Belfast Riots in July 1920

Introduction from Chronology

On the morning of the 21st July, members of Belfast Protestant Association put up posters on gates of Queen’s Island calling for meeting of ‘all Unionist and Protestant workers’ at lunchtime.  Nearly 5,000 meet and afterwards go on rampage attacking Catholic workers.  Clothes are torn of potential victims to see if they are wearing any Catholic emblems.  Some try to escape by swimming the Musgrave Channel but are pelted by nuts, bolts, rivets, etc. (called 'Belfast confetti').  Most Catholics and socialists are removed from yards by afternoon.  At least 20 men have to receive hospital treatment. 

After the expulsions from the shipyards, Catholic workers are ejected from other industrial sites in the city including Sirocco Works, Musgraves, Combe Barbours, Mackies Foundary and several linen mills.   The number of workers expelled was in the region of 10,000 including several hundred female workers. Including dependants, this means that almost half of the Belfast’s 93,000 Catholics would have been directly affected.

In the ensuing days of riots many people are killed. Hopkinson says 13; Macardle says 17 and Phoenix says 18. McDermott also says 18 made up of 10 Catholics and 8 Protestants. Parkinson names 21 people as being killed with again approximately equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants.

Putting together the names given in various sources (including O’Halpin and Ó Corráin), it can be said that, in the period from 21^st to 25^th June 1920, at least twenty-one people were killed or fatally wounded in Belfast. Ten were Catholics and eleven were Protestants. Catholics were a quarter of the population of Belfast at this time. As to who was responsible for the killings, it would seem that most of the deceased were killed by the British Army.

During these riots, hundreds of (mostly Catholic) families are driven from their homes.

More Detail

Once word reached near-by Catholic areas of the expulsions, trams carrying Protestant workers are attacked near Short Strand.  Protestant mobs gather near Donegall Pass and riots ensue on Cromac St. with police intervening.  Gunfire breaks out in the evening. 

A Catholic, Margaret Noade (27), on her way to visit her ill mother in Cromac St is shot by an RIC bullet and killed.  In the early evening of the 21^st, crowds of angry Shankill shipyard workers (who were stoned on their way home from work) gathered on the streets near the Falls and Catholics mobs came out to face them.  The military intervened and two Catholics were shot dead by the BA – Francis Finnegan (40) and Bernard Dillon (20) [McDermott gives his name as Bernard Devlin and his age as 18 - McDermott (2001), pg 39 – as do O’Halpin and Ó Corráin (2020), pg 152].  Seven people received hospital treatment for their injuries.

The following morning (July 22^nd), tram-loads of Protestant workers were attacked as they arrived at Mackies Foundary and Catholics were evicted from the Sirocco works.  Also on July 22nd, loyalist mobs attacked the Ballymacarrett [Short Strand] area; Kashmir St and (as in August 1969) Bombay St.  Many Catholic residents leave their homes and a substantial number of Catholic owned pubs and spirit grocers in east Belfast are looted.  

A loyalist mob gathered in Bryson St, threatening to storm the local Catholic church – a detachment of the 1^st Norfolk Regiment opens fire and this results in the death of three Protestants – Nellie McGregor (20), James Stewart (18) and John Doyle (24).  Later, a Catholic (Albert McAuley) is killed by the BA.   

When darkness falls, gunfire breaks out in the Falls-Shankill area.  The Norfolk Regiment claims that it came under fire from the Clonard monastery.  The following Catholics were killed or fatally wounded: Henry Hennessy (48); John Downey (20); Joseph Giles (19); Thomas Robinson (33); John McCartney (36) and Brother Michael Morgan (28) -  all of the above are killed either by the British army or loyalists.  Four Protestant were also killed:  Alexander McGovan (25); William Godfrey (46); William Dunning (23) and James Albert Conn or Constable (32).  They were killed in the Cupar St and Bombay St area and are killed by the IRA or the BA.      

Much rioting continued in the Short Strand area over the next few days with the houses and businesses of Catholics attacked by loyalist mobs. On Friday 23^rd, a small detachment of RIC and BA open fire on loyalist rioters attempting to set on fire the Cross and Passion convent.  At least 12 were injured, three Protestants were fatally injured - they were Mary Weston (29); William McCune (39) and Susan Houston (15).   A particular focus of the loyalist mobs was the predominantly Catholic-owned spirit groceries – at least 60 spirit groceries and 12 pubs are damaged within 48 hours. 

A major cause of the easing on tension on the Newtownards Road is the setting up of a group of ‘peace picket’ volunteers. This was started by the Rev John Redmond (Church of Ireland Ballymacarrett). These volunteers patrol the area maintaining the peace and protecting buildings threatened by rioters.

In the following days, the military start to establish a more obvious presence – putting up sandbags and barbed wire blockades across roads.  This leads to a reduction in the violence but minor rioting and sniping continued.  On the early morning of the 25^th July, a Protestant taxi man (David Dunbar from the Shankill) was shot dead for failing to stop at a BA military post.

Back