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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2016
Focusing on events on the south-east Ulster frontier, this article seeks to think afresh about the sectarian dimensions of republican violence on the Irish border amid the twin upheavals of revolution and partition. Drawing on a variety of primary sources, it questions a number of the intuitive notions that surround the phenomenon. In doing so, it highlights the limitations of the current discourse on sectarian violence and aims to encourage a more nuanced appreciation of the complex processes and behaviours that both facilitated and limited such violence at a grassroots level.
1 Raids by armed men in Bessbrook, 17 June 1922, HA/5/925, Home Affairs Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast (hereafter PRONI); ‘Dreadful Newry tragedies’, Independent, 18 June 1922, 5; ‘Series of appalling murders at Altnaveigh’, Newry Telegraph, 20 June 1922, 5.
2 For unionist commemoration of the massacre see Lynch, Robert, ‘Explaining the Altnaveigh Massacre’, Eire-Ireland, 45, 3 and 4 (2010), 185 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–6. For an example of its place in local republican memory prior to the 1990s see R. P. Watson, Cath Saoirse an Iúir: Newry's Struggle (Newry: Raymond P. Watson, 1986), 3, 61–2.
3 Lynch, ‘Explaining the Altnaveigh Massacre’; Lynch, Robert, The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006), 148 Google Scholar–9; Wilson, T. K., Frontiers of Violence: Conflict and Identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia 1918–1922 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 168 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–71. For a sense of its place in the broader historiography see Fitzpatrick, David, The Two Irelands: 1912–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 122 Google Scholar–3; Harnden, Toby, Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999 Google Scholar); Tanner, Marcus, Ireland's Holy Wars: The Struggle for a Nation's Soul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 293 Google Scholar; English, Richard, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA (London: Pan Macmillan, 2003), 41 Google Scholar; Bew, Paul, Ireland: The Politics of Enmity, 1789–2006 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 436 Google Scholar; Walker, Brian, A Political History of the Two Irelands: From Partition to Peace (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jackson, Alvin, The Two Unions: Ireland, Scotland and the Survival of the United Kingdom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 318 Google Scholar; Patterson, Henry, Ireland's Violent Frontier: The Border and Anglo-Irish Relations During the Troubles (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), 6 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 RTÉ Hidden History: Aiken: Gunman and Statesman (Dublin: Mint Productions, 2006); Eoin Harris, ‘At the very heart of our sectarian history’, Sunday Independent, 17 Dec. 2006, available at http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/at-the-very-hart-of-our-sectarian-history-26419775.html (last visited 21 July 2015).
5 Fourth Northern Division Report, 26 June 1922, National Archives of Ireland, Dublin (hereafter NAI), North East Boundary Bureau Records, NEBB/1/1/7; Fourth Northern Division Circular, c. 24 June 1922, NAI, NEBB/1/1/7; ‘Shots into dwellings’, Irish Times, 22 June 1922, 6; ‘House fired into’, Dundalk Examiner, 1 July 1922, 4.
6 Hart, Peter, The IRA and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 Google Scholar). See also Hart, Peter, The IRA at War, 1916–1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 223 Google Scholar–59.
7 Clark, Gemma, Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 38–43 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 See for example, Bielenberg, Andy, ‘Exodus: The Emigration of Southern Irish Protestants during the Irish War of Independence and Civil War’, Past and Present, 218 (2013) 199–233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fitzpatrick, David, Descendancy: Irish Protestant Histories Since 1795 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 159–240 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 See, for example, O'Connor, Philip, ed., Coolacrease: The True Story of the Pearson Executions – an Incident in the Irish War of Independence (Millstreet: Aubane Historical Society, 2008 Google Scholar); Borgonovo, John, Spies, Informers and the ‘Anti Sinn Fein Society’: The Intelligence War in Cork City (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007 Google Scholar).
