North Belfast Another Scattered History

NORTH BELFASTNORTH BELFASTAnother Scattered History

Joe Baker

INTRODUCTIONBy John Ferris, Editor, North Belfast News

It has been a pleasure over the years to afford Joe Baker the space through the North BelfastNews to write about the history of our fair city and its surroundings.I have to first of all admit that I have never been much of a history buff myself. At school I wasmore interested in what was on TV that night than the Blitz.And I may never have read Joe’s work, had I not been Editor of the North Belfast News.But I’m glad I am, because Joe’s talent in making history come alive and sound exciting to thereader is something that I look forward to reading every week.And just as the North Belfast News has become part of the fabric life in this part of the city, sotoo has Joe Baker’s column.In the years since starting Joe quickly became a readers’ favourite. Indeed, in our last readersurvey the column this book is built around was the most popular across the paper’s pages.Week-on-week we receive letters and text messages about Joe’s column. And I can’t remembera time when we had more feedback over one article in our near eight-year history than whenJoe claimed that the Barrack built the biggest bonfire the north of the city has ever seen!History is normally written by the winner, but I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, to make yourown mind up as to who really had the biggest bonfire.Anyone who has ever read his weekly writings will know that whether it’s ghosts, ghouls,hangings or the war, Looking North never fails to entertain. In fact, there’s normally moremurder and intrigue in just one of Joe’s columns than Miss Marple and Poirot would have seenin their lifetimes.During his time at the North Belfast News he doubled his workload, starting to write for oursister paper, the Andersonstown News Monday edition. This increased the already countlesshours he spends working on the pieces of writing you have before you. Some have claimed thatjust "looking through old papers and copying out the stories" is easy. Those people couldn’t befurther from the truth.I know from personal experience the huge amount of hard work, dedication and energy putinto every single story on these pages for your pleasure. And it shines through in the writing.Whether you haven’t read his column before or you’re just looking forward to reading it allagain – sit back, relax and enjoy this latest instalment of articles.

I would like to dedicate this little booklet tothe memory of my childhood friend

Jim Madden who was tragically killed on the16th of October 1979

NORTH BELFASTAnother Scattered History

Joe Baker

Page 4 NORTH BELFAST Another Scattered History

A CAVEHILL GHOST STORYI have always stated North Belfastis, without doubt, the most historicpart of the city and with that longhistory comes stories of the strangeand unusual. There are thousands offascinating ghost stories in NorthBelfast but unfortunately most ofthem are undocumented and lack anyreal evidence such as a tragedyaround which the story is based.However one of the few documentedcases concerns a strange sighting inthe Cavehiil a short time before theoutbreak of the First World War. To-day when we think of the Cavehillwe think of the zoo, Belfast Castle,its surrounding area of natural beauty,the caves or Mc Art's Fort at the hillssummit. However, ninety years agomany people were visiting the areanot to see any of the above attrac-tions but in the hope of seeing a ghost

which was said to be roaming thehillside. In 1913 many people whohad visited the Cavehill at night re-ported hearing a wailing noise com-ing from within the woods. They hadstated that it sounded like a man cry-ing and that he was in a great deal ofdistress. Some of those who heard itinvestigated and ventured into thedarkness of the tress to search for theunfortunate man. Some of those whodid so found that the noises gotlouder and that when they appearedto be nearing the man they disap-peared suddenly.

JOKERThe matter was reported to the po-lice a number of times who searchedthe area twice but with no success.At various dates afterwards the po-lice were still receiving reports of the

noises but were now dismissing thewhole episode as the workings ofpractical jokers, however two yearslater the story took a completely dif-ferent twist. In June 1915 a man andwoman were out for a walk in thearea and as they were approachingthe castle they noticed somethingahead of them which seemed to befloating within the trees. The mandecided to take a closer look and,leaving the woman standing by thepathway, went in among the trees.A few moments later he came stum-bling down the hillside and, aftergrabbing the girl, both ran from thearea. After calming down and know-ing that he was within the safety ofthe Antrim Road area he told thewoman what happened. He statedthat when he got closer he saw whathe described as a man who was hov-

Cavehill at the time of the strange haunting

NORTH BELFAST Another Scattered History Page 5

ering in and out of the trees, he addedthat he watched for a few seconds andwhen the figure moved slowly to-wards him he ran back towards thepath falling a number of times. Helater had to be treated for cuts andsevere bruising. News of the sight-ing spread and dozens of peopleflocked to the Cavehill hoping tocatch a glance of the apparition butall went home disappointed. The po-lice soon got to hear about it and stillworking on the theory that it was apractical joker who had now got outof hand. They investigated and someof those who ‘knocked about’ thearea were even arrested, but onceagain no success.

POACHERThe story soon died away and wasnot heard again until five years later.In September 1920 two teenagersapproached the estate manager andtold him that they had seen some-one in the trees and, as it was dark,they were scared to go down the pathalone. The manager, believing it tobe poachers, agreed to see the pairdown and the trio set off. When theygot to the point where the youths sawthe man the manager had a closerlook with his lamp but discoverednothing, not even any signs to showit was poachers. He then told theteenagers that there were ghosts re-ported in the area some years ago andthat he and his fellow workers hadtrouble with the amount of peoplecoming to the area. The teenagerslaughed at the story and set off hometowards the Antrim Road which inthose days contained very fewhouses. After seeing them out of thegrounds the manager then set off

back to the castle. When he got tothe area were the boys told him oftheir sighting he saw a man standinglooking into the trees. Still thinkingthat he was a poacher the estate man-ager shouted a warning to him andthe man completely ignored him andmoved into the trees. The managerdashed towards him and shinning hislamp found, to his horror, that he wasfloating about two feet above theground. Dropping his lamp he ran tothe castle and told a colleague whathe had just seen. The two men re-mained within the castle until thenext day.

DISAPPEAREDOnce again numerous sightings werereported after this but the most sig-nificant was in March 1922. A manout walking his dog was strollingalong the path when he noticed aman standing on the path ahead ofhim. When he passed he noticed thatthe man was staring into the trees andhad not moved, just remained on theone spot. The man observed that hisdog was crouching down alongsidehim and was giving a slight growl.The walker continued and allowedhis dog off the lead.On his return down (which was ap-proximately an hour later) he wassurprised to discover that the manhad not moved and was still stand-ing and staring into the trees and withhis dog off its leash he noticed thatthe animal would not go near him.The walker then approached the manto see if he was all right but to hisshock he disappeared before his eyes.He then ran home and informed hisfamily of what he had just experi-enced.

SKULLA few weeks later two men, JohnMcAleavey of Alexandra Park Av-enue and Frederick Orr of DuncairnGardens, were walking in the areawhen they approached what they be-lieved to have been an unusual look-ing rock. To their horror they foundit to have been a human skull.The men immediately reported thefindings to the police at ChichesterRoad who sealed off the area wherethey recovered a full skeleton. Somebits of clothing and an old pair ofboots were attached to the bones,while alongside were found a smallempty medicine bottle and a teacup.A weather-eaten penknife and part ofa watch chain were the only articlesfound in the clothing. All was re-moved by a Sergeant Greeney andtwo constables. The police appealedfor information and published a de-scription of the findings in the localpress. When they did so a womancame to the barracks and identifiedthe belongings as those of her hus-band who had disappeared some timeago. She said that his name was JohnScott, who originally came fromWaringstown and started his ownbusiness as a tailor. It was stated thatall parties concerned believed theman had taken his own life.

The site in which the skeleton wasdiscovered was the area in which allthe previous sightings occurred andthe police were mystified on howthey had never discovered it before,however one theory for this was thatit may have been covered in bramble.After the remains were buried theghostly sightings were never seen, orheard of again.


