On This Day / March 13, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19210313
Reference Date
19210313
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 13th March 1921, six IRA prisoners faced execution in Mountjoy Jail, Belfast deaths from the Victoria Square shooting rose, and Joseph Devlin questioned plans for a fortified Ulster frontier. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Six More To Hang | On This Day – 13th March 1921
IT SEEMS that all efforts to save the lives of the six young Irishmen sentenced to death by a courtmartial have failed and that, this morning, Mountjoy Gaol will be the scene of a tragedy comparable only with that which took place in Victoria Barracks, Cork on February 18th.
Messages indicate that the Government declines to be moved by argument, protest or appeal and that for their part the victims were facing their fate with cheerfulness.
The condemned prisoners – Thomas Whelan, Patrick Moran, Francis Flood, Bernard Ryan, Thomas Bryan and Patrick Doyle – were found guilty and sentenced to death for ‘high treason’ in connection with an ambush at Drumcondra in January 1921.
The following message was issued: ‘The Lord Mayor, on making inquiries, was officially informed that there was no hope for the men under sentence of death in Mountjoy as the Government had decided that the law should take its course.’
The Lord Mayor, who visited the prison yesterday, accompanied by the Prison Chaplain, informed the press that he had seen Patrick Moran, one of the condemned men, and he was bearing up well.
Moran, he said, gave him a sacred pendant of St Christopher as a souvenir and on the back wrote: ‘Goodbye, Love to Ireland and you – Paddy Moran, sentenced to death Mountjoy Prison.’
Belfast Shootings – Two More Die
TWO more deaths have occurred following the attack on the Black and Tans in Victoria Square on Friday night.
Last night Constable W H Cooper and Alexander Allen, civilian, aged fifty, died in the Royal Victoria Hospital, their deaths bringing the total casualties to four.
Allen, who was a working joiner, was shot in the back at the same time. It has transpired that a girl named Agnes Murphy of Famham Street, Ormeau Road received a bullet wound in the hip.
Devlin on Fortified Frontier
IN THE House of Commons yesterday, Mr J Devlin asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention had been drawn to statements that a chain of military stations is about to be drawn around a portion of the new Ulster area; whether these stations, which will be half a mile apart, are to be garrisoned by the new force of 30,000 Special Constables and what is their object?
Sir Hamar Greenwood – I1 have no reason to suppose that any such action is contemplated.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Devlin was right to suspect that the USC, soon to reach 30,000-strong, would be used to defend the imminent new border.
Even as the executions and atrocities continued, Lloyd George inched towards a truce and an offer of Dominion Status with partition.)
On This Day – 13th March 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210313
Reference Date
19210313
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 13th March 1921, six IRA prisoners faced execution in Mountjoy Jail, Belfast deaths from the Victoria Square shooting rose, and Joseph Devlin questioned plans for a fortified Ulster frontier. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Six More To Hang | On This Day – 13th March 1921
IT SEEMS that all efforts to save the lives of the six young Irishmen sentenced to death by a courtmartial have failed and that, this morning, Mountjoy Gaol will be the scene of a tragedy comparable only with that which took place in Victoria Barracks, Cork on February 18th.
Messages indicate that the Government declines to be moved by argument, protest or appeal and that for their part the victims were facing their fate with cheerfulness.
The condemned prisoners – Thomas Whelan, Patrick Moran, Francis Flood, Bernard Ryan, Thomas Bryan and Patrick Doyle – were found guilty and sentenced to death for ‘high treason’ in connection with an ambush at Drumcondra in January 1921.
The following message was issued: ‘The Lord Mayor, on making inquiries, was officially informed that there was no hope for the men under sentence of death in Mountjoy as the Government had decided that the law should take its course.’
The Lord Mayor, who visited the prison yesterday, accompanied by the Prison Chaplain, informed the press that he had seen Patrick Moran, one of the condemned men, and he was bearing up well.
