On This Day / January 27, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19210127
Reference Date
19210127
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 27th January 1921, two RIC constables were shot dead and a third critically wounded in a planned Belfast IRA attack on visiting officers staying in a city hotel. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Double murder in Belfast | On This Day – 27th January 1921
A SENSATIONAL and tragic affair resulting in the death of two members of the RIC and the wounding of a third took place in Belfast last night.
The names of the victims of a murderous attack are: Constable M Quinn (dead); Constable Thomas Heffron (dead); Constable R Gilmartin (wounded).
The circumstances under which the shocking crime was perpetrated indicate that it was carefully planned.
The scene was the Railway View Hotel at the corner of Townhall Street and Oxford Street owned by Mr R Roddy.
It appears that the licensed premises had been closed at the usual hour of 9.30 and five men, unobserved, remained seated in one of the ‘snugs’.
Later, the five men emerged from their hiding-place, walked upstairs and in a few seconds the barmen heard the sounds of revolver shots.
Scarcely a minute had passed before the five, who were quite undisguised, re-entered the bar and, covering the assistants with revolvers, ordered them to open the front door. The men hurriedly left and disappeared into the street.
Realising that a tragedy had been enacted, the assistants rushed upstairs and were confronted with an appalling spectacle.
The three constables had recently arrived in the city from the RIC Depot in Dublin. During their stay they had not been wearing uniforms.
Gilmartin, the Irish News believes, was to have appeared as a witness at a forthcoming case and the other Constables had accompanied him from the Metropolis. The wounded man received a bullet wound in the chest.
Search operations on a large scale by police and military were carried out throughout the city generally. Colonel Wickham, [RIC] Divisional Commissioner, and Mr J L Gelston, City Commissioner, arrived early on the scene.
A feature of the night’s dread happening was the fact that the telephone wires between Belfast and Dublin were cut near Lisburn. Gilmartin is critical.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: THESE murders were carried out by the Belfast IRA on a tip-off from a police source in the nearby Musgrave St Barracks that three RIC men had arrived from the South on an unknown ‘secret mission’. It was decided to assassinate them.
It transpired that the critically wounded man, Constable Gilmartin had been sent to Belfast under a two-man escort as a Crown witness at the court-martial of an IRA man accused of murdering an RIC sergeant in Co Sligo.
In his diary, Mark Sturgis, a key Dublin Castle official, commented that whoever ‘let them go to an hotel instead of Barracks seems to me to be almost as guilty of the murders.’
Gilmartin survived to testify. A police reprisal would follow later that night.)
On This Day – 25th January 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210127
Reference Date
19210127
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 27th January 1921, two RIC constables were shot dead and a third critically wounded in a planned Belfast IRA attack on visiting officers staying in a city hotel. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Double murder in Belfast | On This Day – 27th January 1921
A SENSATIONAL and tragic affair resulting in the death of two members of the RIC and the wounding of a third took place in Belfast last night.
The names of the victims of a murderous attack are: Constable M Quinn (dead); Constable Thomas Heffron (dead); Constable R Gilmartin (wounded).
The circumstances under which the shocking crime was perpetrated indicate that it was carefully planned.
The scene was the Railway View Hotel at the corner of Townhall Street and Oxford Street owned by Mr R Roddy.
It appears that the licensed premises had been closed at the usual hour of 9.30 and five men, unobserved, remained seated in one of the ‘snugs’.
Later, the five men emerged from their hiding-place, walked upstairs and in a few seconds the barmen heard the sounds of revolver shots.
Scarcely a minute had passed before the five, who were quite undisguised, re-entered the bar and, covering the assistants with revolvers, ordered them to open the front door. The men hurriedly left and disappeared into the street.
Realising that a tragedy had been enacted, the assistants rushed upstairs and were confronted with an appalling spectacle.
The three constables had recently arrived in the city from the RIC Depot in Dublin. During their stay they had not been wearing uniforms.
Gilmartin, the Irish News believes, was to have appeared as a witness at a forthcoming case and the other Constables had accompanied him from the Metropolis. The wounded man received a bullet wound in the chest.