BOMB ATTACK ON CHILDREN AND A PENSIONERSHOT DEAD – A TIPICAL NORTH BELFAST DAY

Old newspapers really do make abrilliant read and anyone who hasbeen to the collections in any of thelibraries will know exactly what I amtalking about. You don’t have to bea history buff to enjoy them either asyour interests can be from politics tosport to find the excuse to have asquint through them. Regular read-ers of my column will know that Ioften compile write-ups on there1920’s period in North Belfast whenatrocities such as the McMahon Fam-ily Murders occurred. Belfast dur-ing the partition of Ireland is a pe-riod I am fascinated in and the otherday I was looking through an oldpaper when one single page caughtmy eye. It was the Weekly NorthernWhig of Saturday 2nd September,1922, and the page in question be-gan with a report on the funeral ofMichael Collins which I read with

great interest. I was surprised at thewrite up being balanced as this wasa mainly Unionist newspaper and oneparagraph which gripped my atten-tion was as follows:-"A touching incident was witnesseda few minutes before the mass con-cluded. A military dispatch rider, car-rying in his hand a single white lily,rode up to the church and entered bythe main door. The emblem was atoken sent by Miss Kitty Kiernan, thedead leaders fiancee, and it wasplaced on the lid of the coffin, whereit rested during the progress of thefuneral procession to Glasnevin."To most reading this it would notseem to be a big deal reading this butwhen a sad personal touch is seenassociated to one who is elevated tolegendary status then it can remindus that, like us, they were only hu-man too.

In the column next to this we are in-formed of a Belfast man being shotdead in a picture house on theCrumlin Road. This occurred on the29th of August when a man namedPeter Mullan, aged 65, of 109 JoyStreet in the Markets area. Mr Mullanworked as an usher in the cinema andjust after the film started three shotswere heard and he fell to the floor.The audience panicked and made forthe exits and it was during this thatthe gunmen made there escape. Atthe same time eight people were in-jured in a bomb attack in the NorthQueen Street area. A number of chil-dren had been standing at the junc-tion of North Queen Street and EarlStreet when a bomb was thrown atthem. One of them, a boy namedHannin, who lived in nearbySpamount Street, told police that hewas playing with other children when

Bomb attacks on children playing in the street were acommon occurance. This picture shows children playing inEarl Street where one such attack occured.


an object like a large stone fell nearthem and exploded. He was thentaken to a house in Hardinge Streetfrom where he was taken to hospitalin an armoured car. Two other chil-dren were also taken to hospital.Mary Coogin, aged 14, of 40Hardinge Street and Mary Stewart ,aged 15, of 162 Earl Street both re-ceived serious injuries to their legs.The others injured were CatherineJennings, aged 17, of 47 GroveStreet, John Graham from SussexStreet, John Spence, aged 14, of 65Weir Street, Thomas Burns fromGrove Street and six year old LilyHagans of 60 Grove Street. At thistime attacks on children playing inthe streets were a common occur-rence and one of the most horrificoccurred in North Belfast when anumber of children were killed in aLoyalist bomb attack on them inWeaver Street.Nearby, in Vere Street, a womannamed Ellen Sweeny, was standingat her door talking to a neighbourwhen she was shot by a gunman fromNorth Queen Street. She was rushedto Dr. Calwell in York Street whereher wounds were dressed before be-ing rushed to hospital where shemade a full recovery. In the Corpo-ration Street area the IRA were alsoactive. At around midnight a mas-sive explosion was heard after abomb attack outside the SinclairSeaman’s Schoolhouse which hadbeen used as a post for the B-Spe-cials. No one was injured in the at-tack although one of the Special’shad a very narrow escape as hepassed just a few moments previ-ously.On the same page of the newspaper

were are also informed that a manwas shot on his way home in nearbyUpper Library Street. A man namedJames McKeating, aged 30, was shotin the neck as he was returning to hishome at number 22 Alton Street. Thereport informs us:-"McKeating, who is a married man,was hurrying home a few minutesbefore Curfew, and was passing Up-per Library Street going towards theOld Lodge Road, when a couple ofmen came from Upper Library Streetand deliberately fired a revolver athim, and then ran back into the thor-

oughfare and then disappeared. Hefell wounded in the neck, and waspromptly taken to the Mater Hospi-tal where he is stated to be in a criti-cal condition."So there we are - this is just a tinyselection of the stories contained onone single page of that old newspa-per. Given that there must be millionsof these pages in the bound volumesof the newspaper libraries I wouldnot like to guess how many storiesthere are on our local history but I’msure there are enough to keep mewriting for a while yet!

Looking up Donegall Street from York Street at around the time of the First World War

St James’s Church at the junction ofCliftonville Road and Antrim

Road around 1870. Most of thiswas destroyed during the

Luftwaffe Blitz in 1941 andlater rebuilt in its

present form.


MORE DRAMA FROM THEOLD VICTORIAN COURTS

Regular readers will be aware that it’sbeen a while since I brought you someof the drama from the old Belfast Court.Going by what I hear it would seem thatthis is one of your favourite peices andin answer to the question I amcontinoulsy - yes, they are all true!

May 4th 1895PAIR OF CRUEL SONS

John Kearney jnr was charged on awarrant with having threatened hisfather John Kearney. Mr Spillerprosecuted in the police cases. Theinformation on which the warrant wasissued for the prisoner’s apprehensionstated that the Accused was addicted todrink and was in the habit of abusinghis father. He worked none and on theWednesday, April 17th, he came homeand commenced to abuse his father andswore he would “knife him.” Owing tohis violence and threats his father wasafraid of him. The accused who had alarge number of records against him,was ordered to be imprisoned for threemonths, in default of finding bail for hisgood behaviour.John Morrison was charged with beingdrunk, with assaulting his father andalso threatening him. It appeared thatthe prisoner was under the influence ofdrink and smashed the door in hisfather’s house and also the door of aneighbour’s. On being arrested he threwhimself down on the ground and becamevery violent and it was with greatdifficulty that he could be removed tothe Police Office . When there he alsothreatened to take the life of his fatherand also spat in his face. Head-Constable Doyle characterised theprisoner as a desperado and stated thatthere were thirty-four records againsthim. The accused was fined 10 shillingsand costs for being drunk, 5 shillingsand 2 shillings-sixpence compensationfor the malicious injury and for theassault, two months imprisonment withhard labour and at the expiration of thattime, in default of finding bail for his

good behaviour in the future, to befurther imprisoned for two months.

November 14th 1866CHARGE OF CHILD-STEALING

John Woods, an ill-looking character,described as a professional beggar, wascharged with stealing a little girl namedQuinn, age seven years.Sub-Constable Murphy said that on theprevious evening he observed theprisoner walking through Greencastlewith a child on his back and he arrestedhim. The child was not crying but shebegan to cry when the witness took heroff the prisoner’s back.Mrs Quinn, mother of the child, said thatthe prisoner had no liberty from her totake away the child. She lived at RobertStreet and she had never seen theprisoner beforeMr Orme - Evidently he has some foulintent in taking her away.Mr Rea - He wanted to take the poorchild round the country and make abeggar of her.Mr Seeds - I believe he was convictedof a similar offence some time ago.Mr Orme (to the prisoner) - You are totake your trial at the Quarter Sessionsand I hope that you are well punished.

December 22nd 1866PULL THE OTHER ONE

Richard Watters was charged with beingdrunk and disorderly and withassaulting Sub-Constables Sherman andKing.Sherman said that at a late hour theprevious night the prisoner came rollingdrunk up against the door of theConstabulary Barracks at North QueenStreet. He then commenced to kick theshutters and swore that he did not carefor all the police in Belfast. Witnesswent out of the Barracks and advisedhim to go home. The prisoner thenattempted to get into the Barracks andstruck him a blow on the back of thehead with his fist. The prisoner next

caught hold of the witness by a whiskerand pulled a portion of it away.Mr Orme - I see that the one whiskerlooks longer than the other. (Laughter)You’ll have to apply the scissors to theother side and make them even.Sherman - I never suffered such pain inmy life. I was obliged to knock theprisoner down and he pulled me on topof him and attempted to choke me. Sub-Constable King - When I came to theassistance of Sherman, both he and theprisoner were lying on the ground. Icaught hold of the prisoner and he struckme a deliberate blow on the breast.The prisoner was sent to jail for twomonths.

THE CREDIT DRAPER SYSTEMMary Coyle, a wretched-lookingwoman, who carried a child in her arms,was brought up on a summons, chargedby James Moore, a credit draper, withobtaining goods from him under falsepretences.Mr A O’Rorke appeared for theprosecution and Mr Rea appeared forthe defendant.Hugh Houston, an assistant in thecomplainant’s establishment wasexamined and stated that the defendantcame to the shop in the company with aman whom she represented to be herhusband. On that pretence, he gotblankets and other articles. When hewent round to collect the money, hefound that the man she had representedto be her husband was not her husbandat all and her real husband stated thatknew nothing about the goods andrefused to pay for them.On cross-examination by Mr Rea, thewitness stated that before he gave thegoods to the defendant he gave her acard, informing her of the conditions onwhich she was to receive them. He alsogave her a pass book and an account wasopened between them. There had beensome money paid by the defendant tothe credit of the account.


