On July 21, 1920, the Belfast Shipyard Expulsions take place as thousands of Catholic workers and socialists in Belfast’s shipyards are attacked and driven from their jobs following Edward Carson’s speech on the Twelfth at Finaghy during the annual industrial holiday. This day marks the first day back at work after the holiday, and the violence erupts in the shipyards, particularly in the Harland & Wolff yards.
The disturbances are part of a wider Belfast pogrom in 1920, rooted in sectarian tensions between unionist and nationalist communities. The Twelfth of July celebrations in Finaghy have been a focal point for nationalist and socialist mobilisation, and Carson’s speech is seen by many Catholic workers as inflammatory, stoking fears of reprisals.
The targeted groups of the expulsions include Catholic workers, trade unionists, and socialist activists, many of whom are from the working class “plebeian” strata. Reports describe beatings, assaults, and intimidation in the shipyards, with workers being pushed out of their posts or forced to leave premises. The expulsions disrupt shipbuilding operations, as skilled labour is removed from the workforce overnight. The events reinforce sectarian divisions, with unionist groups and some employers using the violence to assert control over the workforce.
By July 1920, newspapers are the main source of news, with current affairs often appearing on later pages. Coverage in papers such as the Belfast News Letter, Belfast Telegraph, The Irish Times, and Freeman’s Journaldescribe the expulsions as part of a broader outbreak of violence, but without the front-page headlines typical of later conflicts. The absence of radio broadcasts means that news is spread through print, handbills, and word of mouth.
The July 21, 1920, expulsions are a turning point in the sectarian conflict in Belfast, marking a shift from political mobilisation to direct, violent confrontation in the industrial heart of the city. They reflect the deep entrenchment of sectarianism in the shipbuilding industry and foreshadow further violence in the years leading up to the Irish Civil War.
O’Brien is a ship builder and designer, and his notable boats include the Kelpie (used for gun running in 1914), the Saoirse (in which he circumnavigates the globe) and the Ilen (a Falkland Islands service ship).
O’Brien is credited with two buildings in his lifetime: the Co-operative Hall in County Donegal and the People’s Hall in County Limerick. He is also known as a naval architect, having designed two ships, the Saoirse and the llen. He later captains both of these ships himself.
In Saoirse, a 20-ton, 42-foot ketch designed and built in 1922 in Baltimore, County Cork, he and three crew members circumnavigate the globe between 1923 and 1925 – the first recorded by an amateur skipper from west to east, the first yacht circumnavigation by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin, and the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world’s ports and harbours. His voyage begins and ends at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, where he lives. His account of the voyage, Across Three Oceans, (1927) becomes one of the classics of maritime literature.
Up until O’Brien’s circumnavigation, this route is the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).
O’Brien’s seagoing experiences are put to use in his design of the Ilen, which is built for the Falkland Islands as a service boat and launched in the spring of 1926. In 1998, Ilen returns to the site where she was first built, on the River Ilen near Baltimore, County Cork, where she undergoes a full restoration and is re-launched in May 2018. This task provides work-based learning for the students of the Ilen School.
O’Brien has some involvement with gun running in 1914 on behalf of the Irish Volunteers, for political reasons and because he has experience in sailing. On July 26, 1914, nine hundred guns are brought to Howth harbour aboard Erskine Childers‘ yacht Asgard. As part of the same operation, O’Brien transports arms on his yacht, Kelpie. The guns on Kelpie are transshipped to another yacht, Chotah, owned by Sir Thomas Myles, before being landed at Kilcoole in County Wicklow on August 1, 1914. After the gun running incidents, he serves in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
In 1928, O’Brien marries a well-known artist, Kathleen Francis, the youngest daughter of Sir George Clausen, RA. The couple thereafter moves to Ibiza, where they live on the Saoirse until Kathleen’s death in 1936. They have no children. Relocating to Cornwall, where he lives with his sister, he writes books on sailing and works of fiction for children. Although too old for active service when war with Germany breaks out in 1939, he assists the British war effort by serving in the Small Ships Pool, which delivers support vessels across the Atlantic and brings food supplies from the United States in private yachts.
In 1940 O’Brien sells Saoirse to the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club. The boat remains in use until 1980, when it is lost off the Jamaican coast. After the war he retires to another sister’s home in Foynes, County Limerick, where he lives and continues to write books for children until his death on April 18, 1952.
Queen Victoria is built by Wilson shipbuilders of Glasgow, Scotland in 1838 for The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. She has a wooden hull, is 150 feet long and is powered by a two-cylinder steam engine.
The Queen Victoria leaves Liverpool on the night of February 14, 1853, with cargo and approximately 100 passengers. As it approaches the Irish coast at Howth it is hit by a snowstorm. It strikes Howth Head around 2:00 AM on February 15. The captain backs the ship away from the Head in hopes of being able to navigate into the harbor. The damage to the ship is more extensive than the captain thinks, and it quickly begins to fill with water. It drifts, dead in the water, and strikes below the Baily Lighthouse. It sinks 100 yards south of the lighthouse within 15 minutes of the second hit. Approximately 83 passengers and crew perish, including the captain. One lifeboat, with 17 passengers, makes it to shore.
