male and 1,000 female workers were expelled (about 10 per cent of the nationalist population of Belfast).93 Protestant socialists (‘rotten prods’) were also expelled from their jobs.94 During the two years of intense sectarian violence in Belfast, from 1920 to 1922, over 1,000 Protestants were forced out of their homes.95
The unrest travelled from the workplace to the streets of Belfast, resulting in nineteen dead and many more wounded or homeless within just five days.96 ‘Retaliation from the Catholic community was not long in coming, provoking yet more retribution from the loyalists.’97 As the city was besieged by sectarian violence, the Government of Ireland Bill was still manoeuvring its way through the House of Commons. Devlin summed up the incredulity felt by many nationalists in relation to the British government’s insistence on proceeding with the bill whilst Ireland was in a state of unrest, with the vast majority of its citizens totally opposed to the proposed settlement. He accused the government of not inserting
a single Clause … to safeguard the interests of our people. This is not a scattered minority. Will the House believe we are a hundred thousand Catholics in a population of four hundred thousand? It is a story of weeping women, hungry children, hunted men, homeless in England, houseless in Ireland. If this is what we get when they have not their Parliament, what may we expect when they have that weapon, with wealth and power strongly entrenched? What will we get when they are armed with Britain’s rifles, when they are clothed with the authority of government, when they have cast round them the Imperial garb, what mercy, what pity, much less justice or liberty, will be conceded to us then? That is what I have to say about the Ulster Parliament.98
Rather than listening to Devlin or those whom he represented, the British government took two steps in late 1920, on the advice of James Craig, that showed the inevitability of partition and highlighted that the only voices being listened to in Ireland were those of the Ulster unionists. Before the Government of Ireland Bill even became law in December 1920, Craig’s proposals to commission an official policing force – the Specials – for the area that would become Northern Ireland and create the post of assistant under-secretary for the same area were granted.99 The machinery of the new northern jurisdiction was being put in place. The partition of Ireland was taking a tangible form.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Armed only with a table, a chair and an Act of Parliament’
During the summer of violence in Ulster in 1920, unionists looked to take responsibility for the enforcement of public order in the province. Although the UVF had not been active between 1914 and 1919, its members had retained their weapons.1 As the unrest spread to Ulster, many started to organise into vigilante groups. One, ‘Fermanagh Vigilance’, was organised by Sir Basil Brooke, future Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, who ‘felt that the hotheads on the Ulstermen’s side might take the matter into their own hands, if not organised’.2 He urged Dublin Castle to form an official special constabulary in June.3 Another vigilante group, ‘Protective Patrol’, formed by John Webster in Armagh city, sought and received 174 UVF rifles from the Ulster Unionist Council.4 ‘Worried lest Loyalists at the local level should pass beyond the Unionist Party’s own control, Sir James Craig assigned Colonel W.B. Spender the task of resurrecting the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in order to harness Loyalists’ militant energies’.5 Unionists looked to police themselves as they did not trust the RIC. As an all-Ireland body, its membership was mainly Catholic, and with the IRA campaign, ‘the authorities had begun to transfer the most zealous and strongly loyalist RIC men to the South and West and send old, inefficient, unenthusiastic or even suspect men to the North’.6
The violence that accompanied the expulsion of workers dissipated in late July. However, another wave began after the death of RIC district inspector Oswald Swanzy in Lisburn in August. Swanzy was believed to have been involved in the killing of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Thomas MacCurtain, in March 1920, thus making him a prime target of the IRA.7 He was shot dead on 22 August as he left a church service in Lisburn. The loyalist reaction led to the expulsion of almost the entire Catholic population of Lisburn from their homes. 300 homes were destroyed.8 Catholic families fleeing Lisburn took trains to Belfast or Newry, and many had to walk to Belfast, crossing the Divis Mountain en route. The rioting spread to Belfast, where twenty-two people were killed in just five days.9 On 30 August, ‘the military authorities brought in a curfew from 10:30pm to 5:00am for the Belfast area. It was to last, with variations in the times, until 1924.’10
Even though most of the violence was perpetrated against Catholics, Craig warned ‘that the loyalists were losing faith in the government’s determination to protect them, and were threatening an immediate recourse to arms which would precipitate a civil war’.11 He attended a ministerial conference in London on 2 September where he used the pretext of attempting to keep the extreme loyalist elements in harness to demand a special Ulster constabulary to serve only the area that would become Northern Ireland. Ultimately, Craig wanted the nucleus of the UVF to form an armed constabulary for the six counties. The Conservative Party leader, Bonar Law, was unsure and pointed out that ‘if we armed Ulster, public opinions in this country would say the Government was taking sides and ceasing to govern impartially’.12 The military Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, Nevil Macready, and the leading civil servant in Dublin Castle, Under-Secretary John Anderson, were also opposed. Macready wrote to Bonar Law, stating that a remobilised and rearmed UVF ‘would undoubtedly consist entirely of Protestants, and no amounts [sic] of so-called loyalty is likely to restrain them if the religious question becomes acute … the arming of the Protestant population of Ulster will mean the outbreak of civil war in this country, as distinct from the attempted suppression of rebellion with which we are engaged at present’.13
He threatened to resign if the UVF was recognised. It wasn’t. However, helped by the backing of Arthur Balfour and Bonar Law, Craig was granted his special constabulary. Balfour felt that ‘in view of the terms of the Bill the government would be justified in thus hiving off the Ulster administration forthwith from that of the rest of Ireland’.14 The British government, fearing the public would think they were taking sides, wanted it to appear as if they had had the idea. Otherwise, as Bonar Law told Lloyd George, it would seem ‘as if we were acting on their dictation’.15 The special constabulary was meant to be for all of Ireland, but ‘the relevant Cabinet minutes betray the government’s actual motivation: they refer to the creation of the special constabulary in “Ireland”, with “Ireland” written in pen over the crossed out “Ulster” in typescript’.16
The Ulster Special Constabulary came into public existence in October 1920, with enrolment starting on 1 November and an initial strength of 3,000 planned. Its members were organised into three classes: The ‘A’ class consisted of full-time uniformed police auxiliaries; the ‘B’ class were employed on a part-time basis and allowed to keep their weapons at home, whilst the ‘C’ class, the largest group, were only to be called out for emergencies, such as invasions.17 Enrolment was slow at first, with many suspicious that they would be asked to serve in the south or west of Ireland. They had to be reassured that they would only have to serve in the six counties.18 According to Robert Lynch, while northern Catholics were officially allowed to join the force, few did nor were they actively encouraged to do so. From the very beginning, northern nationalists saw the Specials as being ‘nothing more and nothing less that the dregs of the Orange lodges, armed and equipped to overawe Nationalists and Catholics, and with … an inclination to invent “crimes” against Nationalists and Catholics’.19
The new special constabulary was placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Wickham, the divisional commissioner of the RIC for Ulster, partly answering to another new appointee, the Assistant Under-Secretary for Ireland to be based in Belfast, Sir Ernest Clark.20 Craig also won the support of the British government in securing the appointment of the Assistant Under-Secretary (Clark) with responsibility for the area that would make up Northern Ireland before the Government of Ireland Bill was enacted in December 1920. Clark claimed that his appointment was not a preliminary step to partition.21 In reality, however, it was, and signified yet another
