2 Walker, Graham, A history of the Ulster Unionist Party (Manchester, 2004), p. 267Google Scholar.

3 Irish News, 16 Feb. 2001.

4 The name is variously spelt as either McMahon or MacMahon.

5 Abbott, Richard, Police casualties in Ireland, 1919–1922 (Cork, 2000), p. 280Google Scholar.

6 Under the terms of the July 1921 Truce between the I.R.A. and the British government, an I.R.A. liaison office had been openly established at St Mary’s Hall in Belfast: Parkinson, A.F., Belfast’s unholy war (Dublin, 2004), pp 217–18Google Scholar.

7 The Ulster Special Constabulary had been formed in October 1920 to supplement the regular police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, in the six counties that were to become Northern Ireland. It consisted of three classes: A, B and C. The B Specials, as part-time volunteer policemen, represented the backbone of a force that was effectively a Protestant militia.

8 For the best secondary account, see Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, pp 229–31Google Scholar.

9 Brendan McMahon in foreword to Baker, Joe, The McMahon family murders (Belfast, 1992), p. 1Google Scholar.

10 Phoenix, Eamon, Northern nationalism: nationalist politics, partition and the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, 1890–1940 (Belfast, 1994), p. 195Google Scholar.

11 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, pp 233, 240Google Scholar.

12 Irish News, 25 Mar. 1922.

13 ‘Ultach’, Orange terror, ed. Brendan Clifford (Belfast, 1995), p. 8.

14 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 235Google Scholar.

15 Irish News, 27 Mar. 1922. For Gaelic-culture revivalists, ‘soccer and other foreign sports were seen as snobbish pretensions of middle-class West Britons’: Maume, P., The long gestation: Irish nationalist life, 1891–1918 (Dublin, 1999), p. 53Google Scholar.

16 Belfast Telegraph, 27 Mar. 1922.

17 Irish News, 27 Mar. 1922.

18 Belfast Telegraph, 24 Mar. 1922; Belfast News-letter, 24 Mar. 1922; Northern Whig, 24 Mar. 1922.

19 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 234Google Scholar; Irish News, 6 Apr. 1922.

20 Belfast News-letter, 25 Mar. 1922 (quoting Daily Express comparing the McMahon murders to ‘Bloody Sunday’). On ‘Bloody Sunday’ (21 Nov. 1920), the Dublin I.R.A. shot fourteen suspected British agents: see Bennett, Richard, The Black and Tans (New York, 1995 ed.), p. 126Google Scholar.

21 Northern Whig, 25 Mar. 1922. The first reference is once more to ‘Bloody Sunday’ (see above). The second is to the Kilmichael ambush: on 28 November 1920 the West Cork Brigade of the I.R.A. ambushed a party of auxiliary cadets just south of Macroom in County Cork. Seventeen cadets were killed. Unionists sincerely believed at the time that their bodies had been deliberately mutilated; however, it may be that the wounds on the dead were the results of very close hand-to-hand fighting. For debate on Kilmichael, including the question of mutilation, see Abbott, , Police casualties, pp 156–60Google Scholar; Hart, Peter, The I.R.A. and its enemies: violence and community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1999 paperback ed.), pp 21–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ryan, Meda, Tom Barry: I.R.A. freedom fighter (Cork, 2005 ed.), pp 64–89Google Scholar. On 11 February 1922 four Special constables (who should not have been in Free State territory) were shot dead in a gunbattle with the I.R.A. at Clones station in County Monaghan: see Lynch, Robert, The northern I.R.A. and the early years of partition, 1920–22 (Dublin, 2006), pp 107–16Google Scholar.

22 Northern Whig, 25 Mar. 1922.

23 Ibid.

24 Belfast News-letter, 27 Mar. 1922.

25 According to police figures, 39 people died between 11 Feb. and 6 Mar. 1922 alone: ‘Outrages in Belfast’, 10 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/32/1/28).

26 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 229Google Scholar.

27 Private letter, n.d. (P.R.O.N.I., Cahir Healy papers, D/2991/51); Hepburn, A.C., A past apart: studies in the history of Catholic Belfast, 1850–1950 (Belfast, 1996), p. 224Google Scholar.