The defendant denied that there was anyperson with her when she got the goods.She was quite willing to pay for the godswhen she was able.Mr O’Rorke applied for information tobe taken against the defendant and thecase returned for trial at the next QuarterSessions.The Mayor said there was no case tosend before a jury. He considered it wasvery bad practice for these credit drapersto be going round the town solicitingorders from women in the absence oftheir husbands, and, in his opinion, itwas not an honourable course for themto pursue.Mr O’Rorke - It is a course adopted bythe merchants of Belfast.The Mayor - I beg your pardon, it is notthe course adopted by the merchants ofthis town.Mr O’Rorke - They send travellersthrough all the towns soliciting orders.Mr Rea - But they don’t induce wivesto purchase goods in the absence of theirhusbands.The Mayor - I have been a long time inbusiness in Belfast and I never knew aparallel to the course which has been

pursued in this case at present beforethe Court.After some further discussion MrO’Rorke said he would withdraw thecase.At the conclusion of the case there wassome applause in the court which wasinstantly suppressed by the police.

Christmas Day 1866LANDLADY AND TENANT

Mary Lamp, a wretched-looking oldwoman, was charged with assaulting anold man named John Hughes by strikinghim witha poker. The complainant on beingcalled declined to press the charge.Head-Constable Lamb - I believe she ishis landlady.Mr Orme - I suppose he is a vary badtenant. He doesn’t pay his rent regularlyand she tried to knock it out of him witha poker. (Laughter)Mr Orme (To Hughes) - Are you amarried man?Hughes - I am married.Mr Orme - Are you a widow Mrs Lamp?Mrs Lamp - I am, your Worship.

Mr Orme - There may be something inthat. Now Mr Hughes, you had bettertake Mrs Lamp home (Laughter)The complainant and defendant left theCourthouse together - a circumstancewhich created much amusement.

Christmas Day 1866CONCEALMENT WITH INTENT

TO STEALGeorge Mulholland, Patrick Davey,Edward Lappin, Martin McClenaghanand Thomas Stevenson, five little boys,were charged by Harbour-ConstableGray with being concealed on DonegalQuay with intent to stealGray said that lately several delf cratesbehind the Glasgow shed had beenopened and some of the contents stolen.On that morning he observed that oneof the crates had been opened and hefound the prisoners in one of the WaterCommissioners’ large metal pipeswhich was lying convenient to the crate.The prisoners all stated that they werenewsboys and that they had gone intothe pipe to have a sleep. The prisonerswere discharged with a caution.

In Victorian Belfast this was the van that went around the various R.I.C. Barracks atnight, collecting the prisoners to bring to the Police Office at Townhall Street.

It is pictured here at the Musgrave Street Barrack.


HANGED BY THE NECKIn the first edition of this publicationI have told the stories of some of thehangings which occurred in theBelfast Prison on the Crumlin Road.Those which I did cover were onlythose which were connected withNorth Belfast but over random weeksI plan to highlight all the hangingswhich occurred in this historic NorthBelfast building. But before I em-bark on this I think that it is only fairthat I should present a brief historyof executions in Belfast. At one stagethese were open air public affairswith the idea being to create a stateof terror for any wouldbe wrongdoerbut the last public hanging on thestreets of Belfast took place in 1816.At around this time Peter’s Hill areawas to witness an outbreak of vio-lent acts associated with a disputebetween weavers and their employer,a certain Francis Johnston, who re-sided and had his business in thePeter’s Hill district. The actual weav-ing was done in the workers ownhomes at Millfield and BrownSquare. The weavers had organiseda boycott between themselves andhad taken an oath ‘neither to weavea web for him or portion of a web,nor permit others to work for him’.It was alleged that he had given outwork at lower prices than other em-ployers at the time and so the argu-ment soon developed in intensity.The intimidation of Johnston beganwith threatening letters, then on Au-gust 24th 1815, an attempt was madeto burn him out.He and his family had retired for thenight when his door and windowswere coated with tar (the petrol of

that period), and after a furtherbucket of this concoction was left atthe door the whole lot was set alight.Help was quickly at hand howeverand the blaze was extinguished. Toprevent the same thing happeningagain Johnston had all his windowsbarred and shutters were sheeted withiron. The boycott and subsequentthreats against Johnston continueduntil the following February whenevents took a different turn. A crowdof about twenty starving and angryweavers surrounded the house. Af-ter wrenching the bars off the win-dows to gain access, they placed anobject in the centre of the room andthen set fire to the parlour. A ser-vant, hearing the noise of the crowd,wakened the household and managedto hurl the cause of the blaze, a make-shift firebomb, out into the street

again. Johnston himself was by thistime at his upstairs window fromwhich he fired upon his attackerswith his blunderbuss. Just then thefirebomb exploded with a tremen-dous bang which made the wholestreet shake. The Johnston’s largehousehold consisting Johnston him-self, his wife, eight children, twomaids and one manservant miracu-lously escaped injury. After the ex-plosion the weavers attacked thehouse, firing in to it while Johnstondid his best to defend his family andhome. After several minutes the fir-ing abated and the weavers scattered.A town meeting the following daywas held to discuss this outrageagainst the business community anda £2,000 reward was offered, a hugesum in those days, for the convictionof the offenders. Several men were

Three horrific hangings in Belfast were as a result of a violent disputebetween weavers and a man named Francis Johnston.


subsequently arrested for the offenceand were detained in Carrick Gaol.Two of them, James Park and JamesDickson, were sentenced to 18months imprisonment with 300lashes each. The other men weresentenced to be hanged on the 18thSeptember 1816, even though no oneat the Johnston household werekilled. Another man William Grayturned ‘approver’ to save his ownneck, and in return for his evidencewas to secure the reward.

On the first week of September thedeath sentence was duly carried out.Two married men with young fami-lies, John Doe and John Magill werebrought along to Castle Place inBelfast. The exact location of thescaffold was at an open space oppo-site the Bank Buildings around thesite of the present newspaper kiosk.Four clergymen were in attendanceto the condemned men and the hang-man was himself disguised by a crepeheadmask. The Fifth DragoonGuards and the Royal Scots under thecommand of General Dalzell keptback the large crowds who throngedinto Castle Place to witness this pub-lic execution. The scaffold waserected that same day and when theplatforms and gibbets had been com-pleted, the condemned men ascendedthe platform. John Doe, who admit-ted that he was among the crowdwhich attacked the Johnston house,read aloud a passage from the NewTestament professing his hope in hissalvation and contrition for his of-fence. As a last request he asked thatthe following statement be published;"As I am shortly to stand before thejudgement seat of Jesus Christ, the

following in the presence of God, mySaviour, are my last words, dyingdeclaration and true confession. Iwas formerly a professor of the Gos-pel and united to a church of Christ,but forgetful of my profession, I fellfrom the truth, co-habited with awoman of bad character, was cut offfrom the church, and thus from stepto step was brought under the awfuldeserved chastenings of the Lord. Iacknowledge that, although I havenot been guilty of all the crimes laidto my charge at my trial, yet I havetransgressed the laws of my country,and do justly merit the execution ofthe sentence pronounced upon me."

John Magill also had a declarationwritten out which he wanted his min-ister, the Rev. J. Stewart, to readaloud to those gathered;"I, John Magill, as a dying man andimpressed with the awful idea of ap-pearing shortly before my Judge, dosolemnly declare my innocence re-specting the following fact swornagainst me by the approver, Gray.Contrary to the oath of said Gray, Iappeal to the Judge of all that so farfrom calling him to a meeting ofmuslin weavers at the house of oneWatson in the head of Mill Street,Belfast, I was never in that house inmy life nor did I then know that therewas any such house. I protest, more-over, in the same solemn manner thatin various other particulars both Grayand his wife gave false evidence onthe trial. I confess, however, with thedeepest contrition that I was presentwhen the outrage was committed onMr. Johnston’s house. I now see andam extremely sorry that I acted un-der the influence of mistaken views.

