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Tag Archives: Northern Ireland


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Founding of the “Belfast News Letter”

belfast-news-letter

The Belfast News Letter, one of Northern Ireland‘s main daily newspapers and the oldest English language general daily newspaper still in publication, is founded on September 1, 1737.

The Belfast News Letter is originally printed in Joy’s Entry in Belfast. The Joys are a family of Huguenot descent who add much to eighteenth-century Belfast, noted for their compiling materials for its history. Francis Joy, who founds the paper, had come to Belfast early in the century from the County Antrim village of Killead. In Belfast, he marries the daughter of the town sovereign and sets up a practice as an attorney. In 1737, he obtains a small printing press which is in settlement of a debt and uses it to publish the town’s first newspaper at the sign of “The Peacock” in Bridge Street. The family later purchases a paper mill in Ballymena and are able to produce enough paper not only for their own publication but for the whole province of Ulster.

Originally published three times weekly, the Belfast News Letter becomes a daily in 1855. The title is now located at two addresses – a news section in Donegall Square South in central Belfast, and a features section in Portadown, County Armagh. Before the partition of Ireland, the Belfast News Letter is distributed island wide.

The newspaper’s editorial stance and readership, while originally republican, is now strongly unionist. Its primary competitors are the Belfast Telegraph and The Irish News. The Belfast News Letter has changed hands several times since the mid-1990s, and since 2005 is owned by the Johnston Press holding company Johnston Publishing (NI). The full legal title of the newspaper is the Belfast News Letter, although the word “Belfast” no longer appears on the masthead.

Historical copies of the Belfast News Letter, dating back to 1828, are available to search and view in digitised form at the British Newspaper Archive.


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Death of Paddy Devlin, Northern Ireland Labour Activist

paddy-devlin

Paddy Devlin, Irish social democrat and Labour activist, former Stormont Member of Parliament (MP), a founder of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive, dies in Belfast’s Mater Hospital on August 15, 1999, after a long illness.

Devlin is born into a highly political household in the Pound Loney in the Lower Falls of West Belfast on March 8, 1925, and lives in the city for almost all his life. His early activism is confined to Fianna Éireann and then the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and as a result he is interned in Crumlin Road Gaol during the World War II. He leaves the republican movement upon his release.

After the war, and in search of work, he spends some time in Portsmouth working as a scaffolder and in Coventry working in the car industry. In Coventry he becomes interested in Labour and trade union politics and briefly joins the British Labour Party.

Returning to Belfast in 1948 Devlin helps establish the Irish Labour Party there after the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) splits on the issue of partition. He later beats Gerry Fitt to win a seat on the city council. Later Catholic Action claims the Irish Labour Party is infested with communists and ensures the party is effectively wiped-out causing Devlin to lose his seat.

In the mid 1960s Devlin joins the revived NILP and beats Harry Diamond for the Falls seat in Stormont. Devlin then goes on, with Fitt, John Hume, Austin Currie, and others to found the SDLP in 1970. He is later involved, at the request of William Whitelaw, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in ensuring safe passage for Gerry Adams for talks with the British government in 1973. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973 and Minister of Health and Social Services in the power-sharing Executive from January 1, 1974, to May 28, 1974.

In 1978 Devlin establishes the United Labour Party, which aims to be a broad-based Labour formation in Northern Ireland. He stands under its label for the European Parliament in 1979 but polls just 6,122 first preferences (1.1% of those cast) and thereby loses his deposit.

In 1987 Devlin, together with remnants of the NILP and others, establishes Labour ’87 as another attempt at building a Labour Party in Northern Ireland by uniting the disparate groups supporting labour and socialist policies but it too meets with little or no success. In 1985 he loses his place on Belfast City council.

Devlin suffers from severe diabetes and throughout the 1990s suffers a series of ailments as his health and sight collapse.


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Bloody Friday in Belfast

bloody-friday-1972

At least twenty Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombs explode in Belfast on July 21, 1972, during the Troubles in what has become known as “Bloody Friday.” Most of the bombs are car bombs and most target infrastructure, especially the transport network. Nine people are killed, including two British soldiers and five civilians, while 130 are injured.

In late June and early July 1972, a British government delegation led by William Whitelaw holds secret talks with the Provisional IRA leadership. As part of the talks, the IRA agrees to a temporary ceasefire beginning on June 26. The IRA leaders seek a peace settlement that includes a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland by 1975 and the release of republican prisoners. However, the British refuse and the talks break down. The ceasefire comes to an end on July 9.

Bloody Friday is the IRA’s response to the breakdown of the talks. According to the IRA’s Chief of Staff, Seán Mac Stíofáin, the main goal of the bombing operation is to wreak financial harm. It is a “message to the British government that the IRA could and would make a commercial desert of the city unless its demands were met.” Some also see it as a reprisal for Bloody Sunday in Derry six months earlier. The attack is carried out by the IRA’s Belfast Brigade and the main organiser is Brendan Hughes, the brigade’s Officer Commanding.

