On This Day / November 2, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
November 2, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 2nd November 1921, two Unionists faced allegations of threatening Catholic tramway workers in Belfast, while Fermanagh County Council resisted attempts to remove its secretary. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Charged with Threats | On This Day – 2nd November 1921
A REMARKABLE case was heard in Belfast Summons Court before Mr James Roche, RM, presiding, when two young men named Thomas McNeice and Robert McMinn were prosecuted for using threats to a tramway construction gang on the Antrim Road.
On the Bench beside the Resident Magistrate were Councillor W J Twaddell, MP [assassinated in May 1922] and Alderman Duff, MP [Unionist], District Inspector Lynn asked to have the defendants bound over.
James McAloran, a ganger, stated that on the forenoon in question the defendants came to where witness and other men were working on the tramway track near Chichester Park and threatened that no Fenians would be allowed to work there.
Witness was a Catholic and the defendants were Unionists. Mr N Tughan (defending) — Did not IRA gunmen come up that day to protect the Catholics? — I could not say. Were they not arrested? — I heard they were.
The Resident Magistrate said there has been no interference since and the Bench dismissed the application.
Move to Dismiss Fermanagh Official Fails
AT THE meeting of Fermanagh County Council on Thursday, Mr John McHugh [Nationalist, chairman] presiding, a letter was read from the Local Government Board regarding the Council Secretary, Mr Thomas Corrigan.
The letter read: ‘It has been represented to the Board that Mr Thomas Corrigan has taken a prominent part in politics and has undergone imprisonment.
In this connection, [we] consider it of the utmost importance that a person holding the position of secretary to a county council should not be identified with advanced political movements on either side, especially in a council where both parties are more or less evenly divided. …’
Mr Hanna [Nationalist] moved that Mr Corrigan should be appointed permanently as the Council Secretary.
Mr Cahir Healy [Sinn Fein] described the Board’s letter as the most extraordinary document.
They struck at the County Council because the Council had too many of a Nationalist majority. Mr Hanna’s motion [appointing Mr Corrigan] was carried by 14 votes to 11.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: DESPITE the truce, violence and sectarian intimidation continued in Belfast, in Fermanagh, where the county council was inconveniently nationalist- controlled, unionists attempted to remove its chief official, a former Sinn Féin activist.
Cahir Healy (1877-1970), a journalist, IRB member and founder member of Griffith’s 1905 Sinn Féin, would be interned by the unionist government in 1922.)
On This Day – 2nd November 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.