I was taught to believe that Mr.Johnston’s family did not sleep intheir own house. I had no idea oftaking lives. I now see the evil of allsuch combinations and outrages,though I once thought them innocentand even laudable. I see I have of-fended God, dishonoured religion,and injured society, for which I amextremely sorry. Imploring the par-doning mercy of God and forgivingall my enemies I die trusting in theatoning blood of Jesus Christ, myonly Redeemer."

When both statements had been readto the assembled crowds the cart onwhich both men were standing droveaway and the two weavers were im-mediately strangled to death. It wasreported that Magill was for a shorttime in severe convulsions while Doedied instantaneously. Both were leftto hang before the crowd for aroundan hour before they were cut down.Their bodies were given to theirfriends who were present. The bod-ies were placed in black cloth-cov-ered coffins with white mountingsand were carried across the LongBridge into County Down. Theywere buried in an unmarked grave inthe Burial Ground at Meeting-HouseGreen, Knockbreachan, CountyDown. There is no existing evidenceto what became of the Crown wit-ness, William Grayor whether he gotthe £2,000 reward. No stone marksthe grave of Doe or Magill who paidthe ultimate price for their offence.Another person, it should be noted,was later executed for his part in theweavers action against Mr. Johnston.That man was Joseph Madden, an-other Belfast weaver.


THE HANGING OFHENRY JOY McCRACKENOne of the most famous Belfasthangings was that of Henry JoyMcCracken, the United Irishman, in1798. At that time most of Europewas witnessing a general politicalupheaval and Ireland was by nomeans any different from the rest.The government of the time imposeda rigid clampdown after several smallrebellions were organised throughoutthe country. In Belfast Henry JoyMcCracken was one of the lastUnited Irishmen to be publicly ex-ecuted at High Street. McCrackenwas related to the noted Joy family,a well to do business family at thattime and founder of the BelfastNewsletter. He was charged withtreason relating to his part in the ris-ing at Antrim but the Crown Attor-ney, John Pollock, hoped to do a dealwith McCracken. In return for in-

criminating evidence against otherinsurgents, especially the name of theleader of the Antrim Rebellion, inwhose place he had acted, the Crownwould offer him a term of banish-ment instead of execution.McCracken declined the offer andafter his court-martial at the BelfastExchange at noon on July 17th he

was sentenced to death at 5 p.m.As Henry Joy was led to his death atHigh Street, the grim reminder of theprevious week’s executions were stillin evidence for all to see. Threeweeks beforehand James Dickey, anattorney from Crumlin, had been ex-ecuted. Four days later John Storey,a Belfast printer, met a similar fate.Then Hugh Graham and Henry Byreswere executed at the beginning ofJuly for their part in the Rebellion atBallynahinch. With the exception ofGraham all the men had been decapi-tated after being hanged. Their headswere then placed on spikes andplaced up on the Market House. Ahorrific site for the citizens ofBelfast. In the case of Henry Byreshe had been convicted of stealingcattle from Nicholas Price for theUnited Irishmen. In a cruel twist offate it was Price who actually led himto the gallows.

Like Hugh Graham Henry Joy wasnot decapitated. After the execution,his body was cut down and was givenover to Mrs. Burnside, a familyfriend. The body was immediatelytaken to the McCracken house atRosemary Lane and it is stated thata close friend of the family, JamesMc Donnell who studied artificialrespiration, and Mr. McCluney, their‘apothecary’, were immediatelysummoned. Nothing could be doneto resuscitate the body and it was in-terred at St. George’s Churchyardlater that same evening in accordance

The hanging of Henry Joy McCracken at the Market House at thejunction of Corn Market and High Street.


with the orders of the military whooversaw the execution.

In ‘The Town Book of Belfast’ thereappears a report on the finding of awell made wooden box at MountCollyer, the property of Mr. JohnThompson the City’s Assessor, notfar from the old fort at MilewaterBridge. To their horror the box con-tained the decayed remains of a hu-man skull. It was believed that thishead was one of those which hadbeen spiked on the Market House in1798. Why was the box found atMount Collyer? A very good friendof those who were executed was acertain Dr. William HamiltonDrummond who had a school atMount Collyer from 1805-1815. Itwas believed at the time of the dis-covery that Dr. Drummond had quiteprobably been the owner of the mys-terious box.

Henry Joy McCracken’s bones, orwhat were believed to be his remains,were later unearthed in 1902 duringreconstruction work on the site of theold graveyard at St. George’s Church

in High Street. These remains wereplaced in a coffin and removed to thehome of Francis Joseph Bigger, alocal antiquarian. On May 12th1909, the remains were re-interred inthe grave of his sister, Mary AnnMcCracken, in the burial ground at

The old Exchange Building where McCracken stood trial. This building still stands at the foot of Donegall Street.

Clifton Street. A sealed glass phialplaced inside the coffin reads;

"These bones were dug up in the oldgraveyard in High Street in 1902 andfrom several circumstances believedto be those of Henry Joy McCracken.They were reverently treated andwere placed here by Robert May ofBelfast 12 May 1909 when themonument was placed to his belovedsister."

Over random weeks between nowand Easter I plan to cover all thehangings which occurred in theBelfast Prison on the Crumlin Road.As could be expected these are in-deed tragic tales not only for the tak-ing of life but also due to the theorythat a few of these men may havebeen totally innocent of the crimeswhich sent them to the gallows

The battle of Antrim which McCracken led.


A TERRIFIYING PHANTOM OR REAL PERSONJust who was ‘Galloper’ Thompson?

Every square inch of Belfast has ahistory but sometimes finding thathistory can be quite something else.For example, a few months back Iwas looking for the history of a housenamed Bedeque which was situatedon the site of the present Mater Hos-pital (the old section) and one of itsoccupants, the infamous GalloperThompson. I found nothing. Lastweek I was researching somethingcompletely different in the localnewspaper library when I cameacross a fascinating article by J. W.Kernohan and this told me every-thing I needed to know - so my basictip is if you are researching a particu-lar subject then look for somethingcompletely different! Gordon Th-ompson built Bedeque House andsuch a simple record invites inquiry.Where was Bedeque House, and whowas responsible for its design? It wasan attempt to acclimatise an Ameri-can style of house and was modelledon a property in Prince Edward Is-land in the Gulf of St Lawrence. Thispretty villa came into being in 1851and acted as a foil for its huge andgloomy neighbour, the BelfastPrison, just when the building wasfirst developing on the CrumlinRoad. The business of the Assizeshad been transferred fromCarrickfergus to the County Court-house in the year before its erection.The Roman Catholic Diocesan Semi-nary had a good start of them all; itwas opened in 1833.Bedeque House continued to be theresidence of its first owner, GordonAugustus Thompson, until 1872,

when it was sold for £2,000 toFrederick Kinahan, of Messrs. Lyleand Kinahan; and 11 years later theMater Hospital began its beneficentwork within its walls. BishopDorrian put forth whole-hearted ef-forts to gather funds for a hospital,and in 1882 purchased BedequeHouse for £2,300. By means of col-lecting boxes, bazaars, public sub-scriptions, and supported by promi-nent personages and the citizens gen-erally, the promoters were in thehappy position of seeing the newhospital opened in 1900.Who was its planner? GordonAugustus Thompson was of the oldfamily of Thompson’s of Castleton,of Jennymount. Third son of JohnThompson, one of the original direc-tors of the Belfast Banking Company,he went out to relatives called Gor-don, West India merchants, one ofwhom was Governor of Montserrat.Thompson’s mother, Anne Wilson,was of the same family as WalterWilson, shipbuilder, and both weredescended from Gordon’s ofTraquair, Drumfrieshire. A faint ideaof his wandering moods is gatheredfrom the description of his havingcamped on part of the ground nowcovered by Melbourne. An early let-ter confirms the suggestion. "Gor-don Thompson," said a Wilson ofMaryville, "returned to Belfast aftertwelve years’ travel. He came toMaryville one evening every week,and delighted us all with his storiesof the Rocky Mountains, Andes, etc."He was a member of the BelfastTown Council in 1849, and for a few