28 I am deeply grateful to Dr Brian Griffin of Bath Spa University for this insight.

29 Belfast Telegraph, 24 Mar. 1922. It is worth noting that Glentoran certainly did not have the same sectarian reputation as its ‘Old Firm’ rivals, Linfield, making it more attractive to potential supporters from the Catholic community. Yet the club ground, the Oval, still lay deep in loyalist territory close to the shipyards. It was, for instance, used by the pre-war U.V.F. for ceremonial parades: Bowman, T., Carson’s army (Manchester, 2007), p. 121Google Scholar. During the early 1920s Troubles local loyalist paramilitaries considered it safe enough to hide several arms dumps there: ‘The Ulster Protestant Association’: see Report by District Inspector Spears, 7 Feb. 1923 (P.R.O.N.I., Memorandum to Minister of Home Affairs, T/2258).

30 Belfast News-letter, 27 Mar. 1922.

31 ‘The belief of the civilian population is that this crime is a reprisal for the murders of police elsewhere in the city’: see Report of District Inspector Lynn, 25 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193). In addition, S. G. Tallents, private secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, wrote that ‘impartial people regard this undoubtedly as a reprisal’; quoted in Farrell, M., Arming the Protestants (London, 1983), p. 299Google Scholar.

32 Irish News, 25 Mar. 1922.

33 Belfast News-letter, 25 Mar. 1922.

34 Belfast News-letter, 24 March 1922.

35 Hart, Peter, The I.R.A. at war, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 2003), p. 251Google Scholar.

36 Irish News, 7 Jan. 1922.

37 Figures calculated from Kenna, G.B., Facts and figures of the Belfast pogrom, ed. Donaldson, T. (Dublin, 1997), p. 101Google Scholar (Catholic fatalities conservatively estimated); Hepburn, , A past apart, p. 4Google Scholar (1911 census figures). Kenna’s estimates of fatalities are admittedly on the low side. Baker gives a slightly longer list of names (472): Baker, , The McMahon family murders, pp 44–78Google Scholar. Parkinson gives a higher total of 498 but without listing them: Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 12Google Scholar.

38 For an excellent critique of the pogrom thesis: Lynch, R., ‘The people’s protectors? The Irish Republican Army and the “Belfast pogrom,” 1920–1922’ in Journal of British Studies, 47 (Apr. 2008), pp 377–8.Google Scholar

39 Irish News, 27 July, 3, 6, 8, 9, 15, 17, 21, 26 Aug., 12 Sept., 8, 23 Oct. 1912.

40 Ibid., 1 July 1920.

41 Horowitz, D., The deadly ethnic riot (Berkeley, 2001)Google Scholar.

42 A point made very well in Hart, , The I.R.A at war, p. 251Google Scholar.

43 Irish News, 7 Jan. 1922.

44 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 229Google Scholar.

45 Northern Whig, 29 Mar. 1922.

46 Irish News, 29 Mar. 1922. Even these euphemistic comments were omitted from the Whig’s report of the same speech: Northern Whig, 29 Mar. 1922.

47 ‘Inquest on the McMahon family: copy of verdicts’, undated but apparently 11 Aug. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193).

48 Belfast News-letter, 25 Mar. 1922.

49 Ibid., 27, 30 Mar. 1922.

50 Ibid., 27 Mar. 1922.

51 Kenna, , Facts & figures, pp 139–41Google Scholar.

52 Ibid., p. 141.

53 Northern Whig, 25, 27, 28 Mar. 1922; Belfast News-letter, 25, 27, 28 Mar. 1922.

54 Northern Whig, 3 Apr. 1922.

55 Statement of Eliza McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193).

56 Campbell, B.B. and Brenner, A.D. (eds), Death squads in global perspective: murder with deniability (New York, 2002), pp 34–5, 41–2, 45, 48, 85, 108, 129, 187, 193, 231, 253, 281, 289, 297, 308Google Scholar.

57 Statement of John McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193).

58 The evidence of the death certificates is as follows: Owen McMahon (shot in abdomen and head): Patrick McMahon (head, chest and abdomen), Francis McMahon (chest and face); Bernard McMahon (spinal cord and lung); ‘Jeremiah’ (actually ‘Thomas’) McMahon (head and chest); Edward McKinney (lungs and abdomen): I am grateful to the General Register Office, Belfast, for issuing these to me.

59 Reproduced upon the cover of Baker, Joe, The McMahon family murders (Belfast, 2003)Google Scholar.

60 Blok, Anton, Honour and violence (Cambridge, 2001), p. 9Google Scholar.

61 Quoted in Coogan, T.P., The I.R.A. (London, 1971), p. 209Google Scholar. Traynor appears to be referring to the murders of 10 June 1921, which was the only occasion on which bodies were left on display in this manner. He is mistaken in minor details, claiming that this reprisal was in reaction to the murder of auxiliaries (which had happened in April) and implying that the reprisal victims had all been found together. For the bombing incident in Thompson Street see Irish News, 20 Mar. 1922.

