On This Day / March 3, 1921
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19210303
Reference Date
19210303
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 3rd March 1921, the Manchester Guardian condemned “lynch law” in Ulster, warning that the Ulster Special Constabulary’s reprisals risked civil war as Partition approached. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
‘Lynch Law in North’ | On This Day – 3rd March 1921
THE Manchester Guardian writes editorially under the heading, ‘Lynch Law in Ulster’: The election for the Northern Parliament of Ireland will be upon us soon.
Already there are ominous reports from Tyrone and Fermanagh, the two counties with Nationalist majorities that are to be brought under the Unionist Ascendancy.
Electoral divisions are being re-cast with the object, Fermanagh County Council declares, of gerrymandering them to create Unionist majorities.
But more serious still is the question of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC).
In Ulster the RIC is now supplemented by the Special Constabulary, armed and drilled at the public expense and drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the Orange Lodges and the Unionist ‘Volunteers’, organised by Sir Edward Carson for his experiment in rebellion.
The embodiment of this partisan force was an act of folly. But Carson had his way.
The Special Constables police Ulster and last week burned down eight or nine houses of Catholics because some unknown men attempted to murder a Unionist shopkeeper in a Fermanagh village.
This was bad enough but a Unionist paper, the Impartial Reporter, suggests a deliberate reprisals campaign of which the Specials are to be executants.
It was well known, said the paper, that ‘the resolve of the county was three for one – three lives to be taken if one were taken and three houses to be burned if one were burned …
The Sinn Feiners may understand that in Fermanagh reprisal will be prompt and vigorous for any of their misdeeds.’
The Special Constabulary are nominally raised to protect life and property and to maintain order, not to become a force of terrorists exercising powers of death over their Catholic neighbours….
We can conceive of nothing more likely to lead to civil war in Ulster than Government toleration of such a programme.
[Protestant] Ulster’s case against a single Parliament for Ireland has always rested on its alleged fear of persecution.
It will be a bad beginning for the Ulster Parliament if its establishment coincides with the dragooning of the Catholic minority in the Six Counties by an armed Protestant force administering a sort of lynch law.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: In the run-up to partition the partisan activities of the Specials in Belfast and on the border were condemned both by Devlin and the British Liberal press.
Britain’s decision to ‘arm the Protestants’ enabled the new force to carry out sectarian murders with impunity during 1920-22.
While Craig regarded the USC as the new state’s ‘secret weapon’ against the IRA, General Ricardo, a B Special commandant in Tyrone, could describe them as ‘sowing blood feuds which would last for generations.’)
On This Day -3rd March 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210303
Reference Date
19210303
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 3rd March 1921, the Manchester Guardian condemned “lynch law” in Ulster, warning that the Ulster Special Constabulary’s reprisals risked civil war as Partition approached. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
‘Lynch Law in North’ | On This Day – 3rd March 1921
THE Manchester Guardian writes editorially under the heading, ‘Lynch Law in Ulster’: The election for the Northern Parliament of Ireland will be upon us soon.
Already there are ominous reports from Tyrone and Fermanagh, the two counties with Nationalist majorities that are to be brought under the Unionist Ascendancy.
Electoral divisions are being re-cast with the object, Fermanagh County Council declares, of gerrymandering them to create Unionist majorities.
But more serious still is the question of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC).
In Ulster the RIC is now supplemented by the Special Constabulary, armed and drilled at the public expense and drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the Orange Lodges and the Unionist ‘Volunteers’, organised by Sir Edward Carson for his experiment in rebellion.
The embodiment of this partisan force was an act of folly. But Carson had his way.
The Special Constables police Ulster and last week burned down eight or nine houses of Catholics because some unknown men attempted to murder a Unionist shopkeeper in a Fermanagh village.
This was bad enough but a Unionist paper, the Impartial Reporter, suggests a deliberate reprisals campaign of which the Specials are to be executants.
It was well known, said the paper, that ‘the resolve of the county was three for one – three lives to be taken if one were taken and three houses to be burned if one were burned …
The Sinn Feiners may understand that in Fermanagh reprisal will be prompt and vigorous for any of their misdeeds.’
The Special Constabulary are nominally raised to protect life and property and to maintain order, not to become a force of terrorists exercising powers of death over their Catholic neighbours….
We can conceive of nothing more likely to lead to civil war in Ulster than Government toleration of such a programme.
[Protestant] Ulster’s case against a single Parliament for Ireland has always rested on its alleged fear of persecution.
It will be a bad beginning for the Ulster Parliament if its establishment coincides with the dragooning of the Catholic minority in the Six Counties by an armed Protestant force administering a sort of lynch law.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: In the run-up to partition the partisan activities of the Specials in Belfast and on the border were condemned both by Devlin and the British Liberal press.
Britain’s decision to ‘arm the Protestants’ enabled the new force to carry out sectarian murders with impunity during 1920-22.
While Craig regarded the USC as the new state’s ‘secret weapon’ against the IRA, General Ricardo, a B Special commandant in Tyrone, could describe them as ‘sowing blood feuds which would last for generations.’)
On This Day -3rd March 1921
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19210303
Reference Date
March 3, 2021
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 3rd March 1921, the Manchester Guardian condemned “lynch law” in Ulster, warning that the Ulster Special Constabulary’s reprisals risked civil war as Partition approached. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
‘Lynch Law in North’ | On This Day – 3rd March 1921
THE Manchester Guardian writes editorially under the heading, ‘Lynch Law in Ulster’: The election for the Northern Parliament of Ireland will be upon us soon.
Already there are ominous reports from Tyrone and Fermanagh, the two counties with Nationalist majorities that are to be brought under the Unionist Ascendancy.
Electoral divisions are being re-cast with the object, Fermanagh County Council declares, of gerrymandering them to create Unionist majorities.
But more serious still is the question of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC).
In Ulster the RIC is now supplemented by the Special Constabulary, armed and drilled at the public expense and drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the Orange Lodges and the Unionist ‘Volunteers’, organised by Sir Edward Carson for his experiment in rebellion.
The embodiment of this partisan force was an act of folly. But Carson had his way.
The Special Constables police Ulster and last week burned down eight or nine houses of Catholics because some unknown men attempted to murder a Unionist shopkeeper in a Fermanagh village.
This was bad enough but a Unionist paper, the Impartial Reporter, suggests a deliberate reprisals campaign of which the Specials are to be executants.
It was well known, said the paper, that ‘the resolve of the county was three for one – three lives to be taken if one were taken and three houses to be burned if one were burned …
The Sinn Feiners may understand that in Fermanagh reprisal will be prompt and vigorous for any of their misdeeds.’
The Special Constabulary are nominally raised to protect life and property and to maintain order, not to become a force of terrorists exercising powers of death over their Catholic neighbours….
We can conceive of nothing more likely to lead to civil war in Ulster than Government toleration of such a programme.
[Protestant] Ulster’s case against a single Parliament for Ireland has always rested on its alleged fear of persecution.
It will be a bad beginning for the Ulster Parliament if its establishment coincides with the dragooning of the Catholic minority in the Six Counties by an armed Protestant force administering a sort of lynch law.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: In the run-up to partition the partisan activities of the Specials in Belfast and on the border were condemned both by Devlin and the British Liberal press.
Britain’s decision to ‘arm the Protestants’ enabled the new force to carry out sectarian murders with impunity during 1920-22.
While Craig regarded the USC as the new state’s ‘secret weapon’ against the IRA, General Ricardo, a B Special commandant in Tyrone, could describe them as ‘sowing blood feuds which would last for generations.’)
On This Day -3rd March 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.