years afterwards. In response to thecall of the wild he returned to Aus-tralia, and died at Melbourne in 1886at the age of 87. For many years hisportrait in oils was displayed in theold Municipal Art Gallery and partof the inscription on his tombstonein Carnmoney reads, "The last of thefamily name - Thompson’s ofJennymount."The Castleton Thompson’s were bestknown as bankers, of whom therewere three generations, Robert(1736-1800) of Jennymount, John(1766-1824) of Jennymount andJohn (1798-1874) of Lowwood. Thefirst John had three sons, Robert ofCastleton (1792-1862), John ofLowwood and Gordon Augustus ofBedeque House. He was one of thefounders of the Commercial Bank(1809) which by amalgamation sub-sequently with the Belfast Bank be-came the Belfast Banking Company(later the Northern Bank.) Both fa-ther and (second) son were in suc-cession the head directors of this con-cern. The elder Robert Thompson,grandfather of Gordon, was princi-pal partner in the earlier DiscountCompany, and was probably the firstoccupant of Jennymount, called af-ter his sister, it is believed. Their fa-ther was John Thompson (1691-1765), Presbyterian Minister ofCarnmoney for 34 years, and theirmother was Jane Legg, of MaloneHouse.The Rev. John Thompson was suc-ceeded in the ministry of the samechurch by his nephew, also John Th-ompson, a man of very decided char-


acter and great influence during his62 years of active duty. He was anative of Shilvodan, near Connor,and it was probably here the familysettled originally in the 17th century.His sons, Charles and William, werewell-known merchants in HighStreet, their mother being a daughterof the Rev. William Laird, of Rose-mary Street, and they were succeededby their nephews, the Finlay’s. SirThomas McClure was also a grand-son of the Carnmoney minister, andjoined the Finlay’s in a business,which went on to become theWolfhill Spinning Company. Amongthe family papers is a document (withseal) dated 1703, certifying that "MrJohn Thompson, preacher of theGospel," was admitted a burgess of

the Burgh of Irvine in Scotland,which may give some clue to thesource of the family. There is also alicence issued by the chancellor ofthe Diocese to John Thompson topractice "the art and science ofchirurgery" in Connor.As in many old houses, popular su-perstition attributed a banshee to theJennymount residence; and in thelegendary lore of Ireland "GalloperThompson" has found a place,though we confess to knowing noauthoritative account of the ghostlyrider who was wont to haunt the av-enue of Jennymount, nor any reasonfor the supernatural visitant who wasevidently in life a hard and recklessrider, unlike the apparition of Cliffand his horses on which the discus-

The first Mater Hospital which wassituated in Bedeque House which

was the home of‘Galloper Thompson.

sion turned in the Rainbow Inn in"Silas Marner." The same Thomp-son left another memorial inThompson’s Bank, not a financialventure, but the embankment, whichreclaimed from the sea the ground onwhich now stand the JennymountMills and many other buildings."Castleton" and "Bedeque" are per-severed in the names of streets withnothing remaining of the latter butthe street name tablet, which can stillbe seen at its junction with theCrumlin Road.

The "Galloper," according to anotherversion, was the first Robert Thomp-son, and so called because of the paceat which he rode from his office intown to his home at the Milewater.


ANOTHER PRISON HANGING

Those were the words spoken by thejudges before after they put on theinfamous black cap when sentencingprisioners to death in the BelfastPrison on the Crumlin Road. Thefirst execution in this establishmentwas on the 21st of June 1854 whenPrivate Robert O’Neill was hangedfor shooting a coporal in the BelfastGarrison on North Queen Street andwhich was covered in a previous ar-ticle. A few weeks ago I stated that Iwould be covering all the executionsin this North Belfast prison and willbegin with the second execution, thatof Daniel Ward on the 8th of April1863.

On the 10th of May 1863 the bodyof Charles Wilgar was dragged fromthe River Lagan on the outskirts ofBelfast and so began what to becomeknown as the Ballyleeson Murder. Athirty year old man by the name ofDaniel Ward was subsequently ar-rested and charged with his murder.Both men were well known to eachother. It appeared that Wilgar, be-cause he lived quite some distancefrom his place of employment, wasin the habit of sometimes staying athis uncle’s (William Wright) housewhich was situated close by. He wasa sawyer by trade. It also transpiredthat Ward was a sawyer too but un-like his friend Wilgar he could notseem to get regular work. With this

I do hereby order that you be taken from the bar of this court where you nowstand to the prison from whence you last came; that you be there confinedand then on the ..... day of .... in the year of Our Lord you be taken to thepublic place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead;and that your body shall be buried in the prison in which such sentence ofdeath shall be executed, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul!

in mind, we also learn that being amarried man with a young child heand his family were extremely dis-tressed because of the bleak future alife of poverty held for them.On Saturday evening 10th May,Charles Wilgar's parents waited pa-tiently for the return of their son, ashe always did each weekend. Thefollowing morning, anxious to findout whether or not anything had hap-pened, they contacted the uncle, Wil-liam Wright. He informed them thatCharles had left at six o’clock theprevious evening in the company ofDaniel Ward. The distracted fatherand some relatives immediately wentaround to Ward’s cottage to find outwhat had happened and were told thatCharles had went on to meet hisbrother who was returning fromBelfast. The police were contactedand they immediately began a searchof the area. A watch, which wasknown to have been in the pocket ofCharles Wilgar was discovered in aPawnshop in Lisburn, where it hadbeen left on the night of 10th Mayand two pounds received on it. Ward,his wife and his mother-in-law werearrested on suspicion and lodged inDownpatrick Jail. The followingWednesday, May 14th, strange marksindicating that a struggle had takenplace were seen on the banks of theLagan and opposite them, in the riverwas found the body of Charles

Wilgar, with his skull battered in. Hisown watch was missing but he hadon his possession another watchwhich his uncle had given him. Ithad stopped apparently whenever itwas immersed in the water and hadstopped at 7.15 p.m. Near the spotwhere the body had been found, thedrag brought up a handkerchief witha stone tied in the corner of it .Circumstantial evidence pointed thefinger strongly at Ward. The hand-kerchief for example was identifiedby a Jane McCullagh, former sweet-heart of Ward, who swore it had beengiven to him by her. The prosecu-tion suggested that the stone tied tothe end of the handkerchief wouldhave made a formidable weapon, andwhoever made such fatal use of itmust have set out with murderousintent. On the tow-path which runsalong the river bank, a watch key wasdiscovered upon a drop of blood. Aneighbour saw Ward and Wilgar turn-ing from the high road and goingdown towards the water; a little overhalf an hour after another neighboursaw Ward returning alone, and actu-ally greeted him. That same nightWard had been spotted in Lisburn byseveral persons and indeed severalpersons claimed to have seen Wardpawning the watch for £2. DanielWard was committed to the jail atDownpatrick on the charge of ‘Wil-ful Murder’. He was afterwards re-moved to Belfast, and at the Sum-mer Assizes he was indicted for thecrime, and a true bill was foundagainst him. He pleaded not guilty.Counsel for the Crown then appliedfor a postponement till the Spring


Assizes of 1863. It was later claimedthat if they had of went ahead withthe trial in August, it is almost cer-tain that he would have been acquit-ted.The trial eventually took place be-fore Baron Deasy and extended overthree whole days. It excited greatinterest in Belfast and indeedthroughout the whole of Ireland. Thecrime was of unparalleled atrocity.To gain a small sum of money, heallegedly took the life of one who hadoften done done him a kindness, andthe only circumstance that could haveled any one for an instant to doubthis guilt was the very audacity of thecrime, and the bold and defiant con-duct of the accused after he had con-signed the body of his victim into theriver. Seldom in Ireland had therebeen a case where the circumstantialevidence had been so conclusive.Ward’s able defence struggled to dis-credit the witnesses but to no avail.The jury had no option but to find

the prisoner guilty. When the ver-dict had been pronounced the pris-oner still protested his innocence.His execution was to take place onWednesday April 8th 1863. He wasled away to Belfast Prison where heawaited his doom. While here he wasvisited regularly by his minister, Rev.Charles Allen from the EpiscopalianChurch. He listened attentively to theminister’s preachings and read scrip-ture right up until his final hour. OnTuesday he was visited in his cell byhis father and mother They had bothbeen regular visitors during his im-prisonment. His wife left him whenthe verdict was pronounced and theirchild was left with Wards parents.Ward’s mother was inconsolable af-ter this final visit with her son , andhis father took a silent farewell. Ateight o’clock in the evening Ward fellasleep and slept till ten. On Mondaythe Sacrament of the Lord’s Supperwas administered to him at his ownrequest

On Wednesday morning at seventeenminutes after eight o’clock, the ex-ecution of Daniel Ward for the mur-der of Charles Wilgar took place atBelfast Prison in the presence of be-tween 8,000 and 9,000 people. Asthe Governor’s Lodge intervenedbetween the road and the place ofexecution, the latter could only beseen by looking from the road in anoblique direction. The crowds there-fore, were located above and belowthe jail, and they spread over thefields in the immediateneighbourhood for a considerabledistance. The mood of the crowd wasone of solemn quietude and the therain which commenced falling ateight only added to the seriousnessof the situation.