10 Regan, J. M., ‘The “Bandon Valley Massacre” as a Historical Problem’, in History : The Journal of the Historical Society, 97, 325 (2012), 97 Google Scholar; Bielenburg, Andy, Borgonovo, John and Donnelly, James S. Jr., ‘“Something in the Nature of a Massacre”: The Bandon Valley Killings Revisited’, Éire-Ireland, 49, 3 & 4 (2014), 57 Google Scholar–8. See also, Donnelly, James S. Jr., ‘Big House Burnings in County Cork during the Irish Revolution, 1920–21’, Éire-Ireland, 47, 3 and 4 (2012), 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–97.
11 Howe, Stephen, ‘Killing in Cork and the Historians’, History Workshop Journal, 77, 1 (2014), 160 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Some of the most notable works since 2000 are McDermott, Jim, Northern Divisions: The Old IRA and the Belfast Pogroms (Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 2001 Google Scholar); Parkinson, Alan, Belfast's Unholy War (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004 Google Scholar); Lynch, Northern IRA; McGarry, Fearghal, Eoin O'Duffy: A Self-Made Hero (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 Google Scholar); Wilson, Frontiers; Lewis, Matthew, Frank Aiken's War: The Irish Revolution 1916–23 (Dublin: University College Dublin Press 2014 Google Scholar); McCluskey, Fergal, Tyrone: The Irish Revolution, 1912–23 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014 Google Scholar).
13 Lynch, ‘Explaining the Altnaveigh Massacre’, 187, 206–10.
14 This geographical focus is selected for consistency as it later constituted the Fourth Northern Division's operational area. The south Armagh, south Down and north Louth area, moreover, has long been recognised as part of distinctive cultural and socio-economic borderland, although there is no convenient moniker. See Gillespie, Raymond and O'Sullivan, Harold, eds., The Borderlands: Essays on the History of the Ulster-Leinster Border (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast, 1989 Google Scholar).
15 McVeigh, Robbie, ‘Cherishing the Children of the Nation Unequally: Sectarianism in Ireland’, in Clancy, Patrick, Drudy, Sheelagh, Lynch, Kathleen and O'Dowd, Liam, eds., Irish Society: Sociological Perspectives (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1995), 643 Google Scholar.
16 Wilson, Frontiers, 161.
17 Census of Ireland, 1911, Province of Ulster, County of Armagh (London: HMSO, 1912); Census of Ireland, 1911, Province of Ulster, County of Down (London: HMSO, 1912); Census of Ireland, 1911, Province of Leinster, County of Louth (London: HMSO, 1912).
18 Based on figures from PRONI Ulster Covenant database, available at http://applications.proni.gov.uk/UlsterCovenant/Search.aspx, (last visited 27 Dec. 2013). The covenant is an imperfect measure of unionism in north Louth, which is in Leinster. Nevertheless, forty-two local residents did sign the covenant there.
19 For the area's history of intercommunal conflict, see Madden, Kyla, Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787–1858 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006), 10–27 Google Scholar, 82–120; Farrell, Sean, Rituals and Riots: Sectarian Violence and Political Culture in Ulster, 1794–1886 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 10–31 Google Scholar; Harnden, Bandit Country, 131–41, 181–95.
20 See, for example, RIC Inspector General's Reports (hereafter IG), Down, Jul. 1902, CO 904/75, Colonial Office Records, The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA); ‘Orange ruffianism in Armagh’, Dundalk Democrat, 30 July 1904, 13; ‘The Armagh riot’, Dundalk Democrat, 14 July 1906, 13. See also Jarman, Neil and Bryan, Dominic, From Riots to Rights: Nationalist Parades in the North of Ireland (Coleraine: Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster, Coleraine 1998), 12–5Google Scholar.
21 Lewis, Frank Aiken's War, 23–61; for similar tensions in Louth see Natasha Grayson, ‘The Quality of Nationalism in Counties Cavan, Louth and Meath during the Irish Revolution’, Ph.D. Thesis, Keele University, 2007, 170–1.
22 RIC County Inspector Reports (hereafter CI), Armagh, Jan. 1919, TNA, CO 904/108; CI, Louth, Feb. 1919, TNA, CO 904/108; CI, Down, May 1919, TNA, CO 904/109; CI, Armagh, Aug. 1919, TNA, CO 904/109.
