On This Day / April 22, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19210422
Reference Date
19210422
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 22nd April 1921 Partition was predicted to bring instability and division, while the aftermath of an RIC attack in Fermanagh highlighted the violence of the conflict. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Partition Disaster Predicted | On This Day 22nd April 1921
THE Manchester Guardian writes: Within four months from this date the [1920] Act provides that two Parliaments for Northern and Southern Ireland shall meet.
The grant of Self-Government to Ireland should have been an occasion full of rejoicing and of hope, and so with a consenting Ireland it would have been. But Ireland has not consented; four-fifths of it has refused.
The proffered gift is not welcomed – it is rejected and rejected with anger and with scorn. … It takes place in the presence of the extremes of violence and in an atmosphere of hate.
Sinn Fein candidates will be elected in an enormous majority and they will refuse to take the oath of allegiance. There will be no Southern Parliament…
In the North the result will be somewhat different but neither there will there be any real progress.
Under the PR system of election it may easily happen that one-third of the total number of members elected to the Northern Parliament will be Nationalists or Sinn Feiners.
The Ulster Parliament will function after a fashion, but it will be little more than the rump of a Parliament and will carry no moral authority over a very large minority…
It will govern but it also will be compelled to govern by force. It will have precisely the same difficulties within its own borders as the British Government has met in Ireland as a whole …
The Ulster Volunteers, a kind of local Black and Tans, will become the arm of government in Northern Ireland. It is not a cheerful prospect.
Fermanagh RIC Man’s Murder Recalled
AT Enniskillen Quarter Sessions, Judge Johnston awarded £550 compensation to ex-Sergeant Hugh Rafferty, RIC.
Evidence was given that he had become mentally affected as a result of an attack made on him in October last.
He and a constable were returning to Tempo [County Fermanagh] when ten men rushed at them, shouted ‘Hands up’ and fired six shots.
Rafferty was stabbed in the breast and the police were overpowered.
The police were then taken to an adjoining wood. The ten men, with revolvers, stood over them.
Afterwards they proceeded to Tempo and found that the barracks had been attacked and that Sergeant Lucas had been shot dead.
Sergeant Rafferty was subsequently discharged from the force on pension.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As the voice of traditional British Liberalism, the Manchester Guardian supported all-lreland Home Rule with Unionist safeguards.
Its dire predictions of the future of Northern Ireland and its unwilling one-third Nationalist minority, placed without safeguards under Unionist domination and the armed might of the Ulster Specials, would prove uncannily accurate.)
On This Day – 22nd April 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210422
Reference Date
19210422
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 22nd April 1921 Partition was predicted to bring instability and division, while the aftermath of an RIC attack in Fermanagh highlighted the violence of the conflict. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Partition Disaster Predicted | On This Day 22nd April 1921
THE Manchester Guardian writes: Within four months from this date the [1920] Act provides that two Parliaments for Northern and Southern Ireland shall meet.
The grant of Self-Government to Ireland should have been an occasion full of rejoicing and of hope, and so with a consenting Ireland it would have been. But Ireland has not consented; four-fifths of it has refused.
The proffered gift is not welcomed – it is rejected and rejected with anger and with scorn. … It takes place in the presence of the extremes of violence and in an atmosphere of hate.
Sinn Fein candidates will be elected in an enormous majority and they will refuse to take the oath of allegiance. There will be no Southern Parliament…
In the North the result will be somewhat different but neither there will there be any real progress.
Under the PR system of election it may easily happen that one-third of the total number of members elected to the Northern Parliament will be Nationalists or Sinn Feiners.
The Ulster Parliament will function after a fashion, but it will be little more than the rump of a Parliament and will carry no moral authority over a very large minority…
It will govern but it also will be compelled to govern by force. It will have precisely the same difficulties within its own borders as the British Government has met in Ireland as a whole …
The Ulster Volunteers, a kind of local Black and Tans, will become the arm of government in Northern Ireland. It is not a cheerful prospect.
Fermanagh RIC Man’s Murder Recalled
AT Enniskillen Quarter Sessions, Judge Johnston awarded £550 compensation to ex-Sergeant Hugh Rafferty, RIC.
Evidence was given that he had become mentally affected as a result of an attack made on him in October last.
He and a constable were returning to Tempo [County Fermanagh] when ten men rushed at them, shouted ‘Hands up’ and fired six shots.
Rafferty was stabbed in the breast and the police were overpowered.
The police were then taken to an adjoining wood. The ten men, with revolvers, stood over them.
Afterwards they proceeded to Tempo and found that the barracks had been attacked and that Sergeant Lucas had been shot dead.
Sergeant Rafferty was subsequently discharged from the force on pension.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As the voice of traditional British Liberalism, the Manchester Guardian supported all-lreland Home Rule with Unionist safeguards.
Its dire predictions of the future of Northern Ireland and its unwilling one-third Nationalist minority, placed without safeguards under Unionist domination and the armed might of the Ulster Specials, would prove uncannily accurate.)
On This Day – 22nd April 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210422
Reference Date
April 22, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 22nd April 1921 Partition was predicted to bring instability and division, while the aftermath of an RIC attack in Fermanagh highlighted the violence of the conflict. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Partition Disaster Predicted | On This Day 22nd April 1921
THE Manchester Guardian writes: Within four months from this date the [1920] Act provides that two Parliaments for Northern and Southern Ireland shall meet.
The grant of Self-Government to Ireland should have been an occasion full of rejoicing and of hope, and so with a consenting Ireland it would have been. But Ireland has not consented; four-fifths of it has refused.
The proffered gift is not welcomed – it is rejected and rejected with anger and with scorn. … It takes place in the presence of the extremes of violence and in an atmosphere of hate.
Sinn Fein candidates will be elected in an enormous majority and they will refuse to take the oath of allegiance. There will be no Southern Parliament…
In the North the result will be somewhat different but neither there will there be any real progress.
Under the PR system of election it may easily happen that one-third of the total number of members elected to the Northern Parliament will be Nationalists or Sinn Feiners.
The Ulster Parliament will function after a fashion, but it will be little more than the rump of a Parliament and will carry no moral authority over a very large minority…
It will govern but it also will be compelled to govern by force. It will have precisely the same difficulties within its own borders as the British Government has met in Ireland as a whole …
The Ulster Volunteers, a kind of local Black and Tans, will become the arm of government in Northern Ireland. It is not a cheerful prospect.
Fermanagh RIC Man’s Murder Recalled
AT Enniskillen Quarter Sessions, Judge Johnston awarded £550 compensation to ex-Sergeant Hugh Rafferty, RIC.
Evidence was given that he had become mentally affected as a result of an attack made on him in October last.
He and a constable were returning to Tempo [County Fermanagh] when ten men rushed at them, shouted ‘Hands up’ and fired six shots.
Rafferty was stabbed in the breast and the police were overpowered.
The police were then taken to an adjoining wood. The ten men, with revolvers, stood over them.
Afterwards they proceeded to Tempo and found that the barracks had been attacked and that Sergeant Lucas had been shot dead.
Sergeant Rafferty was subsequently discharged from the force on pension.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As the voice of traditional British Liberalism, the Manchester Guardian supported all-lreland Home Rule with Unionist safeguards.
Its dire predictions of the future of Northern Ireland and its unwilling one-third Nationalist minority, placed without safeguards under Unionist domination and the armed might of the Ulster Specials, would prove uncannily accurate.)
On This Day – 22nd April 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.