That morning Ward arose at an earlyhour and it was stated there was nodifference in his demeanour. He wasstolid as usual. Mr. Allen came tohis cell at around six and resumed


devotions. About a quarter past eighthe was conducted from his cell, Mr.Allen being on his left and a warderon his right. A number of wardersformed two and two behind; nextcame John Young Esq., High Sher-iff; H. H. Bottomley Esq., UnderSheriff; Mr. Forbes, the governor ofthe jail; and then succeeded a num-ber of reporters. The solemn proces-sion moved along the passage and upthe stairs to the press room. Wardwalked perfectly erect, and held hiscap in his hands in such a way thatmany believed him to be handcuffed.Such however was not the case be-cause he was not restrained until hereached the scaffold. Prayers weresaid the whole time this procedurewas being carried out until ten pasteight. The hangman then went intothe room. He wore a mask but it hisreported that he could be quite clearlyseen to be ‘eyeing up his victim withthe air of a bulldog’. He pinionedthe doomed man. He then jumpedup onto the platform of the gallows

Ward took his place over the drop.‘O Lord Jesus, be merciful to mysoul. God pardon my sins for thesake of the Redeemer, and bless allmy fellow-creatures" With that thebolt was pulled and Daniel Ward waslaunched into eternity. A terrificshriek erupted from the crowd, whichfor some minutes before had been insilent awe.

Several documents were revealedafter the execution, the most impor-tant being the following confessionof his guilt which he instructed hisminister not to make public until af-ter his execution." I, Daniel Ward, now a prisoner inthe County Antrim Jail, Belfast, andunder the sentence of death for themurder of Charles Wilgar, on the10th of May last, in the presence ofAlmighty God, before whom I mustsoon stand, do make the followingconfession, and declare every portionof it to be strictly true :-On the evening of the 9th May I was

in Belfast seeking for employment atany work I could obtain, but not didnot succeed. I left Belfast betweenfour and five o’clock in the evening,and, during my walk home, I thoughtof (as the last remedy) robbing ormurdering some one in order to getmoney. My mind did not settle atthat time on any one in particular butI felt no act whatever would preventme from obtaining it. Before reach-ing home, I called at WilliamWright’s to ask him if he could giveme a job, for I was idle. So far as tomurdering Charles Wilgar in particu-lar had not taken possession of mymind, nor any other if I could getmoney in any other way. On the nextmorning May the 10th, I went toBelfast. On going, I sat upon a heapof stones, thinking what to do; I tookup a stone, and put it into my pockethandkerchief. I left Belfast betweenthree or four that evening. On thisevening also, I went to WilliamWright’s and waited till Wright andWilgar returned from work. My ob-


ject in waiting in Wright’s was till itwas dusk, that I might obtain by somemeans what I wanted, and had notup till this time settled my mind intaking the life of Charles Wilgar.After tea in Wright’s, I started withCharles Wilgar, towards home, and Ido not think it was five minutes be-fore the act that I determined to takehis watch or life. I knew he had awatch. We came to a narrow path -he went before me. I took then thestone which was in my handkerchiefout of my pocket and gave him ablow. He fell, but did not speak. Hewas rising, I think, on his hands andfeet. I then gave him a second blow- took his watch from him and puthim in the water. The plunge ap-peared to revive him, for I saw himswimming across the Lagan, andthought he would get out at the otherside. I then threw the stone and thehandkerchief into the water, and wentto Lisburn and pawned the watch fortwo pounds - and when on Mondayevening I heard he was missing, Iknew he was drowned. I also sol-emnly declare before God, that Inever injured so as to take away thelife of any other man, woman orchild. I know and feel I am a greatsinner in the sight of God. My pastlife has been an unprofitable one;happiness was the great object of mylife, but I feel now what a bad way Itook to obtain it. My short life maybe said to have been a prayerless one,for although I did at times go throughthe form, I see now that it was noprayer at all. My sabbaths were badlyspent, and the things of an endlesslife seldom or ever took possessionof my mind. I thank God that for hisnamesake He has brought me to think

of Him. The last four months havebeen the happiest days of my life. Ihave no enmity against a creature liv-ing. I willingly forgive all, and askthem to forgive me. I entreat all ofmy relatives and friends to live foreternity; it is the only thing whichwill make them happy. I have castmyself for salvation on the atoningblood of Jesus Christ. I believe thathe will fulfil His own promise, thatwhoever cometh to Him with a hearttruly sorry for the past and trustingin the Saviour will not be cast away.I have nothing of myself, and deservenothing but His wrath. I believe Hewill have mercy on me and receiveme. I could wish that all who areliving as I did would consider theirways, lest they are brought to an endlike mine ; they would obtain morecomfort from a single promise of

Christ than from the whole world.‘For God so loved men as to give Hisown son to die for them.’ ‘And Heis exalted a Prince and a Saviour, togive to them that ask Him true re-pentance and pardon.’ I have had afair trial, and have no fault to findwith it. But Jane Mc Cullagh andRebecca Mc Cullagh’s statement, sofar as ever having given me a hand-kerchief, or having had conversationwith her in Lisburn on the eveningof the 10th May, or having seen herat all on that evening, is untrue. Ihave no more to add, except to givemy sincere thanks to the chaplain, theRev. Charles Allen ; the governor,and warders of the prison, for theircontinued attention and kindness tome during my imprisonment."DANIEL WARDCounty Gaol, Belfast, March, 1863.

Williamson’s Shop on York Street just before the outbreak of the FirstWorld War. If you’re going to advertise then do it right!


NEW LODGE - OLD STORYOver the past thirty years NorthBelfast has changed quite dramati-cally as have many of its streets. Oneexample is the New Lodge Roadwhich has been almost entirely re-built with the exception of a fewhouses on the right hand side. For-tunately we have old maps, photo-graphs and records to remind us howour streets once were. Compilingbasic research using a street direc-tory and map can inform us of quitea bit and I can use an example herefor the New Lodge Road in 1960which was a few years before I camealong. Moving up the left hand sideof the road the street directory in-forms us that in 1960 the building atthe junction of the New Lodge Roadand North Queen Street was thepawnbrokers shop of A&P Lavery.Many people remember these shopswith fondness but my belief is thatin these days they just exploitedpeople’s poverty in order to makemoney and many would agree withme. These shop were all over theplace and using the same directorywe can see that there were at leastthirty of them. A few doors from thiswas the newsagent shop of MissMary McKnight which was situatedat number 14 and next to this a fancygoods shop owned by a Mrs Austin.The old directories also listed theoccupations of the residents at atnumber 26 a Miss Bridget McManusis listed with her profession beingrecorded as a tobacco worker whichI can safely assume must have beenat the nearby Gallaher factory on theother side of North Queen Street. Thefirst street we came to was Bruslee

Street the name of which continuesin Bruslee Way. The next street wasCarntall Street and at its corner wasthe first of the the drink establish-ments which in this case is that of P.F. Fitzpatrick, Wine and Sprit Gro-cer. The third street on this side wasCarnmoney Street and at its cornerwas the pub of a Mrs J. McGovernbut we did not have to travel beforereaching the next pub which was four

doors away at the junction ofPinkerton Street under the ownershipof John Brady. A little further up islisted the New Lodge entrance to theVictoria Military Barracks. At thisstage this base was being demolishedto clear the way for a new housingdevelopment. It was at this sectionthat Trainfield House stood beforebeing destroyed during the Germanblitz of 1941. This house was built

ABOVE - Looking up the New Lodge Road around 1960BELOW - Lavery’s Pawnshop which stood at the junction of New Lodge