The bombings occur during an 80-minute period on the afternoon of Friday, July 21. At least 24 bombs are planted. At least 20 explode and the rest fail to detonate or are defused. At the height of the bombing, the middle of Belfast “resembled a city under artillery fire; clouds of suffocating smoke enveloped buildings as one explosion followed another, almost drowning out the hysterical screams of panicked shoppers.” According to The Guardian, “for much of the afternoon, Belfast was reduced to near total chaos and panic. Thousands streamed out of the stricken city…and huge traffic jams built up. All bus services were cancelled, and on some roads, hitchhikers frantically trying to get away lined the pavements.”

Nine people are killed and 130 are injured, some of them horrifically mutilated. Of those injured, 77 are women and children. All of the deaths are caused by two of the bombs – at Oxford Street bus depot and at Cavehill Road. The Oxford Street bomb kills two British soldiers and four Ulsterbus employees. One employee is a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) reservist, one is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary, and the other two are civilians. The Cavehill Road bomb kills three civilians.

The IRA’s Belfast Brigade claims responsibility for the bombings and says that it had given warnings to the security forces before the bombs exploded. It says that the Public Protection Agency, the Samaritans and the press “were informed of bomb positions at least 30 minutes to one hour before each explosion.” Mac Stíofáin says, “It required only one man with a loud hailer to clear each target area in no time” and alleged that the warnings for the two bombs that claim lives are deliberately ignored by the British for “strategic policy reasons.”


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Death of Francis McCloskey, First Fatality of “The Troubles”

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Francis McCloskey, a 67-year-old Catholic civilian, dies on July 14, 1969, one day after being hit on the head with a baton by an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) during street disturbances in Dungiven, County Derry. McCloskey is sometimes considered to be the first fatality of The Troubles.

McCloskey is found unconscious on July 13 near the Dungiven Orange Hall following a police baton charge against a crowd who had been throwing stones at the hall. Witnesses later say they had seen police beating a figure with batons in the doorway where McCloskey is found, although police claim he had been unconscious before the baton charge and may have been hit with a stone.

The Troubles is the common name for the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that begins in the late 1960s and is deemed by most to end with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mainly take place in Northern Ireland, violence spills over at times into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.

The conflict is primarily political, but it also has an ethnic or sectarian dimension, although it is not a religious conflict. A key issue is the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Unionists and loyalists, who are mostly Protestants and consider themselves British, generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists and republicans, who are mostly Catholic and consider themselves Irish, generally want it to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. The conflict begins amid a campaign to end discrimination against the Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government and police force in 1968. The campaign is met with violence, eventually leading to the deployment of British troops and subsequent warfare.

The main participants in the Troubles are republican paramilitaries such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), loyalist paramilitaries such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and political activists and politicians. The security forces of the Republic of Ireland play a smaller role. More than 3,500 people are killed in the conflict, of whom 52% were civilians, 32% are members of the British security forces, and 16% are members of paramilitary groups. There has been sporadic violence since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, including a campaign by anti-ceasefire republicans.


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Edward Martin Hurson Dies on Hunger Strike

edward-martin-hursonEdward Martin Hurson, a volunteer in the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), dies on July 13, 1981, after 46 days on hunger strike.

Hurson, from Cappagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, is one of nine children born to Johnnie and Mary Ann Hurson. He is educated to a primary level at Crosscavanagh Primary School in Galbally and at secondary level in St. Patrick’s, Galbally.

After leaving school, he works as a welder for a while before going to England where he stays for eighteen months with his brother Francis and works in the building trade. Returning to County Tyrone at the end of 1974, both he and his brother spend time in Bundoran, County Donegal, a known IRA training and supply centre.

In November 1976, Hurson, together with Kevin O’Brien, Dermot Boyle, Peter Kane, and Pat O’Neill are arrested. Hurson is tried and convicted of involvement in three IRA landmine incidents, one at Cappagh in September, one at Galbally, County Tyrone in November 1975 and a third at Reclain in February 1976, when several members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment narrowly escape being killed. He receives concurrent sentences of twenty, fifteen, and five years for these convictions.

Hurson becomes engaged to his long-term girlfriend, Bernadette Donnelly, while in prison. He is part of the blanket protest and joins the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike on May 28, replacing Brendan McLaughlin who withdraws following a perforated stomach ulcer.

He loses the ability to hold down water after about 40 days on hunger strike, and dies of dehydration after only 46 days, considerably shorter than any other hunger striker (the next shortest is Francis Hughes at 59 days). Near the end, his family considers the possibility of intervening to save his life, but they are told that he would probably have permanent brain damage.


