Killing of William
Twaddell
Introduction from
Chronology
William Twaddell, who is the MP in the Northern Ireland parliament
for Woodvale, is assassinated in Belfast. After this killing some
350 IRA and Sinn Féin members are interned and all republican organisations are
declared illegal in Northern Ireland.
More Detail
Parkinson says that details of the assassination are unclear but that it
shocked the Unionist community. McDermott says that assassination
was not an authorised IRA job.
Gallagher (who says that Twaddell was killed on May 19th)
notes that the arrests that followed left the minority population without
political direction for many years to come. Phoenix says that internment
dealt a big blow to Sinn Féin but that its impact on the IRA was more limited
since those arrested included a lot of professional men and
politicians.
Parkinson notes that the sweep was not knee-jerk response to the
assassination of Twaddell but had been planned for some time. Article 23B of
the Special Powers Act – which had become law of the April 7th (see Apr-07-22/1) – permitted internment. In the evening of May 22nd and
early morning of May 23rd, over 200 men were lifted and interned –
all nationalists. Inside four months,
446 men were interned and an estimated 728 men were detained between May 1922
and end of 1924.
According to Hopkinson, an earlier raid by the Specials had netted the
names of 'practically every officer in the [3rd Northern]
Division' and that subsequently, the military strength of the IRA in Belfast
was negligible. However, Parkinson
(2020) says that only 29 republicans were arrested in Belfast and notes that
this was surprising because “there had been major intelligence gains following
the raid on St Mary’s Hall in March [see Mar-18-22/2]” (Parkinson
(2020), pg 239).