On This Day / May 20, 1971
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19710520
Reference Date
19710520
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 20th May 1971, Judge Topping faced accusations of bigotry while new research revealed the scale of displacement during Belfast’s 1969 violence. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Judge Accused of Bigotry | On This Day – 20th May 1971
JUDGE WWB Topping was the sort of person who, if his earlier political speeches while he was Minister of Home Affairs were made today, they could be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions as incitement to religious hatred, stated Mr Paddy Devlin (SDLP) at Stormont.
Mr Devlin was moving a motion supported by nine Opposition members asking the Governor, Lord Grey to remove Judge Topping from his office on the grounds that he secured judicial preferment through politics and that he made partial decisions in his Court.
Mr John Hume (SDLP) asked was such a person fit to be trying political cases. But the Prime Minister [Mr Brian Faulkner] said the charges against Judge Topping were unfounded. The motion was defeated by 27 votes to 6.
Mr Devlin said that Judge Topping had stated that the Protestant religion had two great enemies, the Catholic Church and Communism, and in 1948 had suggested a fighting fund to combat ‘Roman Catholic infiltration’.
He had also referred publicly to the late Mr Jack Beattie, [Labour] MP for West Belfast as a Prod in Pottinger and a Fenian in Falls’. Many people felt these were the utterances of a bigot.
New Light on Belfast Population Movement
A QUEEN’S University lecturer presented to the Scarman Tribunal yesterday a study of residential displacement during the disturbances in the summer of 1969.
The Report by Dr Michael Poole and Miss Margaret Day showed:
- The percentage of Catholic families in Belfast who suffered displacement is very much higher than the percentage of non-Catholic families.
- The displacement problem was consistently more severe in the west and north west of the city.
- The percentage of Catholic families displaced was much higher than the percentage of non-Catholic families.
The report’s findings were based upon information received from the emergency housing list of Belfast Corporation Estates Department, the records of displaced families compiled by the Corporation’s Welfare Department and files on the money paid to families to help cover loss of property in the riots.
These revealed a total of 3,570 families displaced from their homes in Belfast [in 1969]. In the city as a whole 82.7 per cent of all displaced households were Catholic.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: JUDGE Topping QC found that his earlier utterances as a hardline unionist cabinet minister had come back to haunt him.
Some 60,000-100,000 people were forced from their homes due to violence and intimidation from 1968-72 in the biggest population movement in western Europe since the Second World War.
Among those driven from Rathcoole were the family of the later IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.)
On This Day – 20th May 1971
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19710520
Reference Date
19710520
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 20th May 1971, Judge Topping faced accusations of bigotry while new research revealed the scale of displacement during Belfast’s 1969 violence. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Judge Accused of Bigotry | On This Day – 20th May 1971
JUDGE WWB Topping was the sort of person who, if his earlier political speeches while he was Minister of Home Affairs were made today, they could be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions as incitement to religious hatred, stated Mr Paddy Devlin (SDLP) at Stormont.
Mr Devlin was moving a motion supported by nine Opposition members asking the Governor, Lord Grey to remove Judge Topping from his office on the grounds that he secured judicial preferment through politics and that he made partial decisions in his Court.
Mr John Hume (SDLP) asked was such a person fit to be trying political cases. But the Prime Minister [Mr Brian Faulkner] said the charges against Judge Topping were unfounded. The motion was defeated by 27 votes to 6.
Mr Devlin said that Judge Topping had stated that the Protestant religion had two great enemies, the Catholic Church and Communism, and in 1948 had suggested a fighting fund to combat ‘Roman Catholic infiltration’.
He had also referred publicly to the late Mr Jack Beattie, [Labour] MP for West Belfast as a Prod in Pottinger and a Fenian in Falls’. Many people felt these were the utterances of a bigot.
New Light on Belfast Population Movement
A QUEEN’S University lecturer presented to the Scarman Tribunal yesterday a study of residential displacement during the disturbances in the summer of 1969.
The Report by Dr Michael Poole and Miss Margaret Day showed:
- The percentage of Catholic families in Belfast who suffered displacement is very much higher than the percentage of non-Catholic families.
- The displacement problem was consistently more severe in the west and north west of the city.
- The percentage of Catholic families displaced was much higher than the percentage of non-Catholic families.
The report’s findings were based upon information received from the emergency housing list of Belfast Corporation Estates Department, the records of displaced families compiled by the Corporation’s Welfare Department and files on the money paid to families to help cover loss of property in the riots.
These revealed a total of 3,570 families displaced from their homes in Belfast [in 1969]. In the city as a whole 82.7 per cent of all displaced households were Catholic.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: JUDGE Topping QC found that his earlier utterances as a hardline unionist cabinet minister had come back to haunt him.
Some 60,000-100,000 people were forced from their homes due to violence and intimidation from 1968-72 in the biggest population movement in western Europe since the Second World War.
Among those driven from Rathcoole were the family of the later IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.)
On This Day – 20th May 1971
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19710520
Reference Date
May 20, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 20th May 1971, Judge Topping faced accusations of bigotry while new research revealed the scale of displacement during Belfast’s 1969 violence. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Judge Accused of Bigotry | On This Day – 20th May 1971
JUDGE WWB Topping was the sort of person who, if his earlier political speeches while he was Minister of Home Affairs were made today, they could be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions as incitement to religious hatred, stated Mr Paddy Devlin (SDLP) at Stormont.
Mr Devlin was moving a motion supported by nine Opposition members asking the Governor, Lord Grey to remove Judge Topping from his office on the grounds that he secured judicial preferment through politics and that he made partial decisions in his Court.
Mr John Hume (SDLP) asked was such a person fit to be trying political cases. But the Prime Minister [Mr Brian Faulkner] said the charges against Judge Topping were unfounded. The motion was defeated by 27 votes to 6.
Mr Devlin said that Judge Topping had stated that the Protestant religion had two great enemies, the Catholic Church and Communism, and in 1948 had suggested a fighting fund to combat ‘Roman Catholic infiltration’.
He had also referred publicly to the late Mr Jack Beattie, [Labour] MP for West Belfast as a Prod in Pottinger and a Fenian in Falls’. Many people felt these were the utterances of a bigot.
New Light on Belfast Population Movement
A QUEEN’S University lecturer presented to the Scarman Tribunal yesterday a study of residential displacement during the disturbances in the summer of 1969.
The Report by Dr Michael Poole and Miss Margaret Day showed:
- The percentage of Catholic families in Belfast who suffered displacement is very much higher than the percentage of non-Catholic families.
- The displacement problem was consistently more severe in the west and north west of the city.
- The percentage of Catholic families displaced was much higher than the percentage of non-Catholic families.
The report’s findings were based upon information received from the emergency housing list of Belfast Corporation Estates Department, the records of displaced families compiled by the Corporation’s Welfare Department and files on the money paid to families to help cover loss of property in the riots.
These revealed a total of 3,570 families displaced from their homes in Belfast [in 1969]. In the city as a whole 82.7 per cent of all displaced households were Catholic.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: JUDGE Topping QC found that his earlier utterances as a hardline unionist cabinet minister had come back to haunt him.
Some 60,000-100,000 people were forced from their homes due to violence and intimidation from 1968-72 in the biggest population movement in western Europe since the Second World War.
Among those driven from Rathcoole were the family of the later IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.)
On This Day – 20th May 1971
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.