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The Springhill Massacre

springhill-massacre

The Springhill Massacre, a shooting incident which claims five lives in the Springhill estate in west Belfast, takes place on July 9, 1972. Three civilians, including a Catholic priest, and two members of Fianna Éireann are shot dead by British Army snipers firing from a timber yard.

The Northern Ireland Troubles have been raging for three years and hundreds have already been killed by the two warring factions in Northern Ireland, unionists, including Ulster loyalists and the British Army, and Irish republicans wanting unification with the Republic of Ireland. Violence has been taking place all day and the five dead are part of ten people killed on that day.

According to a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) statement on July 10, British Army snipers take up sniping positions in Corry’s timber yard and reinforced them with sandbags. Two cars pull into Springhill and the snipers fire two shots at them. One of the cars flees while the other drives a short distance and stops. The occupants get out and the snipers open fire again, seriously wounding one with a shot in the back of the head. A resident rushes to help the injured man but is immediately shot in the arm. This man’s brother and a friend run to the downed occupant, but both are shot by the snipers. At some point during this time a 13-year-old girl is fatally shot by the snipers. The parish priest, waving a white cloth, and a passer-by rush to her but a sniper kills both with a single bullet that passes through both their heads. All of the victims are unarmed.

The British Army disputes the IRA’s version of events and claims its troops were fired on first by the IRA, ending a temporary IRA ceasefire. A British Army spokesman states, “There has been a heavy exchange of fire between the IRA and troops. Some of the dead and wounded were undoubtedly caught in the crossfire.” On July 10, the British Army claims that it has killed terrorists. An open verdict is recorded at the inquest into the events.

No British soldier has been held accountable for these murders.


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State Visit of U.S. President John F. Kennedy

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John F. Kennedy, an Irish American and the first Catholic to become president of the United States, arrives in Ireland on a state visit on June 26, 1963. After Air Force One touches down at Dublin airport, Kennedy’s motorcade weaves through the streets of Dublin city, the thrilled crowd, lacking ticker tape, improvises by throwing rolls of bus tickets.

Kennedy is proud of his Irish roots and makes a special visit to his ancestral home in Dunganstown, County Wexford, while in the country. There, he is greeted by a crowd waving both American and Irish flags and is serenaded by a boys’ choir that sings The Boys of Wexford. Kennedy breaks away from his bodyguards and joins the choir for the second chorus, prompting misty-eyed reactions from both observers and the press.

Kennedy meets with 15 members of his extended Irish family at the Kennedy homestead in Dunganstown. There he enjoys a cup of tea and some cake and makes a toast to “all those Kennedys who went and all those Kennedys who stayed.” His great-grandfather, Thomas Fitzgerald, had left Ireland for the United States in the middle of the Great Famine of 1848 and settled in Boston, becoming a cooper. Generations of his descendants go on to make their mark on American politics.

At the time of JFK’s visit to Ireland, the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic has been an independent nation for 41 years. The northern counties of the island, however, remain part of the largely Protestant British Empire and still suffer from long-standing sectarian violence. On the day after his arrival in Dublin, Kennedy speaks before the Irish parliament, where he openly condemns Britain’s history of persecuting Irish Catholics. Two days later, he travels to England, America’s oldest ally, to meet with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his cabinet to discuss setting up a pro-democratic regime in British Guiana.

Kennedy later tells his aides that his favourite part of the trip was the wreath laying and silent funeral drill done by the Irish Army cadets at Arbour Hill military cemetery in Dublin.

Five months later, his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, makes a special request to the Irish government. She asks that those same Irish army cadets, who so impressed the President on his visit, perform the drill again at his state funeral. Within days, those awe-stuck, trembling young men stand just inches away from foreign dignitaries from over 90 countries and perform their silent funeral drill in memory of a president that had inspired their country just a few short months earlier.


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The 1996 Manchester Bombing

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The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates a powerful 3,300-pound truck bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England, at 11:17 AM on June 15, 1996. The biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since World War II, it targets the city’s infrastructure and economy and causes widespread damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million.

The IRA sends telephone warnings about 90 minutes before the bomb is detonated. The area is evacuated but the bomb squad, using a remote-controlled device, is unable to defuse the bomb in time. More than 200 people are injured, but there are no fatalities. At the time, England is hosting the UEFA Euro ’96 football championships and a match between Russia and Germany is to take place in Manchester the following day.

The Marks & Spencer store, the sky bridge connecting it with the Arndale Centre, and neighbouring buildings are destroyed. The blast creates a mushroom cloud which rises 1,000 feet into the sky. Glass and masonry are thrown into the air and people are showered by falling debris behind the police cordon a half mile away. A search of the area for casualties is confused by mannequins blasted from shop windows, which are sometimes mistaken for bodies.