Road and North Queen Street


by the Lepper family who owned alarge cotton mill in the area whereDawson Street is now situated. Itlater became the home of Joseph Big-ger who was the first Nationalist MP.He regularly entertained officersfrom the nearby infantry barrackstelling them the advantages of an in-dependent Ireland. The house waslater obtained by the military whenthey expanded the barracks in the1880’s and it was thereafter used asthe officers mess. The house wasnamed Trainfield simply due to thefact that it was erected on the train-ing field of Artillery Barracks whichwas separate from the infantry bar-rack. It was here that we crossLepper Street, named after the millowners, and at the opposite cornerwas the coal merchant Hugh Connorwhich is a name and trade still exist-ing in North Belfast. At the next cor-ner, with Burlington Street, was the

grocer shop of Patrick Devlin withthe draper shop of Mrs ElizabethHamilton opposite him. Next to herwas the butcher shop of PatrickGiffen and next to him anotherdraper, this time a Mr James McKay.Next to this, at number 136, was an-other name and trade still familiar inthe area only this time it is Morelli’sice cream seller who was at the cor-ner of Arlington Street. The next cor-ner was vacant ground and then theCity Chemists next door to whichwas the grocer shop of Francis Torbit.Crossing Hartwell Street we come tothe Duncairn Junior Primary School.Like nearby Duncairn Gardens andChurch this was named after theDuncairn Estate which was situatedon the opposite side of the NewLodge Road up until the 1880 andwhich was then a rural retreat. Thegeneral area around this school wasalso the site of another mansion

house. This time it was Laurel Lodgewhich was also a home of the Lepperfamily. The grounds of this stretchedfrom the Antrim Road down toLepper Street and included the millitself - how things have changed!At the other end of the school wasShandon Street with five houses be-fore coming to Singleton Street. Atthe opposite corner was another pubwhich was owned by a Mrs K. Mar-tin. Moving up the road the nextstreet was the last before reaching theAntrim Road, Donore Street. At itsjunction stood a small cottage typedwelling which did not blend in thethe surrounding buildings at all. Thereason for this was due to the fact thatthis was the gardeners home of theLepper family estate and which waskept during the construction of thestreets and houses around it. We thencome to the Antrim Road where thejunction consisted of the massive


Mapshowing theNew Lodge

Road in1960


Duncairn Arms Public House, whichwas owned by John Lynch.

The first building on the right handside at the junction with North QueenStreet was the chemist shop of P.McGrath. Like a lot of locals I canremember the inside of this shop andremember the very high ceiling andold fashioned interior, a style whichis much sought after today. Next tothis was a row of houses before com-ing to St Malachy’s Boys’ School.Now being a St Pat’s boy I can’t saytoo much about this school but ifmemory serves me right I can re-member that it was built out of pre-fabricated concrete and must havebeen absolutely freezing in the win-ter time. Between here and NewLodge Place was a row of largehouses with the Patrickville Recre-ation Club situated at number 29.Now I was a bit young for this placebut many of the people I talk to aboutthe old New Lodge seem to remem-ber this place with fondness. I alwaysfind this amazing as it is long gonebut I bet if it was still standing itwould be referred to as a dump!Houses continued up past NewLodge Place and to Fountain StreetNorth where a Miss Mary Steele hada grocery shop at the corner. Fourdoors away was one of the most fa-mous buildings on the old NewLodge Road - the Starry Plough Bar.Again this was a place rememberedwith fondness but my own memoriesof it were of a small cramped placeas I was in it a few times when achild. I also remember my mum run-ning to it screaming after it wasbombed by Loyalists. She knew thatmy Dad had been in it but fortunately

he had left some time before to headoff to another bar. One little knownfact relating to the bar is the fact thatit had a twin in West Germany. TheBritish Army had a training depotthere to practice patrolling Belfaststreets and the bar on the recon-structed street was the Starry Ploughcomplete with anti blast wall outsideit. It was owned by James O’Kaneand when demolished he opened anoff licence under the same name fur-ther up the street but sadly the oldname is now gone as it was renamedO’Kane’s. Moving up the road thenext street we came to was LudlowStreet at at its corner was thegreengrocer Thomas Cassidy withanother grocer shop at the end of thisrow owned by Miss TheresaMcMahon. Crossing TranifieldStreet we then came to the fruit shopof Hugh Simpson and at the end ofthis row at the junction of LepperStreet we had another greengrocerslisted under the name of W. H. Max-well. Although completely refur-bished this row of buildings betweenTrainfield Street and Lepper Streetsurvive from the original New LodgeRoad. Crossing Lepper Street wecame to a waste ground where theold Felon’s Club was built on someyears later. Then there was a mixtureof houses and businesses with thesupper salon of Henry Lockhart atnumber 145 which later becameTucker Kelly’s famous establish-ment. As I mentioned in last weeksarticle the old street directories listedprofessions as well as residents forthe numerous streets it listed. Num-ber 163 New Lodge Road caught myeye which was the home of a HarlodSaxon who was a soldier. Up to this

time soldiers living in and around theNew Lodge were not unusual asmany were based in the nearbyVictoria Barracks but another factorwhich must be remembered is that atthis time the area was mainly Prot-estant. The next street we came towas Edlingham Street which ranright through the area, acrossDuncairn Gardens and throughTiger’s Bay. At the first corner wasthe printers shop of Tradepress andat the other the old Circle PictureHouse, the building of which stillremains. Although it has served manypurposes with the last being theCeltic Supporters Club it was, at thistime, the Christian’s Meeting Roomwith the draper shop of MrsMcKelvey below it and next door anobvious relative had a newsagentsunder the name of George McKelvey.Up to Donore Court we had anotherrow of large houses most of whichstill remain today and at number 209McKee’s bookies. At the corner ofDonore Court was the grocer andsweet shop of John Rice and at theother side the famous Lyceum Cin-ema. This was one of the most popu-lar pictures houses in Belfast andwhen it closed it was used as a storeroom by Rank Films. I can remem-ber it being burned around about1971 and the rolls and canisters offilms all over the New Lodge Road.It was soon after demolished and likea lot of the old New Lodge Road con-fined to the memories of those wholived on and around it.

As previously mentioned I was noteven born in 1960 but with a streetdirectory and map its amazing whatyou can find out!


TIME TO MEET YOUR DEATH

Looking towards Durham Streetwith Divis Street to the right.

This story on one of the BelfastPrison’s executions begins with howit was reported at the time in the lo-cal press on Thursday, 16th of Sep-tember 1875. "At an early hour yes-terday morning, or a late hour on theprevious night, a murder of an ex-ceptionally brutal character was com-mitted in Belfast. The victim was acharwoman named Margaret Whit-ley, a person bearing the reputationof being quiet in her habit, sober andindustrious. The circumstances sur-rounding her death were at first sur-rounded in mystery. In fact the ac-complishment of the tragedy with thesecrecy and quietude which musthave accompanied it was a very star-tling element in the outrage. The lo-cality in which it is alleged to havetaken place and the neighbourhoodmost certainly, in which the body wasmost certainly deposited, was thicklypopulated. Any alarm, cry out, orindeed a struggle anywhere in thevicinity would have almost certainly

reached other ears and brought as-sistance. So far as can be learned noone heard any indication whatever ofthe perpetration of the fearful crime,which was only revealed by the dis-covery of the body lying in a semi-nude condition under the pale lightof morning in an uninhabited lanewithin a few yards of a leading thor-oughfare. Thomas Burns, a plasterer,was proceeding to his work thatmorning at half-past five o’clockwhen he saw, in Bathurst Court offDurham Street, something bulky ly-ing against the wall. On going overto the bundle, in company with an-other person called Callaghan, hefound it to be the body of a womanterribly mutilated about the head,entirely uncovered about the legs andwith the trunk enveloped with an oldshawl and portion of a skirt. Thebody lay right across the footpath, thehead being slightly elevated againsta gateway. There was no blood uponthe adjacent ground; no marks of ascuffle were apparent; and it was at

once evident that the unfortunatewoman, having been foully murderedelsewhere, had been conveyed to thisentry and her poor body dumpedthere. The police were promptlycommunicated with, and in a fewminutes Sub-Constable Peyton wasin charge of the body. In a very shorttime a more immense crowd had as-sembled, principally composed ofmill workers and artisans going totheir work. The excitement whichprevailed soon aroused the people ofthe district, and then began specula-tion as to how the body was conveyedto the spot and whence it came.Bathurst Court is a small narrow cul-de-sac running off Durham Street, afew yards from Divis Street andnearly fronting McMillen’s Place. Itcontains some half dozen houses oneither side, yet none of the occupantsof those heard anything during thenight that in any way attracted theirattention. Not even a footfall seemsto have been made by anyone withinits quiet precincts after dark. The


