On This Day / June 21, 1921

Summary: On This Day – 21st June 1921, Bishop MacRory condemned the plight of Belfast Catholics while raiders attempted to burn the legendary birthplace of Cú Chulainn. Edited by Éamon Phoenix

Plight of Belfast Catholics | On This Day – 21st June 1921

MOST Rev Dr MacRory, Bishop of Down and Connor, spoke frankly on the existing situation in his diocese with particular reference to Belfast in the course of an interview with the Irish News.

Regarding Belfast, the bishop replied that he hated all quarrelling, especially in the name of religion. However, the condition of the city deplorable.

Unemployment is painfully widespread, riots are almost daily occurrences and religious bigotry, he feared, was growing in intensity; and there was no security for human life as was made only too clear by [recent] tragic events.

Several policemen had been shot in broad daylight; a dozen Catholic citizens had been dragged from their beds during Curfew hours when the Crown forces held the streets and done to death…

‘I consider that the present position of Catholics in the city is simply intolerable.

‘Thousands of them had been expelled from their work, their houses burned…and they and their families – nearly 30,000 souls – had been forced to subsist on the generosity of the civilised world.

‘They had also been disarmed and now they were left largely at the mercy of Special Constables…

‘Considering the acute religious and political differences in Belfast, he regarded this arming of one section of the people against another as one of the most iniquitous and indefensible things [by] the government…’

On the [Dail’s] boycott of Belfast the bishop regretted that it should ever have been deemed necessary to resort to such a weapon.

‘But it was to be remembered that the present boycott began in Belfast last July when our Catholic workers and some of their Protestant comrades were expelled from the shipyards and denied on religious and political grounds the right to work and live…’

Attack on Ulster Hero’s Birthplace

DURING an attempt last night to burn down Castletown Mount [Dundalk], the birthplace of Cuchulain, several members of the Archaeological Society narrowly escaped death.

The members were arranging for the removal of the exhibits from their museum at the Mount, recently established, when a raider came in with a can of petrol which he sprinkled about.

The lady members asked to be allowed to leave but their request was ignored. The place was set alight and the members of the committee had to jump for their lives…

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Attacking the British government for failing to protect the Catholic minority in Belfast, Bishop MacRory recalled the expulsion of over 8000 Catholics and Protestant Labourites from their jobs in July 1920.

This, he argued, justified the Dail-sanctioned boycott of Northern banks and firms in the South.)

On This Day – 21st June 1921

Further Reading on Irish History:

List of other On This Day columns

Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive

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