A subsequent Board of Trade inquiry blames the ship’s captain and first officer, as well as the lighthouse crew. A fog bell is supposed to have been installed in the lighthouse in 1846, seven years earlier, but is delayed due to costs of other construction projects. The bell is finally installed in April 1853, as a result of the Queen Victoria shipwreck and the subsequent inquiry.
At least one attempt to raise the ship is made afterwards, which fails, and the ship is salvaged where she lay. The wreck is still in place.
Members of the Marlin Sun Aqua Club, Dublin discover the wreck in 1983. They report their discovery to the authorities and are in part responsible for having the first Underwater Preservation Order placed on a shipwreck in Irish waters. They also carry out the first underwater survey on such a wreck. The wreck is the first to be protected by The National Monuments Act (Historic Wreck), when the order is granted in 1984, thanks to representations made by Kevin Crothers, IUART, and the Maritime Institute of Ireland.
(Pictured: PS Queen Victoria’s shipwreck as depicted in The Nation)
Samson and Goliath, the twin shipbuildinggantry cranes situated in the shipyard of Harland & Wolff at Queen’s Island, Belfast, are listed on October 9, 2003, as historic monuments to ensure their preservation. The cranes, which are named after the Biblical figures Samson and Goliath, dominate the Belfast skyline and are landmark structures of the city.
The cranes are constructed by the German engineering firm Krupp, with Goliath being completed in 1969 and Samson in 1974. Goliath, the smaller of the cranes, stands 315 feet tall, while Samson stands 348 feet in height. Goliath sits slightly further inland closer to Belfast City. At the time Harland & Wolff is one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. The announcement that they are to be built is an important event at the time.
Each crane has a span of 459 feet and can lift loads of up to 840 tonnes to a height of 230 feet, making a combined lifting capacity of over 1,600 tonnes, one of the largest in the world. Prior to commissioning, the cranes are tested up to 1,000 tonnes, which bends the gantry downwards by over 12 inches. The dry dock at the base of the cranes is the largest in the world measuring 1,824 feet × 305 feet.
At its height, Harland & Wolff boasts 35,000 employees and a healthy order book, but in the years following the construction of the cranes, the workforce and business declines. The last ship to be launched at the yard to date is a roll-on/roll-offferry in March 2003. Since then the yard has restructured itself to focus less on shipbuilding and more on design and structural engineering, as well as ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for other projects to do with metal engineering and construction. Initially there is concern that the now largely redundant cranes would be demolished. However, on October 9, 2003 they are scheduled as historic monuments under Article 3 of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.
Northern Ireland Office Minister of the time Angela Smith states, “These cranes are an essential part of our city, our roots and our culture.” The cranes are not, technically, “listed buildings,” but are recognised by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency as buildings of “architectural or historic interest.”
Shipbuilding has ceased in Belfast, but the cranes are retained as part of the existing dry dock facility within the restructured shipyard, situated adjacent to the Titanic Quarter, a business, light industrial, leisure, and residential development on land now surplus to the heavy industrial requirements of the shipyard on Queen’s Island. They are kept in working order and used for heavy lifting by Harland & Wolff in its other activities.
Roach is born on December 25, 1815, at Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, the first of seven children to Patrick Roche, a retail salesman, and his wife Abigail Meany. In 1832, at the age of sixteen, he emigrates together with his cousin to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he is at first unable to find regular work, but eventually gains secure employment at the Howell Works of James P. Allaire on the recommendation of a former employee of his father.
In 1852, after 20 years in the employment of Allaire, Roach and three partners purchase the Etna Iron Works, a small New York City ironworks which has fallen into receivership. Roach soon becomes sole proprietor, and during the American Civil War transforms the Etna Iron Works into a major manufacturer of marine engines. He continues to prosper after the war and in 1867 he purchases the Morgan Iron Works on New York’s East River and relocates his business there.
In 1871, Roach purchases the Reaney, Son & Archbold shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania, which has fallen into receivership and renames it the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works. This becomes his main facility. Over the next few years, he founds a network of new companies in Chester to support the shipyard’s operations. To give his sons a stake in the business, Roach founds the firm of John Roach & Sons, which becomes the overall parent and marketing company. He also attempts to create his own shipping line with the establishment of the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company, but this venture is a costly failure.
From 1871 until 1885, John Roach & Sons is easily the largest and most productive shipbuilding firm in the United States, building more tonnage of ships than its next two chief competitors combined. In the mid-1880s the firm runs into trouble when a series of U.S. Navy contracts become the subject of political controversy. Roach signed the contracts under a Republican administration, but when the Democratic administration of Grover Cleveland comes to power, it voids one of the contracts. Doubts over the validity of the remaining three contracts make it impossible for John Roach & Sons to obtain loans and, in 1885, the Roach shipbuilding empire is forced into receivership.
During the contract disputes, Roach falls ill with a chronic mouth infection which is diagnosed as cancer in 1886. Roach undergoes surgery in the spring of 1886, but it provides only temporary relief. He dies at the age of 71 on January 10, 1887, while his business is still in the hands of receivers. Roach’s eldest son, John Baker Roach, assumes control of the business which continues for another 20 years, although it never regains the pre-eminent position in American shipbuilding that it had enjoyed under Roach Sr.
During its existence between 1871 and 1907, the shipyard established by Roach builds 179 iron ships, 98 under Roach’s own management and an additional 81 under that of John Baker Roach.
seamus dubhghaill 