23 CI, Armagh, Nov. 1919, TNA, CO 904/110. Local IRA leaders denied republican involvement: see Rankin to Collins, 7 Nov. 1919, Irish Military Archives, Dublin (hereafter IMA), Collins papers, A/0314 VIII (I).
24 Rev. E. A. Foy Action for Damages, PRONI, D1616/14/9.
25 Wilson, Frontiers, 17, 192–3, 196–7.
26 For unionist patrols see, John Webster Statement, PRONI, D1290/66; ‘Orange patrols’, Freeman's Journal, 9 Nov. 1920, 5; Timothy Bowman, Carson's Army: The Ulster Volunteer Force, 1910–1922 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 190–201. In September 1920, a wide-spread arms raid took as part of a nation-wide initiative; see ‘The swoop for arms’, Irish Independent, 6 Sept. 1920, 5; Peadar Barry, IMA, Bureau of Military History Witness Statements, BMH WS 853; John Grant, IMA, BMH WS 658.
27 For the creation of the USC see, Follis, Brian, A State Under Siege: The Establishment of Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 82–115 Google Scholar; Farrell, Michael, Arming the Protestants: The Formation of the Ulster Special Constabulary and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, 1920–27, (London: Pluto Press, 1983), 30–54 Google Scholar; Hezlet, Sir Arthur, The ‘B’ Specials: A History of the Ulster Special Constabulary (Belfast: Mourne River Press Edn., 1997), 1–26 Google Scholar.
28 John McCoy, IMA, BMH WS 492.
29 Hezlet, ‘B’ Specials, 11; James J. Smyth, IMA, BMH WS 559.
30 CI, Down, Oct. 1920, TNA, CO 904/113.
31 Lawlor, Pearse, The Burnings, 1920 (Cork: Mercier Press, 2009), 64–82 Google Scholar.
32 John McCoy, IMA, BMH WS 492.
33 C. S. Day, ‘Political Violence in the Armagh/Newry Area’, Ph.D. Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 1998, map 12.
34 John Grant, IMA, BMH WS 658.
35 See, for example, ‘Hundred armed raiders’, Irish Independent, 14 May 1921, 7; ‘Items of interest’, Irish Independent, 4 Apr. 1922, 6.
36 ‘An Armagh outrage’, Freeman's Journal, 13 Apr. 1920, 2.
37 Grayson, ‘The Quality of Nationalism’, 223.
38 ‘Public meeting’, Freeman's Journal, 28 Aug. 1920, 6.
39 ‘Barracks attacks repulsed’, Irish Independent, 14 Dec. 1920, 5; ‘Two men dangerously wounded’, Irish Independent, 29 Dec. 1920, 3; ‘Specials an unlawful assembly’, Irish Independent, 1 Oct. 1921, 6; Jack McElhaw, IMA, BMH WS 634; John McCoy, IMA, BMH WS 492. For official punishments see Townshend, C., British Campaign in Ireland, 1919–1921: The Development of Political and Military Policies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 119 Google Scholar–23.
40 Seven of the victims were identified as members in at least two republican sources, including BMH statements, IRA company rolls and a list of dead and wounded compiled by Fourth Northern Division veterans in later years. See ‘Volunteers, killed in action, executed or died of wounds’, McCann Cell Collection, Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Dublin (hereafter KGM), 20/M5/IP41/12; Fourth Northern Division Company Roles, University College Dublin Archive Department (hereafter UCDAD), Aiken papers, P104/1295.
41 It was initially alleged that Hickey was killed by the IRA as a spy, but in the aftermath this was publicly contested. The scant available evidence suggests that he was killed by members of the RIC or USC: see ‘Newry man's fate’, Irish Independent, 2 July 1921, 5; ‘Refuting a slander’, Freeman's Journal, 5 July 1921, 4; Edward Fullerton, IMA, BMH WS 890.
