On This Day / July 23, 1921

Summary: On This Day – 23rd July 1921, Eoin O’Duffy reported that the Truce largely held across Ulster, although intimidation and violence continued in Belfast and border counties. Edited by Éamon Phoenix. 

Truce in Ulster | On This Day – 23rd July 1921

MR EOIN O’Duffy, IRA Liaison Officer for Ulster, has issued the following statement:

‘I have returned to Belfast after touring the counties of Louth, Cavan and Monaghan and had satisfactory interviews with the different County Inspectors and British military officers.

Generally, the terms of the Truce are being observed in these counties.

In some cases it was reported that the military were openly carrying arms but I have been assured that there was no intention of being provocative and this will not occur again.

In some cases the Unionists carried out such activities as felling trees across public roads, believing we would be held responsible, and that it would be said we were not observing the Truce.

In all such cases the IRA removed the obstructions.

‘In Tyrone and Fermanagh the Ulster Special Constabulary, Class A and B continue to behave in a most provocative fashion.

Incessant firing is kept up nightly over wide areas and Catholics are being held up and searched on the roads.

At Rosslea a young man named Fox was arrested by a Class A [Special] officer on a charge of drilling.

With the exception of an occasional outbreak on the part of the anti-Catholic mob, Belfast is quiet but each post brings to our people a number of threatening letters warning them to clear out of their homes within a certain number of hours or their property will be destroyed.

The self-restraint exercised by our people in Belfast at a most trying time is remarkable.

In the words of the President [de Valera] they regard themselves as ‘custodians of the nation’s honour’.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: FROM Co Monaghan, Eoin O’Duffy (1892-1944) trained as an enginner.

Joined the Volunteers in 1917 he was active in Monaghan and Tyrone before becoming Director of Organisation at GHQ in 1921.

A close associate of Michael Collins and a fellow member of the IRB, O’Duffy had close links with the Northern IRA divisions during 1919-22 and was appointed Truce Liaison Officer for Ulster in July 1921 with an office in St Mary’s Hall, Belfast.

After the Treaty split, O’Duffy used his considerable personal influence to persuade the Northern IRA leadership to support the Treaty in exchange for promise of arms and support from Collins and pro-Treaty GHQ.

In May 1922 he was centrally involved in plans for an IRA ‘insurrection’ against the Northern state.

Apparently cancelled by O’Duffy and Mulcahy at the last minute, the IRA upsurge was effectively limited to Belfast Antrim and Down and was quickly suppressed.

O’Duffy would later emerge as the right-wing leader of the neo-Fascist Blueshirt movement in the 1930s.)

On This Day – 23rd July 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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