sommerfeld had been captured and was tried and sentenced for the Yacht Club bomb (various members were to face the courts by 1974). He received a sentence of four years and nine months for the bombing as the court accepted that the intention had been to damage property only and that it had been intended as a show of solidarity with the IRA.
You can read more about the German radicals in Peters Butz’s 2017 book, 1977: RAF gegen Bundesrepublik, Wolfgang Kraushaur’s 2012 book Verena Becker und der Verfassungsschutz and in contemporary news reports in Irish press and Der Spiegel. Richard Huffman has a blog and podcasts dedicated to the R.A.F. and related groups here.
And you can read an online edition of Marighella’s Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla here.
The omission of Erwin Beelitz from conventional lists of violent conflict deaths is part of a broader issue that is worth exploring further in terms of understanding the wider impact of violence. I’ve another post on it here, with a preliminary look at structural violence.
The Treason Felony Blog 