On This Day / November 21, 1920
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19201121
Reference Date
19201121
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 21st November 1920, a Newry Head Constable was shot and fatally wounded while returning from church, triggering reprisals and arson attacks. In Galway, the body of missing priest Fr Michael Griffin was found buried in bogland, while unionists pressed ahead with plans for a new Ulster police force. Edited by Dr Éamon Phoenix.
Newry Policeman Shot | On This Day – 21st November 1920
LAST night Head Constable John James Kearney, while returning from devotions in the Dominican Church, Queen Street, Newry, was fired at and seriously wounded.
The officer had got to the corner of Needham Street when some men, who were evidently lying in wait, fired at him. Several shots were fired and two of them took effect, one lodging in the abdomen and the other in the left shoulder.
It is stated that while he was lying on the ground, Head Constable Kearney shouted, ‘Mercy, mercy.’ The wounded man’s condition is very critical. [He died later.]
The Sinn Féin Hall in William Street was subsequently raided by military and police. The windows of the hall were broken.
Later a sensation was caused at the residence of Mr John Curran, Home Avenue, a former sergeant in the RIC who served in the Great War. Several men threw a vessel containing petrol through the parlour window.
Mrs Curran and some of the children were in bed at the time but a couple of older members of the family and neighbours succeeded in preventing the fire from spreading.
Priest’s Body in Bog
THE Press Association’s Galway correspondent telegraphs: The dead body of the Rev Michael Griffin, the young Catholic priest who had been missing for several days, was last night found buried in boggy land near the roadside at Cloughshella, near Lough Inch, four miles from Galway. There was a bullet wound in the right temple.
‘The Future Ulster Police’
Editorial
Sir Hamar Greenwood told Mr Samuel McGuffin [Unionist, Shankill] at Westminster that ‘the Belfast police force at present consists of 542 Roman Catholics and 562 Protestants’.
This matter of ‘police’ is a subject of grave concern to all citizens; it is first and foremost in the opinion of the Ascendancy nowadays. Sir Edward Carson ‘plumped’ for the disbandment of the RIC at an early state of the debates on the Partition Bill and the Government favoured his suggestion.
Mr McGuffin wanted to know how many Catholics were to be ‘taken over’ in Belfast [by the new Parliament]. But in the meantime the process of enrolling ‘Special Constables’ proceeds …
Those ‘Special Constables’ will ultimately replace the Catholic members of the RIC.
A Mr William Grant [a loyalist speaker and future Stormont Health Minister] said: ‘The UVF was going to be the future RIC of the Ulster province.’
(Eamon Phoenix editor’s note: As IRA attacks and British reprisals intensified across Ireland, unionism was determined to neutralise the influence of the ‘unreliable’ RIC – largely southern Catholics – in favour of their new Special Constabulary who would soon patrol Belfast and the nationalist-controlled border counties.)
On This Day – 21st November 1920
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19201121
Reference Date
19201121
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 21st November 1920, a Newry Head Constable was shot and fatally wounded while returning from church, triggering reprisals and arson attacks. In Galway, the body of missing priest Fr Michael Griffin was found buried in bogland, while unionists pressed ahead with plans for a new Ulster police force. Edited by Dr Éamon Phoenix.
Newry Policeman Shot | On This Day – 21st November 1920
LAST night Head Constable John James Kearney, while returning from devotions in the Dominican Church, Queen Street, Newry, was fired at and seriously wounded.
The officer had got to the corner of Needham Street when some men, who were evidently lying in wait, fired at him. Several shots were fired and two of them took effect, one lodging in the abdomen and the other in the left shoulder.
It is stated that while he was lying on the ground, Head Constable Kearney shouted, ‘Mercy, mercy.’ The wounded man’s condition is very critical. [He died later.]
The Sinn Féin Hall in William Street was subsequently raided by military and police. The windows of the hall were broken.
Later a sensation was caused at the residence of Mr John Curran, Home Avenue, a former sergeant in the RIC who served in the Great War. Several men threw a vessel containing petrol through the parlour window.
Mrs Curran and some of the children were in bed at the time but a couple of older members of the family and neighbours succeeded in preventing the fire from spreading.