62 Farrell, , Arming the Protestants, pp 298–9Google Scholar.

63 Irish News, 13 June 1921.

64 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 138Google Scholar; Irish News, 13 June 1921.

65 For instance Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 138Google Scholar (raiders tell the McBrides that they are ‘not the murder gang’); Statement of John McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193) (John McMahon told ‘It is alright, this is only a raid’); ‘District Inspector John W. Nixon’ (memo), Feb. 1924 (U.C.D.A., Blythe papers, P24/176) (Nixon returns to the McBride’s house).

66 Irish News, 28 Jan. 1921; Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 109Google Scholar.

67 Grant, William, Ulster Unionist M.P. in the Stormont Parliament, 18 May 1922Google Scholar, quoted in Follis, B.A., A state under siege: the establishment of Northern Ireland, 1920–1925 (Oxford, 1995), p. 95Google Scholar. Also Irish News, 16 Feb. 2001 (David Trimble); Times, 22 July 2002 (Ian Crozier).

68 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 239Google Scholar. See Phoenix’s searching critique of Trimble in Irish News, 5 Mar. 2001.

69 Irish News, 16 Feb. 2001.

70 A senior Iraqi minister was reported to have laughed when questioned on reports that death squads wore police uniforms, saying that ‘of course they wear police uniforms. They are real policemen’: see Independent, 22 Sept. 2006; also Campbell, B.B. and Brenner, A.D. (eds), Death squads in global perspective: murder with deniability (New York, 2002), p. 5Google Scholar.

71 Statements of Eliza McMahon and Mary Catherine Downey, 24 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193).

72 Belfast Telegraph, 24 Mar. 1922.

73 Statement of John McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801); Belfast News-letter, 24 Mar. 1922.

74 Statement of John McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801); see also his similar statement in P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193. Michael McMahon interviewed on the same day recalled the words as ‘did you ever say your prayers’: Statement of Michael McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (ibid.). One newspaper suggested that this pause had lasted ‘a few moments’. But John McMahon states that the firing began ‘at the same moment’, probably suggesting mockery/contempt in denying the Catholic victims the meagre comfort of completing their prayers. See Statement of John McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801); Belfast Telegraph, 24 Mar. 1922.

75 Statement of Lillie McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/5/193) (‘shots about 12 or 13’); Belfast News-letter, 24 Mar. 1922 (‘about 12 shots being fired altogether’).

76 Irish News, 13 June 1921; Devlin quoted in Kenna, , Facts & figures, pp 53–4Google Scholar. The Irish News and Devlin were both in error in claiming that MacBride ‘belonged to no political organisation of any kind’ (as Devlin put it).

77 ‘District Inspector John W. Nixon’ (memo), Feb. 1924 (U.C.D.A., Blythe papers, P24/176).

78 For instance the source was written some time after the events it describes (Feb. 1924) and is certainly wrong on some points of factual detail, claiming erroneously for instance that deaths of Republican activists had previously been ‘followed immediately by the shooting of members of the R.I.C or auxiliaries’.

79 ‘A few facts concerning murders organised and carried out by the Belfast police force in 1920–1’, no date but likely early 1922 (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801A). This, however, is not to say sectarian motives were entirely absence in the targeting of McBride, whose body was found with rosary beads between its fingers: McDermott, J., Northern divisions: the Old I.R.A. and the Belfast pogroms, 1920–22 (Belfast, 2001), p. 88Google Scholar.

80 Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 138Google Scholar; memoir of I.R.A. veteran Seán Montgomery, p. 12 (I am deeply grateful to Jim McDermott for the use of this source); Weekly Northern Whig, 18 June 1921.

81 A certain Michael Garvey was shot dead on 26 January 1921 in Bray Street, Belfast, by an R.I.C. death squad. This followed only a few hours after the killing in Roddy’s Hotel of two R.I.C. men from Dublin who were guarding a key witness in a murder trial. The R.I.C. death squad had, apparently, mistaken their victim for an I.R.A. barman of the same name who worked in Roddy’s Hotel and who was suspected of setting up the visiting policemen for assassination: Farrell, , Arming the Protestants, pp 298–9Google Scholar; Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 108Google Scholar.