Search operations on a large scale by police and military were carried out throughout the city generally. Colonel Wickham, [RIC] Divisional Commissioner, and Mr J L Gelston, City Commissioner, arrived early on the scene.
A feature of the night’s dread happening was the fact that the telephone wires between Belfast and Dublin were cut near Lisburn. Gilmartin is critical.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: THESE murders were carried out by the Belfast IRA on a tip-off from a police source in the nearby Musgrave St Barracks that three RIC men had arrived from the South on an unknown ‘secret mission’. It was decided to assassinate them.
It transpired that the critically wounded man, Constable Gilmartin had been sent to Belfast under a two-man escort as a Crown witness at the court-martial of an IRA man accused of murdering an RIC sergeant in Co Sligo.
In his diary, Mark Sturgis, a key Dublin Castle official, commented that whoever ‘let them go to an hotel instead of Barracks seems to me to be almost as guilty of the murders.’
Gilmartin survived to testify. A police reprisal would follow later that night.)
On This Day – 25th January 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210127
Reference Date
January 27, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 27th January 1921, two RIC constables were shot dead and a third critically wounded in a planned Belfast IRA attack on visiting officers staying in a city hotel. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Double murder in Belfast | On This Day – 27th January 1921
A SENSATIONAL and tragic affair resulting in the death of two members of the RIC and the wounding of a third took place in Belfast last night.
The names of the victims of a murderous attack are: Constable M Quinn (dead); Constable Thomas Heffron (dead); Constable R Gilmartin (wounded).
The circumstances under which the shocking crime was perpetrated indicate that it was carefully planned.
The scene was the Railway View Hotel at the corner of Townhall Street and Oxford Street owned by Mr R Roddy.
It appears that the licensed premises had been closed at the usual hour of 9.30 and five men, unobserved, remained seated in one of the ‘snugs’.
Later, the five men emerged from their hiding-place, walked upstairs and in a few seconds the barmen heard the sounds of revolver shots.
Scarcely a minute had passed before the five, who were quite undisguised, re-entered the bar and, covering the assistants with revolvers, ordered them to open the front door. The men hurriedly left and disappeared into the street.
Realising that a tragedy had been enacted, the assistants rushed upstairs and were confronted with an appalling spectacle.
The three constables had recently arrived in the city from the RIC Depot in Dublin. During their stay they had not been wearing uniforms.
Gilmartin, the Irish News believes, was to have appeared as a witness at a forthcoming case and the other Constables had accompanied him from the Metropolis. The wounded man received a bullet wound in the chest.
Search operations on a large scale by police and military were carried out throughout the city generally. Colonel Wickham, [RIC] Divisional Commissioner, and Mr J L Gelston, City Commissioner, arrived early on the scene.
A feature of the night’s dread happening was the fact that the telephone wires between Belfast and Dublin were cut near Lisburn. Gilmartin is critical.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: THESE murders were carried out by the Belfast IRA on a tip-off from a police source in the nearby Musgrave St Barracks that three RIC men had arrived from the South on an unknown ‘secret mission’. It was decided to assassinate them.
It transpired that the critically wounded man, Constable Gilmartin had been sent to Belfast under a two-man escort as a Crown witness at the court-martial of an IRA man accused of murdering an RIC sergeant in Co Sligo.
In his diary, Mark Sturgis, a key Dublin Castle official, commented that whoever ‘let them go to an hotel instead of Barracks seems to me to be almost as guilty of the murders.’
Gilmartin survived to testify. A police reprisal would follow later that night.)
On This Day – 25th January 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
On This Day is a daily column in the Irish News looking back either 50 or 100 years. The column was compiled by Dr Éamon Phoenix from the mid 1980s until autumn, 2022. The Foundation is very grateful to the Irish News for giving permission to reproduce Eamon’s columns. Funding gratefully received from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and the Magill Trust.
* The Foundation has worked hard to recreate Eamon’s distinctive voice through AI. Since this is an emerging technology, occasional imperfections may be audible.