On This Day / June 3, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19210603
Reference Date
19210603
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 3rd June 1921, a Unionist MP warned opponents of the new Northern Parliament while a remarkable mistaken identity emerged after the Custom House fire. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Unionist Warns Minority | On This Day – 3rd June 1921
MR WILLIAM Grant, MP, one of the Partitionists elected for North Belfast, delivered an interesting speech on Friday.
As reported in the Tory papers, he said: ‘After three weeks of an arduous campaign, they were all heartily thankful that their sacred cause had been maintained. In the most constitutional way possible their Parliament had been selected…
‘They were going to establish the law in Ulster, and they would give fair play to all parties provided they respected the law. (Applause.)
‘If the Sinn Feiners and the Constitutional Nationalists were not prepared to obey the mandate of the Northern Parliament, they would be told in no uncertain voice to clear out of Ulster.
The enemies of Ulster would have to understand the position, for they would be made to understand it.’
Wife’s Mistake over Custom House Victim
AN AMAZING case of mistaken identity emerged at the inquiry into the burning of the Custom House in Dublin.
Mrs Kelly of Gardiner Street told the remarkable story of her agreeable surprise on discovering that she had mistakenly identified one of the dead bodies of the Custom House fire as that of her husband.
She had made all the funeral arrangements, bought the mourning clothes, a coffin and a shroud for the body, which it now wears.
She was going to the King George Hospital on Saturday when she got a letter from her husband from Arbour Hill Prison asking for his pipe!
Mrs Kelly deposed to having been mistaken regarding the identity of the remains of one of the deceased whom she had identified as her husband.
On receiving the letter she went to Arbour Hill and asked the guard to ask the man who she heard was her husband to write down the names of their children.
This he duly did. On Sunday she saw her husband alive.
Asked why she went to the hospital, she said her husband had not come home as usual and a man told her he saw him being bayoneted near the Custom House.
Heavy Police Casualties in Kerry
FIVE members of the RIC were killed yesterday. As the result of an ambush in Killorglin, County Kerry, a district inspector, a sergeant and two constables were shot dead. A third constable was shot dead in Kilworth, County Cork.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: A shipyard worker and supporter of the 1920 ‘Shipyard Pogrom’, Billy Grant went on to become post-war Health Minister, responsible for the establishment of the NHS.
His narrow sectarianism ensured that the Mater Hospital, a Catholic acute teaching hospital, was excluded from the NHS, a scandal which persisted until 1972.)
On This Day – 3rd June 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210603
Reference Date
19210603
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 3rd June 1921, a Unionist MP warned opponents of the new Northern Parliament while a remarkable mistaken identity emerged after the Custom House fire. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Unionist Warns Minority | On This Day – 3rd June 1921
MR WILLIAM Grant, MP, one of the Partitionists elected for North Belfast, delivered an interesting speech on Friday.
As reported in the Tory papers, he said: ‘After three weeks of an arduous campaign, they were all heartily thankful that their sacred cause had been maintained. In the most constitutional way possible their Parliament had been selected…
‘They were going to establish the law in Ulster, and they would give fair play to all parties provided they respected the law. (Applause.)
‘If the Sinn Feiners and the Constitutional Nationalists were not prepared to obey the mandate of the Northern Parliament, they would be told in no uncertain voice to clear out of Ulster.
The enemies of Ulster would have to understand the position, for they would be made to understand it.’
Wife’s Mistake over Custom House Victim
AN AMAZING case of mistaken identity emerged at the inquiry into the burning of the Custom House in Dublin.
Mrs Kelly of Gardiner Street told the remarkable story of her agreeable surprise on discovering that she had mistakenly identified one of the dead bodies of the Custom House fire as that of her husband.
She had made all the funeral arrangements, bought the mourning clothes, a coffin and a shroud for the body, which it now wears.
She was going to the King George Hospital on Saturday when she got a letter from her husband from Arbour Hill Prison asking for his pipe!
Mrs Kelly deposed to having been mistaken regarding the identity of the remains of one of the deceased whom she had identified as her husband.
On receiving the letter she went to Arbour Hill and asked the guard to ask the man who she heard was her husband to write down the names of their children.
This he duly did. On Sunday she saw her husband alive.
Asked why she went to the hospital, she said her husband had not come home as usual and a man told her he saw him being bayoneted near the Custom House.
Heavy Police Casualties in Kerry
FIVE members of the RIC were killed yesterday. As the result of an ambush in Killorglin, County Kerry, a district inspector, a sergeant and two constables were shot dead. A third constable was shot dead in Kilworth, County Cork.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: A shipyard worker and supporter of the 1920 ‘Shipyard Pogrom’, Billy Grant went on to become post-war Health Minister, responsible for the establishment of the NHS.
His narrow sectarianism ensured that the Mater Hospital, a Catholic acute teaching hospital, was excluded from the NHS, a scandal which persisted until 1972.)
On This Day – 3rd June 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210603
Reference Date
June 3, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 3rd June 1921, a Unionist MP warned opponents of the new Northern Parliament while a remarkable mistaken identity emerged after the Custom House fire. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Unionist Warns Minority | On This Day – 3rd June 1921
MR WILLIAM Grant, MP, one of the Partitionists elected for North Belfast, delivered an interesting speech on Friday.
As reported in the Tory papers, he said: ‘After three weeks of an arduous campaign, they were all heartily thankful that their sacred cause had been maintained. In the most constitutional way possible their Parliament had been selected…
‘They were going to establish the law in Ulster, and they would give fair play to all parties provided they respected the law. (Applause.)
‘If the Sinn Feiners and the Constitutional Nationalists were not prepared to obey the mandate of the Northern Parliament, they would be told in no uncertain voice to clear out of Ulster.
The enemies of Ulster would have to understand the position, for they would be made to understand it.’
Wife’s Mistake over Custom House Victim
AN AMAZING case of mistaken identity emerged at the inquiry into the burning of the Custom House in Dublin.
Mrs Kelly of Gardiner Street told the remarkable story of her agreeable surprise on discovering that she had mistakenly identified one of the dead bodies of the Custom House fire as that of her husband.
She had made all the funeral arrangements, bought the mourning clothes, a coffin and a shroud for the body, which it now wears.
She was going to the King George Hospital on Saturday when she got a letter from her husband from Arbour Hill Prison asking for his pipe!
Mrs Kelly deposed to having been mistaken regarding the identity of the remains of one of the deceased whom she had identified as her husband.
On receiving the letter she went to Arbour Hill and asked the guard to ask the man who she heard was her husband to write down the names of their children.
This he duly did. On Sunday she saw her husband alive.
Asked why she went to the hospital, she said her husband had not come home as usual and a man told her he saw him being bayoneted near the Custom House.
Heavy Police Casualties in Kerry
FIVE members of the RIC were killed yesterday. As the result of an ambush in Killorglin, County Kerry, a district inspector, a sergeant and two constables were shot dead. A third constable was shot dead in Kilworth, County Cork.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: A shipyard worker and supporter of the 1920 ‘Shipyard Pogrom’, Billy Grant went on to become post-war Health Minister, responsible for the establishment of the NHS.
His narrow sectarianism ensured that the Mater Hospital, a Catholic acute teaching hospital, was excluded from the NHS, a scandal which persisted until 1972.)
On This Day – 3rd June 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.