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).

Back