On This Day / July 31, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
July 31, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 31st July 1921, Labour leaders condemned Belfast’s sectarian expulsions as another child victim of the city’s violence succumbed to her injuries. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Virulent Intolerance | On This Day – 31st July 1921
THE annual report of the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress has been issued. The officers expressed the hope that the truce from actual warfare may develop into ‘permanent peace and freedom’.
The industrial effects of the political-religious upheaval engineered by the Belfast Partitionists looms large in the report:
‘We have endeavoured to assist in any way practicable to ensure the reinstatement of these expelled workers but regret that virulent intolerance still prevails and large numbers of men and women who were driven from their employment a year ago have been compelled to subsist upon the charity of the public for twelve long months. We confess to no sign of improvement.’
‘A notable event in connection with Belfast was the action of the Executive Council of the Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners demanded that firms from whose employment men had been driven should allow the men to return and be given protection as had been done [in 1912]….’
Special Sent for Trial
MR JOHN Gray, RM, presiding in Belfast Custody Court, returned for trial a young man named Thomas Harkness, Zetland Street, a member of the Special Constabulary, on a charge of shooting at William Stitt, labourer on 14th inst.
William Stitt, answering District Inspector Speers, said that on the 14th inst at about 10.30 p.m. he was standing with a man named Magee at the corner of Sussex Place and Joy Street.
He saw the prisoner coming from May Street. The Special Constable fired a shot towards Stitt. ‘I felt it hitting me on the left shoulder and I fell.’
Another Child Riot Victim
ONE of the most distressing cases arising out of the disturbances in the city on Sunday, 10th July was the admission to the Mater Infirmorum Hospital of Mrs McGowan, Derby Street and her thirteen year old daughter, Mary, both suffering from bullet wounds to the legs.
The little girl, who was the more seriously injured of the two, died in the hospital on Saturday morning following an operation for the amputation of the shattered limb.
This brings the total death roll for that particular week up to 21.
The little victim bore her suffering uncomplainingly and with great courage. Constable Davy Magill had chivalrously offered a transfusion of his blood to assist her.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: THE British government’s failure to deal with sectarian expulsions while arming the sectarian USC reinforced nationalist hostility to the unionist state.
Mary McGowan was a child victim of Belfast’s ‘Bloody Sunday’; Davy Magill from Cairncastle an RIC boxing champion.)
On This Day – 31st July 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.