Priest’s Body in Bog
THE Press Association’s Galway correspondent telegraphs: The dead body of the Rev Michael Griffin, the young Catholic priest who had been missing for several days, was last night found buried in boggy land near the roadside at Cloughshella, near Lough Inch, four miles from Galway. There was a bullet wound in the right temple.
‘The Future Ulster Police’
Editorial
Sir Hamar Greenwood told Mr Samuel McGuffin [Unionist, Shankill] at Westminster that ‘the Belfast police force at present consists of 542 Roman Catholics and 562 Protestants’.
This matter of ‘police’ is a subject of grave concern to all citizens; it is first and foremost in the opinion of the Ascendancy nowadays. Sir Edward Carson ‘plumped’ for the disbandment of the RIC at an early state of the debates on the Partition Bill and the Government favoured his suggestion.
Mr McGuffin wanted to know how many Catholics were to be ‘taken over’ in Belfast [by the new Parliament]. But in the meantime the process of enrolling ‘Special Constables’ proceeds …
Those ‘Special Constables’ will ultimately replace the Catholic members of the RIC.
A Mr William Grant [a loyalist speaker and future Stormont Health Minister] said: ‘The UVF was going to be the future RIC of the Ulster province.’
(Eamon Phoenix editor’s note: As IRA attacks and British reprisals intensified across Ireland, unionism was determined to neutralise the influence of the ‘unreliable’ RIC – largely southern Catholics – in favour of their new Special Constabulary who would soon patrol Belfast and the nationalist-controlled border counties.)
On This Day – 21st November 1920
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19201121
Reference Date
November 21, 2020
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 21st November 1920, a Newry Head Constable was shot and fatally wounded while returning from church, triggering reprisals and arson attacks. In Galway, the body of missing priest Fr Michael Griffin was found buried in bogland, while unionists pressed ahead with plans for a new Ulster police force. Edited by Dr Éamon Phoenix.
Newry Policeman Shot | On This Day – 21st November 1920
LAST night Head Constable John James Kearney, while returning from devotions in the Dominican Church, Queen Street, Newry, was fired at and seriously wounded.
The officer had got to the corner of Needham Street when some men, who were evidently lying in wait, fired at him. Several shots were fired and two of them took effect, one lodging in the abdomen and the other in the left shoulder.
It is stated that while he was lying on the ground, Head Constable Kearney shouted, ‘Mercy, mercy.’ The wounded man’s condition is very critical. [He died later.]
The Sinn Féin Hall in William Street was subsequently raided by military and police. The windows of the hall were broken.
Later a sensation was caused at the residence of Mr John Curran, Home Avenue, a former sergeant in the RIC who served in the Great War. Several men threw a vessel containing petrol through the parlour window.
Mrs Curran and some of the children were in bed at the time but a couple of older members of the family and neighbours succeeded in preventing the fire from spreading.
Priest’s Body in Bog
THE Press Association’s Galway correspondent telegraphs: The dead body of the Rev Michael Griffin, the young Catholic priest who had been missing for several days, was last night found buried in boggy land near the roadside at Cloughshella, near Lough Inch, four miles from Galway. There was a bullet wound in the right temple.
‘The Future Ulster Police’
Editorial
Sir Hamar Greenwood told Mr Samuel McGuffin [Unionist, Shankill] at Westminster that ‘the Belfast police force at present consists of 542 Roman Catholics and 562 Protestants’.
This matter of ‘police’ is a subject of grave concern to all citizens; it is first and foremost in the opinion of the Ascendancy nowadays. Sir Edward Carson ‘plumped’ for the disbandment of the RIC at an early state of the debates on the Partition Bill and the Government favoured his suggestion.
Mr McGuffin wanted to know how many Catholics were to be ‘taken over’ in Belfast [by the new Parliament]. But in the meantime the process of enrolling ‘Special Constables’ proceeds …
Those ‘Special Constables’ will ultimately replace the Catholic members of the RIC.
A Mr William Grant [a loyalist speaker and future Stormont Health Minister] said: ‘The UVF was going to be the future RIC of the Ulster province.’
(Eamon Phoenix editor’s note: As IRA attacks and British reprisals intensified across Ireland, unionism was determined to neutralise the influence of the ‘unreliable’ RIC – largely southern Catholics – in favour of their new Special Constabulary who would soon patrol Belfast and the nationalist-controlled border counties.)
On This Day – 21st November 1920
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.