On This Day / June 22, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
June 22, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 22nd June 1921, a Dundalk priest condemned the killing of the Watters brothers, while Cahir Healy warned of gerrymandering in Fermanagh. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Priest Condemns Murders | On This Day – 22nd June 1921
FOLLOWING the recent tragedies in Dundalk there was a good deal of subdued excitement and tension in the town.
The funeral of the brothers Watters, who were killed [by armed men who called at their home], took place on Sunday to St Patrick’s Cemetery.
The mother of the deceased was a pathetic figure as she was helped across the road. She had implored the raiders to shoot her instead of her sons and she followed them when they dragged off her boys, being within a few yards when they were shot.
She then ran to the Redemptorist Monastery close by and obtained the spiritual assistance of two of the priests for her two dead sons. The funeral procession was attended by about 3,000 people of all classes.
Preaching in Dundalk yesterday, Rev James McKeone, Adm. deplored and condemned the killings.
It was all very well for young people, their minds filled with enthusiasm and patriotism to think in order to achieve their aims that they are justified in taking human life as an act of war. To take away life is a usurpation of the authority of God…
Fermanagh Gerrymandering
To the Editor
SIR – There may dwell here and there a few people who are denied the necessities of life, hungry, because the British Local Government Board hold up the grants …
I would like to record briefly the experiences of the County Council of Fermanagh within the past few months. Fermanagh is one of the big ‘Six’.
It has a Nationalist majority on the County Council. Three of its District Councils have had a Nationalist majority and two a Unionist majority.
When the Local Government Board has finished ‘arranging’ the county, two District Councils will have ceased to exist and, of the remaining three, the Unionists will control two and the Nationalist majority will be in possession of one.
This is how the Board has gerrymandered Fermanagh. … The Carsonites wanted a political job done and the ‘playboys’ of the Local Government Board…were willing to oblige them.
When, however, Derry Number Two District Council (Donegal), on being transferred to Letterkenny, asked for an inquiry it was at once granted.
This council was Unionist – that’s why.
Signed Cahir Healy, Enniskillen.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: AS KING George V set sail for Belfast to open the Northern Parliament, violence continued to rage; in Dundalk the IRA was suspected of these murders.
Meanwhile Cahir Healy (1877-1970), Fermanagh Sinn Féin leader and future Nationalist MP, revealed that the process of gerrymandering anti-partitionist councils in the North had already begun – even before Craig had taken steps to abolish PR for local elections.)
On This Day – 22nd 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.