Since 1970 the Provisional IRA has been waging a campaign aimed at forcing the British government to negotiate a withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Although Manchester has been the target of IRA bombs before 1996, it has not been subjected to an attack of this scale. The IRA had ended its seventeen-month ceasefire in February 1996 with a similarly large truck bomb attack on the London Docklands.

The bombing is condemned by John Major‘s government, the opposition, and by individual members of parliament (MPs) as a “sickening”, “callous,” and “barbaric” terrorist attack. Early on, Major states that, “This explosion looks like the work of the IRA. It is the work of a few fanatics and…causes absolute revulsion in Ireland as it does here.” Sinn Féin is criticised by Taoiseach John Bruton for being “struck mute” on the issue in the immediate aftermath. The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, states he is “deeply outraged by the bomb explosion” and joins Bruton and Major in “utterly condemning this brutal and cowardly act of terrorism.” On June 20, 1996, the IRA claims responsibility for the bombing and states that it “sincerely regretted” causing injury to civilians.

Several buildings near the explosion are damaged beyond repair and have to be demolished, while many more are closed for months for structural repairs. Most of the rebuilding work is completed by the end of 1999, at a cost of £1.2 billion, although redevelopment continues until 2005. The perpetrators of the attack have not been caught and Greater Manchester Police concede it is unlikely that anyone will ever be charged in connection with the bombing.


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Formation of the Independent Orange Order

independent-orange-orderThe Independent Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organisation, is formed in Belfast on June 11, 1903 by Thomas Sloan and others associated with the Belfast Protestant Association, who have been expelled from the Orange Order because they voice opposition to it being used for party political ends by Ulster Unionists. Originally it is associated with the labour movement, but it soon realigns itself with traditional unionist politics.

It takes its name in memory of King William of Orange of the house of Orange who fights at the Battle of the Boyne, brings about the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights giving the Westminster parliament ultimate power of the country rather than the Monarch. The Independent Order is small compared to the main organisation with 1,500 to 2,000 members. It is largely based around north County Antrim in Northern Ireland but has lodges around the world, including England, Scotland, and Australia. Its annual main Twelfth of July demonstration is held in a north Antrim town or village.

The first notable effect after the formation of the Independent Order is a more liberal interpretation of the rules of the “Old Order.” In the early years of the Institution, many suffer the full wrath of the “powers that be,” who are opposed to any splitting of the Orange Order. Jobs are lost, homes are burned, and their headquarters in Belfast is bombed.

Independent Orangeism today maintains that it is essential for the Orange Institution to be kept free from politics and to guard the principles of Reformation Protestantism. They often express alarm when they believe these principles are endangered by conciliatory politicians. They are opposed to ecumenism and, while being opposed to Orangeism being linked to the Ulster Unionist Party, they are not apolitical and tend to work alongside unionist politicians and parties.

The Institution also promotes Ulster Protestant history and proclaims the principle of “Liberty of Conscience.” They declare their right to think and act independently without direction from political or clerical masters, they seek to strengthen the position of Orangeism, and they often warn of the danger of the development of a social and cultural Orangeism devoid of Protestant principle.


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Patrick Magee Found Guilty of Grand Brighton Hotel Bombing

patrick-joseph-magee

Patrick Joseph Magee of Belfast is found guilty on June 10, 1986, of planting a bomb at the Grand Brighton Hotel in 1984 which kills five people but misses its primary target, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The bombing is testament to the ingenuity of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its bomb makers.

The 30-pound bomb is planted behind a bath in a room on the sixth floor more than three weeks prior to the Prime Minister’s visit. Timed to go off on the final day of the conference, it explodes in the early morning hours of October 12, 1984 and nearly wipes out most of Thatcher’s cabinet, killing five prominent Conservatives and injuring thirty-four.

The bomb destroys a bathroom that Mrs. Thatcher had been in just a few minutes earlier.

Magee stays in the hotel four weeks previously under the false name of Roy Walsh, during the weekend of September 14-17, 1984. He plants the bomb, which includes a long-delay timer, in the bathroom wall of his room, number 629. Magee becomes the primary suspect when forensic officers find his palm print on a hotel registration card following the blast.

Magee is arrested in the Queen’s Park area of Glasgow on June 22, 1985 with other members of an active service unit, including Martina Anderson, while planning other bombings.

Sentenced to a minimum 35 years in jail, he is released from prison in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement early release program. Magee is one of many on both sides of the conflict whose release raises differing emotions.

In one of the more compelling twists associated with the Northern Ireland troubles, Magee works diligently since his release to ease tensions in Northern Ireland and develops a strong working relationship with Jo Berry, daughter of Sir Anthony Berry MP who was killed in the Grand Brighton Hotel blast. They first meet publicly in November 2000 in an effort at achieving reconciliation. They have met publicly on more than one hundred occasions since that date.