82 Weekly Northern Whig, 18 June 1921. The Catholic Michael Traynor (who was a local boy at the time) also remembered the victims as three I.R.A. men. Quoted in Coogan, T.P., The I.R.A. (London, 1970, 1971 ed.), p. 209Google Scholar.

83 Diary of Colonel Fred Crawford, 28 Sept. 1920 (P.R.O.N.I., Crawford papers, D640/11/1). Whilst expressing ‘very great regret’ for these reprisals, the lord mayor was also very careful to distinguish them from ‘sectarian strife’: Weekly Northern Whig, 2 Oct. 1920.

84 Hepburn, A.C., Catholic Belfast and nationalist Ireland in the era of Joe Devlin, 1871–1934 (Oxford, 2008), p. 236CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 They are, however, sympathetically discussed in McDermott, , Northern divisions, p. 194Google Scholar.

86 Memoir of Seán Montgomery, p. 15 (in author’s possession).

87 ‘Occurrences in Belfast on 15 October 1921’, 16 Oct. 1921 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Finance files, FIN/18/1/54).

88 Memoir of Seán Montgomery, p. 26.

89 Irish News, 27 Mar. 1922; Northern Whig, 27 Mar. 1922.

90 Irish News, 14 Feb. 1922.

91 Weekly Northern Whig, 2 Oct. 1920, 5 Feb., 30 Apr., 18 June 1921.

92 ‘Memo re N.E. Ulster situation’ reproducing a report by Mr James Lynch, a correspondent for ‘America’, no date (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801A).

93 McDermott, , Northern divisions, p. 194Google Scholar.

94 Irish News, 2 Jan. 1922.

95 Ibid., 25 Mar. 1922.

96 For a general account of disbandment see Ryder, Chris, The R.U.C.: a force under fire (London, 1989, 1990 ed.), pp 44–8Google Scholar.

97 The committee set up on 1 Feb. by Dawson Bates as Minister of Home Affairs to advise the Northern Irish government on police matters did not report back until the very end of March 1922. The R.U.C. was not set up until 1 June 1922: Abbott, , Police casualties, p. 274Google Scholar.

98 For an example of low morale and the importance of uncertainty and rumour, see the letter written by a Belfast R.I.C. man on 25 March; Irish News, 27 Mar. 1922.

99 Statement of Constable Furlong, Leopold Street Barracks, 22 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., State Paper Office files, S11195).

100 Ibid.; see also statements of Constable Monaghan of Leopold Street Barracks, Constable Peter Flanagan, Brown Square Barracks, Sergeant John Murphy, Springfield Road Barracks, 23 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., State Paper Office files, S11195).

101 Statement of Constable Duffy, William, Mount Pottinger Barracks, 23 Mar. 1922Google Scholar (ibid.).

102 Statement of Sergeant John Murphy, Springfield Road Barracks, 23 Mar. 1922 (ibid.).

103 ‘District Inspector John W. Nixon’ (memo), Feb. 1924 (U.C.D.A., Blythe papers, P24/176) (on Gordon and Sterritt). For involvement of Specials: statement of John McMahon, 24 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801A).

104 ‘A few facts concerning murders’, no date (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801A).

105 Irish News, 16 Mar. 1922. For Gordon and Sterritt’s involvement see ‘District Inspector John W. Nixon’ (memo), Feb. 1924 (U.C.D.A., Blythe papers, P24/176); ‘A few facts concerning murders’, no date (N.A.I., minutes of provisional government meetings, S1801A).

106 Statement of Constable Furlong, 22 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., State Paper Office files, S11195).

107 Northern Whig, 7 Jan. 1922.

108 McDermott, , Northern divisions, pp 204, 267Google Scholar; Farrell, , Arming the Protestants, p. 159.Google Scholar

109 ‘District Inspector John W. Nixon’ (memo), Feb. 1924 (U.C.D.A., Blythe papers, P24/176).

110 Irish News, 7 Jan. 1922 (Brown Square loyalists jeer Catholic funeral, unhindered by police); Derry Journal, 15 Feb. 1922 (Millfield disturbances); Irish News, 16 Mar. 1922 (inquests on victims of 12/13 Feb. riots in Millfield); Crawford’s diary, 13 June 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., D/640/11/1, pp 74–8) (describing Millfield disturbances on 31 May).

111 Meeting of the provisional government’s northern advisery committee, 11 Apr .1922 (N.A.I., minutes of Ulster advisery committee, S/1011). This estimate was given by the Most Rev. Dr McRory.

112 Statement of Constable Peter Flanagan, Brown Square Barracks, 23 Mar 1922 (N.A.I., State Paper Office files, S11195).