42 John McCoy, IMA, BMH WS 492.
43 John T. Connolly, IMA, BMH WS 598.
44 Thomas McCrave, IMA, BMH WS 995; ‘Special shot dead’, Freeman's Journal, 11 Apr. 1921, 5.
45 CI, Armagh, Apr. 1921, TNA, CO 904/115; Charles McGleenan, IMA, BMH WS 829; John Cosgrove, IMA, BMH WS 605.
46 Proceedings of a court of inquiry in lieu of inquest on Patrick Quinn, John O'Reilly, Thomas O'Reilly and Peter McGinnity, TNA, WO 35/158. The men are acknowledged as members of the IRA in multiple republican sources. See, for example, Fourth Northern Division Company Roles, UCDAD, Aiken papers, P104/1295.
47 John Grant, IMA, BMH WS 658. See also, ‘Another Newry tragedy’, Freeman's Journal, 11 July 1921, 6.
48 As a rule, RIC constables did not serve in their home county: see Malcolm, Elizabeth, The Irish Policeman 1822–1922: A Life (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006), 39–40 Google Scholar.
49 Hopkinson, Michael, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1988), 34 Google Scholar–6.
50 Secret Department of Defence Memorandum, c.1926, UCDAD, FitzGerald papers, P80/457.
51 McGarry, Eoin O'Duffy, 98–104; Hopkinson, Michael, ‘The Craig–Collins Pacts of 1922: Two Attempted Reforms of the Northern Irish Government’, Irish Historical Studies, 26, 6 (1990), 150 Google Scholar–70.
52 Lynch, Northern IRA, 139–46; see also, Lewis, M., ‘The Fourth Northern Division and the Joint-IRA Offensive, April–June 1922’, War in History, 21, 3 (2014), 302 CrossRefGoogle Scholar–21.
53 See, for example, separate incidents in Blackwatertown and Keady areas in March/April 1922; Bi-monthly Divisional Commissioner's Report, 18 Apr. 1922, PRONI, HA/5/152; Charles McGleenan, IMA, BMH WS 829; Patrick Beagan, IMA, BMH WS 612.
54 For a detailed discussion, see Lewis, Frank Aiken's War, 119–23.
55 John Cosgrove, IMA, BMH WS 605; ‘Northern proclamations’, Irish Times, 24 May 1922, 5.
56 Murder of Justice Woulfe Flanagan, PRONI, HA/32/1/310 (accessed via FOI request); Edward Fullerton, IMA, BMH WS 890.
57 Murdock to Fisher, 5 June 1922, PRONI, HA/5/236; Macintosh to his mother, 6 June 1922, PRONI, HA/5/228.
58 See McGarry, Eoin O'Duffy, 99–100.
59 ‘Big Newry fire’, Freeman's Journal, 6 June 1922, 4.
60 He was convicted of an arms offence after an affray between republicans and constitutional nationalists in 1918; Prosecution of Patrick Creegan [sic], TNA, WO 35/158.
61 Murders of Patrick Creggan and Thomas Crawley, PRONI, HA/5/239.
62 Aiken to O'Duffy, 15 June 1922, NAI, Department of Taoiseach Records, TSCH/S5462; Dáil Éireann Debates, 32, 1 (1929), col. 147, available at http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1929/10/23/00032.asp (last visited 21 July 2015); Raid on house of James McGill/McGuill, Dromintee, PRONI, HA/5/249; McGuill Grant from the Dáil Special Fund, NAI, TSCH/S8451.
63 Wilson, Frontiers, 170, 216.
64 Fears of such violence made some volunteers reluctant to leave home in the first place. See Charles McGleenan, IMA, BMH WS 829.
65 Horowitz, Donald, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985), 179 Google Scholar.
66 ‘Six County Position in the present crisis’, May 1922, UCDAD, Mulcahy papers, P7a/145.
67 See Hart, The IRA at War, 241–58; Parkinson, Belfast's Unholy War, 308–16.
68 John McCoy, IMA, BMH WS 492.
69 Dáil Éireann Debates, 32, 1 (1929), col. 147, available at http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1929/10/23/00032.asp (last visited 21 July 2015).
