Category: Uncategorized
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After the McMahons: the victims of Arnon Street
Just over a week after the notorious McMahon family killings, there was another attack with multiple fatalities. While there is a well-known photo of victims of the first incident, there are also photos of the victims of what came to be known as the “Arnon Street killings.”
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Writings about the Pogrom
It would be an exaggeration to talk about “the literature of the Pogrom” as there simply isn’t very much of it. Instead, this post looks at various works in which the Pogrom figures to differing degrees – a novel, two plays, a poem and two contemporary pamphlets of political analysis.
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Violence against women in Belfast: Part 2 – gendered and sexual
Part 1 of this post examined the first two of the forms of violence against women in the revolutionary period outlined by Marie Coleman – physical, psychological, gendered and sexual. This part investigates the extent to which Belfast women were subjected to gendered and sexual violence.
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Violence against women in Belfast: Part 1 – physical and psychological
In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the issue of violence committed against women during the Irish revolution. In Belfast, women and girls faced two arcs of violence: one political/sectarian, one gender-based; while the former was often lethal and the latter mostly non-lethal, at times they intersected.
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After the Pogrom: the bereaved, the broken and the bitter
Partition left a political scar on all northern nationalists. But for those in Belfast, the Pogrom also left emotional and physical scars. The files of the Military Service Pensions Collection give us an insight into how those wounds affected people and the battles they fought to have them recognised.
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Plebians and patricians: the Loyalist Relief Fund
Over the course of the Pogrom, 174 unionist civilians were killed. They left behind them hundreds of dependents, now deprived of a breadwinner. This post examines how the unionist community rallied round to help those of its members who found themselves in dire need.
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Who were the 3rd Northern Division?
Belfast was the most industrialised city in Ireland, with a substantial working-class population, while many in its hinterland in Antrim and Down were engaged in farming. The 3rd Northern Division drew its members from these areas. What was the profile of that membership in terms of social class?
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The Third Policemen
As well as the regular RIC/RUC and the Specials, a third police force operated in Belfast during the Pogrom, even running their own jails. Far less documented and far more elusive than the others, this post looks at the Irish Republican Police.
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Who were the Belfast Specials?
In an otherwise innocuous-sounding file in Military Archives is a remarkable IRA intelligence document – a list of the names and addresses of almost 650 men who they believed were members of the Special Constabulary in Belfast. What does this document tell us about the city’s Specials?
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“Outstanding in their leniency”? Firearms cases in the Belfast courts
Although 502 people died as a result of the Pogrom, only 12 people were charged with murder. All were acquitted. Yet the first person to be convicted by a Belfast court under the Firearms Act 1920 was a member of the B Specials. Who else was charged with similar offences and what were the outcomes?
The Belfast Pogrom 