Moran, he said, gave him a sacred pendant of St Christopher as a souvenir and on the back wrote: ‘Goodbye, Love to Ireland and you – Paddy Moran, sentenced to death Mountjoy Prison.’
Belfast Shootings – Two More Die
TWO more deaths have occurred following the attack on the Black and Tans in Victoria Square on Friday night.
Last night Constable W H Cooper and Alexander Allen, civilian, aged fifty, died in the Royal Victoria Hospital, their deaths bringing the total casualties to four.
Allen, who was a working joiner, was shot in the back at the same time. It has transpired that a girl named Agnes Murphy of Famham Street, Ormeau Road received a bullet wound in the hip.
Devlin on Fortified Frontier
IN THE House of Commons yesterday, Mr J Devlin asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention had been drawn to statements that a chain of military stations is about to be drawn around a portion of the new Ulster area; whether these stations, which will be half a mile apart, are to be garrisoned by the new force of 30,000 Special Constables and what is their object?
Sir Hamar Greenwood – I1 have no reason to suppose that any such action is contemplated.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Devlin was right to suspect that the USC, soon to reach 30,000-strong, would be used to defend the imminent new border.
Even as the executions and atrocities continued, Lloyd George inched towards a truce and an offer of Dominion Status with partition.)
On This Day – 13th March 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210313
Reference Date
March 13, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 13th March 1921, six IRA prisoners faced execution in Mountjoy Jail, Belfast deaths from the Victoria Square shooting rose, and Joseph Devlin questioned plans for a fortified Ulster frontier. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Six More To Hang | On This Day – 13th March 1921
IT SEEMS that all efforts to save the lives of the six young Irishmen sentenced to death by a courtmartial have failed and that, this morning, Mountjoy Gaol will be the scene of a tragedy comparable only with that which took place in Victoria Barracks, Cork on February 18th.
Messages indicate that the Government declines to be moved by argument, protest or appeal and that for their part the victims were facing their fate with cheerfulness.
The condemned prisoners – Thomas Whelan, Patrick Moran, Francis Flood, Bernard Ryan, Thomas Bryan and Patrick Doyle – were found guilty and sentenced to death for ‘high treason’ in connection with an ambush at Drumcondra in January 1921.
The following message was issued: ‘The Lord Mayor, on making inquiries, was officially informed that there was no hope for the men under sentence of death in Mountjoy as the Government had decided that the law should take its course.’
The Lord Mayor, who visited the prison yesterday, accompanied by the Prison Chaplain, informed the press that he had seen Patrick Moran, one of the condemned men, and he was bearing up well.
Moran, he said, gave him a sacred pendant of St Christopher as a souvenir and on the back wrote: ‘Goodbye, Love to Ireland and you – Paddy Moran, sentenced to death Mountjoy Prison.’
Belfast Shootings – Two More Die
TWO more deaths have occurred following the attack on the Black and Tans in Victoria Square on Friday night.
Last night Constable W H Cooper and Alexander Allen, civilian, aged fifty, died in the Royal Victoria Hospital, their deaths bringing the total casualties to four.
Allen, who was a working joiner, was shot in the back at the same time. It has transpired that a girl named Agnes Murphy of Famham Street, Ormeau Road received a bullet wound in the hip.
Devlin on Fortified Frontier
IN THE House of Commons yesterday, Mr J Devlin asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention had been drawn to statements that a chain of military stations is about to be drawn around a portion of the new Ulster area; whether these stations, which will be half a mile apart, are to be garrisoned by the new force of 30,000 Special Constables and what is their object?
Sir Hamar Greenwood – I1 have no reason to suppose that any such action is contemplated.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Devlin was right to suspect that the USC, soon to reach 30,000-strong, would be used to defend the imminent new border.
Even as the executions and atrocities continued, Lloyd George inched towards a truce and an offer of Dominion Status with partition.)
On This Day – 13th March 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.