On This Day / September 29, 1921

Summary: On This Day – 29th September 1921, a Belfast funeral descended into serious sectarian disorder, while a deputation representing 100,000 citizens urged Éamon de Valera to reject partition. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

Wild Funeral Scenes | On This Day – 29th September 1921

SCENES of a most disgraceful character, leading to a shooting affair in which four persons were injured, one fatally, occurred yesterday afternoon in connection with the funeral of Alexander Harrison, one of the victims of the recent bomb explosion on the Newtownards Road.

From the deceased’s residence in Frazer Street onwards, the cortege was preceded by a disorderly mob, hundreds strong, many of them armed with revolvers.

Their conduct from the outset was of a most unseemly character. It became worse as they emerged from the Donegall Road onto the Falls Road where their demeanour was outrageous.

Numbers of them rushed up to inoffensive passersby and, pointing revolvers at their heads, ordered them to uncover. The mob were representative of the familiar type of hooligan.

Yelling, shouting and jeering, they surged along Bridgend, closely scrutinising pedestrians meeting the funeral to see if they saluted in the usual way.

As they passed along they smashed the windows of a Catholic shopkeeper. Passing into Victoria Square, the mob swept every person, irrespective of age or sex, out of their path, many being knocked down.

Unfortunately, three members of a religious order who had emerged from a by street, were caught in the thick of the mob.

Efforts were made by the crowd to strike the inoffensive religious who put up their walking sticks to ward off the blows.

Belfast Protest to President

A DEPUTATION from Belfast waited on President de Valera yesterday afternoon, representing 100,000 citizens of Belfast.

It included James McKernan (Alderman), John Harkin (Alderman), James Baird (Councillor), Joseph Cosgrove (Councillor), Denis McCullough (Councillor).

The deputation were introduced by Professor MacNeill and urged the Dail not to agree to any system of government that would partition Belfast and the six counties from the government of the majority of the Irish people.

Councillor James Baird said Partition would place power in the hands of those responsible for the pogroms which had driven all known opponents of Carsonism from their work and, in many cases, their homes.

It would leave the minority entirely at the mercy of those from whom, judging from their past and present actions, they had no right to expect either justice or mercy. … .’

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Since Victorian times the funerals of Belfast riot victims had often sparked serious sectarian disturbances.

Indeed, a ‘mock funeral’ to Friar’s Bush Graveyard in 1864 in which a mob from Sandy Row carried a charred effigy of Daniel O’Connell provoked major rioting.

In the delegation to de Valera, Labour councillor James Baird was one of several hundred Protestant trade unionists expelled from the shipyards In 1920.)

On This Day – 29th September 1921

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