70 Johnnie McKay [McCoy], UCDAD, O'Malley notebooks, P17b/90.
71 Head Constable Duffy to Armagh County Inspector, 21 June 1922, PRONI, HA/5/925.
72 Jack McElhaw, IMA, BMH WS 634; Prosecution of George McCambridge and Michael Creggan, TNA, WO 35/114/23.
73 The three suspects in question were Michael Creggan, William McQuaid and Bernard Kelly. See Michael Creggan, PRONI, HA/5/380; Bernard Kelly, PRONI, HA/5/2426; Raids by armed men in Bessbrook, 17 June 1922, PRONI, HA/5/925; Fourth Northern Division Company Roles, UCDAD, Aiken papers, P104/1295.
74 ‘Series of appalling murders at Altnaveigh’, Newry Telegraph, 20 June 1922, 5.
75 See deaths of William Hickey (detailed above) and Teresa McAnuff, who was accidentally shot dead in her family home by a party of B Specials as they compelled her brother to sign a spurious declaration promising not to attack the police; see Fatal Shooting of Teresa McAnuff, PRONI, HA/5/550. For the killings that followed the Altnaveigh massacre see, ‘Labourer's death’, Irish Independent, 19 June 1922, 5; ‘Two more dead’, Irish Independent, 21 June 1922, 5.
76 See above.
77 Bloxham, Donald and Gerwarth, Robert, eds., Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
78 Donal Hall, ‘Violence and Political Factionalism and Their Effects on North Louth, 1874–1943’, Ph.D. thesis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2009, 157; ‘A Dundalk notice’, Freeman's Journal, 28 Mar. 1922, 6; ‘Ravensdale boys prosecuted’, Frontier Sentinel, 15 Apr. 1922, 5.
79 ‘Shots into dwellings’, Irish Times, 22 June 1922, 6; Brigade O/C to Chief of Police, 7 Feb. 1922, NAI, Department of Justice Records, H5/235. For the strike see Charles Townshend, ‘The Irish Railway Strike of 1920: Industrial Action and Civil Resistance in the Struggle for Independence’, Irish Historical Studies, 22, 83 (1979), 265–82.
80 Fourth Northern Division Report, 26 June 1922, NAI, NEBB/1/1/7.
81 Fourth Northern Division Circular, c. 24 June 1922, NAI, NEBB/1/1/7.
82 Based on an evaluation of incidents recorded in the local and national press, military records and IRA reports; see, in particular, ‘Fourth Northern Division Correspondence’, 1922–23, UCDAD, Twomey papers, P69/35; Dublin Command, 1922–23, IMA, Civil War Operation and Intelligence Reports Collection, CW/OPS/7. For the incidents mentioned see, ‘House raided’, Dundalk Examiner, 5 Aug. 1922, 4; Lewis, Frank Aiken's War, 192–3.
83 Hart, IRA at War, map 6.
84 John Grant, IMA, BMH WS 658.
85 Wright, Frank, Northern Ireland: A Comparative Analysis (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1987), 11 Google Scholar.
86 Four of the five male victims were members of the Orange Order. See William Frazer, ‘The Altnaveigh Massacre: A Case Study in Genocide’, available at http://victims.org.uk/s08zhk/pdfs/Deal_Past/Altnaveigh%20Massacre.pdf (last visited 11 Nov. 2014).
87 Harris, Rosemary, Prejudice and Tolerance in Ulster: A Study of Neighbours and ‘Strangers’ in a Border Community (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1969), 132 Google Scholar–55.
88 See above. For further attacks on nationalists in 1922 see ‘Orange hooliganism’, Freeman's Journal, 9 Dec. 1922, 6; ‘Shower of bullets’, Freeman's Journal, 11 Dec. 1922, 5.
89 John ‘Ned’ Quinn interview transcript, LOK/IV/B.14.0002.10, Louis O'Kane papers, Cardinal Ó Fiaich Memorial Library, Armagh; Kidnap and Murder of William Frazer, PRONI, HA/5/253.
90 ‘Chronology’, c.1933, IMA, Bureau of Military History Contemporary Documents, BMH CD 6/36/22; see also Jack McElhaw, IMA, BMH WS 634.
91 County Inspectors Reports on the State of Northern Ireland, Sept. 1922, PRONI, HA/32/1/290.