113 Weekly Northern Whig, 2 Oct. 1920.

114 For a vivid description of Brown Square as an exposed loyalist ‘front line’ in 1969 see Crawford, C., Inside the U.D.A.: volunteers and violence (London, 2003), pp 67–8Google Scholar.

115 For a superb overview, see maps iv (iv), iv (iii), ii (i) in Martin, Declan, ‘Migration within the six counties of Northern Ireland, with special reference to the city of Belfast, 1911–1937’ (M.A. thesis, Queen’s University of Belfast, 1977)Google Scholar.

116 Baker, Joe, North Belfast: a scattered history (Belfast, n.d.), p. 63Google Scholar.

117 Devlin, Paddy, Straight left: an autobiography (Belfast, 1993), p. 4Google Scholar.

118 Memoir of Seán Montgomery, pp 19, 29. Part of this source is quoted in McDermott, Northern divisions, p. 100.

119 Irish News, 28 Jan. 1921.

120 Letter issued by D. I. Nixon for public circulation, 11 July 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/32/1/254).

121 Irish News, 10 Feb. 1922.

122 See the numerous letters and resolutions from 1922–4 in vociferous support of Nixon. For just two examples see Resolution of Adam and Eve Royal Black Preceptory (condemning the Minister of Home Affairs for his ‘disloyalty’), 28 Aug. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/32/1/254); letter from Mrs Hunt, 15 Feb. 1924 (P.R.O.N.I., Cabinet Secretariat papers, CAB 9B/18).

123 Letter issued by D. I. Nixon for public circulation, 11 July 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Ministry of Home Affairs files, HA/32/1/254).

124 Statement of Constable Furlong, Leopold Street Barracks, 22 Mar. 1922 (N.A.I., State Paper Office files, S11195).

125 Northern Whig, 24, 26 July 1920; McFadden, Owen (ed.), The century speaks: Ulster voices (Dublin, 1999), p. 88Google Scholar; Parkinson, , Belfast’s unholy war, p. 43Google Scholar.

126 Irish News, 3 Jan. 1922 (loyalist sniper and Norfolk private killed); ibid., 16, 17 Feb. 1922 (military take on loyalist snipers, Stanhope Street area); McDermott, , Northern divisions, p. 169 (Norfolk private wounded, mid-Feb. 1922)Google Scholar.

127 Irish News, 16 Feb. 1922.

128 Ibid., 8 Mar. 1922. Conflict also flared between the military and loyalists in the docks at this time: a bomb was thrown at soldiers in Dale Street and a loyalist sniper, Robert Hazzard, was shot dead: ibid., 8, 9 Mar. 1922; Kenna, , Facts & figures, p. 75Google Scholar.

129 Letter from A. W. Hungerford to James Craig, 8 Mar. 1922 (P.R.O.N.I., Cabinet Secretariat papers, CAB/6/37).

130 Irish News, 9 Mar. 1922.

131 Ibid., 10 Mar. 1922.

132 Ibid.

133 Blok, , Honour & violence, p. 9Google Scholar.

134 Hart, , The I.R.A. at war, p. 24Google Scholar.

135 Horowitz, , The deadly ethnic riot, p. 1.Google Scholar

136 Hart, , The I.R.A at war, p. 251Google Scholar, my emphasis: in Belfast ‘both sides got caught up in the same tit-for-tat battle of reprisals that drove the southern guerrilla war and attendant ethnic killings’.

137 Ibid., pp 75–6.

138 Although he simultaneously (and powerfully) describes the 1920s Belfast Troubles as ‘a limited war for territorial security and political mastery’: ibid., p. 251.

139 Derry Journal, 21 June 1922.

140 Quoted in Gillespie, G., Years of darkness: the Troubles remembered (Dublin, 2008), p. 108Google Scholar.

141 For instance Smith, M.L.R., Fighting for Ireland? The military strategy of the Irish republican movement (London, 1995)Google Scholar.

142 This was only just been introduced, on 21 March 1922: Farrell, , Arming the Protestants, p. 99.Google Scholar

143 Kenna, , Facts & figures, pp 106–12Google Scholar.

144 Blok, , Honour and violence, p. 9Google Scholar. I am deeply grateful to Dr Marc Mulholland, Professor Roy Foster and the anonymous I.H.S. readers for their criticisms of earlier drafts of this article. I am also deeply indebted to Maura Pringle of Queen’s University, Belfast, for her skill and care in drawing up the maps.