On This Day / April 10, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
April 10, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 10th April 1921, a report detailed the ongoing suffering of Lisburn’s Catholic population months after the 1920 burnings, with families displaced and livelihoods destroyed. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Lisburn Pogrom Recalled | On This Day – 10th April 1921
THE recent report of the American Delegation of the Committee for Relief in Ireland (AMCOMRI) draws attention to the pitiable state of the Catholic population of Lisburn:
Lisburn we found in greater comparative distress than possibly any other Irish city excepting Cork.
In August as many as 232 families were compelled to leave their homes owing to the burnings, wreckings or intimidations and 130 families have not yet dared to return.
Several hundred women and children scantily-clothed fled from their homes on the night of the general burnings and made their way to Belfast over twelve miles of hillside roads.
Three American citizens were burnt out of their homes and deprived of their means of earning a livelihood.
One of these, Mr Peter McKeever, who had recently returned from the States and bought a business with his hard-earned savings, was shot in his own shop by the mob.
He is still suffering from the effects of his injury.
Mr S Toman, another elderly returned American who purchased a beautiful residence, was burnt out and escaped with difficulty.
Both lost by looting and burnings their homes, their stock and personal belongings, as well as their means of living.
It is now almost eight months since the burnings and as yet not a single building has been re-erected in the town and most of the Catholic traders have been unable to resume business.
This fact, added to a general boycott of Catholic working people, has made the lot of a great part of the population truly deplorable.
That a general boycott of the people is in force is fully borne out by one significant fact: that not a single Catholic has since the burnings been employed under the Urban Council though Catholics still pay no insignificant share of the town rates.
The howling mob of intoxicated hooligans and their bigoted leaders, not content with the havoc they had worked on the innocent Catholic inhabitants, did not spare in their frenzy the priests of the parish.
They too were compelled from their burning home in the dead of night.
It is only the urgency of their case that compels them to the appeal to the generosity of the Catholic public. Bishop MacRory has set a princely example by presenting a motorcar – or its value, £500 – for a grand draw.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Peter McKeever, a Catholic merchant, was to die a year later from the gunshot wounds he sustained during the loyalist mob attack of August 1920 following the IRA assassination of District Inspector Swanzy.
A virtual exhibition on these tragic events can be viewed now on the Lisburn Museum website.)
On This Day – 10th April 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
American Committee For Relief in Ireland
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.