body was allowed to remain whereit was found for several hours in thecharge of the police, but so disfig-ured were the remains that identifi-cation for some time appeared hope-less. At length a female namedWhiteside recognised the body to bethat of Margaret Whitely, ofHumphrey’s Court. This was a clueand the police seemed to have fol-lowed and developed it with greatvigilance. Inquiries were made atHumphrey’s Court, which resulted inthe disclosure that the deceased hadgone on the previous day to visit herniece, a Mrs. Daly, who lived inDurham Street, and had not since re-turned. Further investigation showedthat this house was not a dozen yardsremoved from where the body wasdiscovered and that it occupied abouta central position between DivisStreet and Bathurst Court. The pre-mises are small, and consist of twoupper rooms, built over a gateway,access to them being gained by stairsleading direct from the street doorwhich is next to the gateway. Hav-ing knocked at this door for sometime, and failing to gain admittance,the police managed to effect an en-trance from the rear. No person wasfound in the house, which bore in-ternally most of the tokens of penuryand neglect. One of the rooms wasevidently used as a kitchen and theother a sleeping apartment. In thelatter the police found a number ofarticles which helped secure a con-viction against the murderer. Theseconsist for the most part of severalarticles of wearing apparel, the dailyattire of the murdered woman; but nomarks of blood are discernible uponany of them. In the centre of the roomlay a quantity of straw used as bed-

ding, and portions of this were foundsaturated with blood. The floor alsoappeared to be deeply stained hereand there with the same ugly tokensof the commission of crime. Butperhaps the most important of thediscoveries made by the police aslocalising the place of the murderwas the finding of a large heavy andclumsily constructed stool, whichhad beyond doubt, been recently splitinto pieces by violence, and wasdeeply dyed with blood. It was justsuch an instrument as would be mostlikely to commit terrible havoc ifwielded by a powerful hand. A fewblows from it would easily smash ina human skull beyond all recognition,and its fractured condition, the gorewhich stains it, and the nature of theghastly injuries inflicted upon thedeceased, combine to render this dis-covery awfully significant. Unques-tionably the deceased was in thishouse on the previous evening, andit is stated that, contrary to her cus-tom, she had taken some drink withMrs. Daly, her niece. It is further al-leged that the husband of the latter,John Daly, came home at night in adrunken state, and beat both the de-ceased and his wife. Mrs. Daly sub-sequently left the house, leavingMargaret Whitley in bed and her hus-band also in the house. MargaretWhitley was never seen alive again.If it was in this house she met herdeath, the fact that her clothing bearsno indications of blood, notwith-standing the ferocity of the attackmade upon her, was quite consistent,seeing that Mrs. Daly left her in bed- in all probability undressed. Therebeing no outcry of any kind was fur-ther explainable by the inference thatthe murderer, whoever he or she may

have been, made the first assaultwhen Whitley was either sleeping orunsuspecting, and the severity of theblow prevented any scream or alarmuntil all was over. It would be quiteinexplicable that a healthy vigorouswoman, of some thirty-five years ofage, could have been otherwise mas-sacred - for such she surely was -without being able to cry out withsome considerable distinctness andeffect. On searching the scenearound the house the unfortunatewoman’s clothes were found, placedover a grating, evidently with the in-tention of allowing the blood to dropout of them under the ground.Daly, who is a coal-cart driver, ap-pears to have gone to his work asusual early yesterday morning, be-tween five and six o’clock. Mrs.Daly, it should be said slept with afriend all night. At half past eighto’clock Sub-Constable Maguire, bydirection of Sub-InspectorMcDermott, arrested Daly. He is alittle strong wiry looking individual,with a small face and regular butsharply put features. His hair is in-tensely black, and his appearance al-together gives one the idea of shrewdintelligence. In years he is ratherover forty. When arraigned beforethe magistrates on the charge of ‘wil-ful murder’ he seemed to be acutelydistressed, but merely for a moment.He looked feebly at the constable,and endeavoured to speak, but hisutterance failed him. In a few min-utes more he was again calm andsteady looking, and replied to thebench in a self possessed and reso-lute manner. The whole affair cre-ated great excitement throughoutBelfast. The tragic news circulatedwith amazing rapidity and the resi-


dence of the prisoner and the placewhere the body was found have beennow visited by thousands of curiouspeople. During the forenoon Mrs.Daly was arrested in the vicinity ofthe 'brickfields', Durham Street. Shehad with her at the time two children,one about six years old and the otheran infant some eighteen months oldand completely blind. The womanwas completely exculpated from anyparticipation in the outrage and wassoon released from custody. Thedeceased was never married but shehad a daughter, a very intelligentchild of about eleven or twelve at thetime and it was stated she was anative of Brookborough.

This girl, observed Daly attackingMargaret Whitley - then seen alivefor the last time by any humanbeing. This girl was Daly’s owndaughter, who consequently becamethe prosecutions principal witness.The hearing of the case occupiednearly two whole days for there werea very large number of witnessesthough the facts were comparativelyfew. It must be pointed out that inhis trial before the magistrates Dalyhad not got any professional assis-tance, nor did he seem to care for any.A very able and ingenious defenceset up for him by Dr. Boyd, the coun-sel whom the Crown assigned to con-duct the case of the accused. Thefacts that there were no blood marksfrom Daly’s door to to where thebody was found and that there wasno noise was heard in the house dur-ing the night of the 14th were dweltupon as showing that it was impos-sible that the murder could have beencommitted in Daly’s house. It wasalso urged forcibly on behalf of the

prisoner that the clothes which werefound in the grating were not seenthere at a very early hour on the samemorning by the lamplighter whopassed through the court in whichthey were afterwards discovered.Notwithstanding the very exhaustivedefence put forward by the prison-ers counsel, the jury, on a short de-liberation, brought in a verdict ofguiltyOn the morning of 26th of April,1876, at eight o’clock, John Daly,who was at the late County AntrimAssizes, before Baron Fitzgerald,found guilty of the wilful murder ofMargaret Whitley in Durham Street,on the fifteenth of September last,suffered the extreme penalty of thelaw. The recommendation of mercyon the part of some of the jury, andthe petition sent forward to his Ex-cellency the Lord Lieutenant pray-ing a commutation of the sentencepassed on the culprit,, must naturallyhave given rise to some hopes in hismind that the carrying out of the pain-ful sentence might be averted. Butsuch hopes he was forced to relin-quish when he learned that his Ex-cellency, having considered the cir-cumstances, had decided that the lawmust take its course. Doubtless thisannouncement brought him to akeener realisation of the end thatawaited him: for though he receivedit with that indifference and appar-ent fortitude that have marked hisdemeanour and conduct from his firstincarceration, and though he contin-ued to display a disinclination to theslightest conversation with the ward-ers of the prison, nevertheless in hismanner towards his religious advi-sors he evinced signs of penitenceand resignation, and an earnest de-

sire to join in the spiritual exerciseswhich were conducted by the Rev.Hamill, the Roman Catholic Chap-lain at the Gaol. On Monday he wasvisited in his cell by firstly his motherand then later by his wife. Their staywas brief. The mother upon seeingher condemned son, shrieked mostpainfully, and it was reported that shecould scarcely be pacified. Dalyhimself, hardened as he seemed to be,was moved to tears. Daly was alsovisited by the Sisters Of Mercy andhis clergyman, who had tirelesslyministered to him while he awaitedhis fate.The erection of the scaffold, wascommenced a week previous to theactual execution. It was placed at theentrance to what was formerlyknown as the debtors prison, at thenorth end of the gaol. The scaffoldwas in the form of an oblong plat-form, having a trap-door in the cen-tre. This door did not, as in ordinaryconstructions of the kind, open intotwo parts, but opened and fell in oneconnected piece, a 56lb weight be-ing attached to it by means of a cord,which passed through several smallpulleys running along the lower por-tion of the platform to prevent it fromswinging back and coming in con-tact with the body. The platform wasabout 12ft. wide by 16 or 17ft. long,resting on six strong supports, andwas about 10ft. from the ground. Ateach side were uprights supporting athick crossbeam, from which hung anew rope, about one and a half inchesthick, having a running noose at-tached. The previous executionwhich took place at Belfast was ac-cording to former regulations opento the inspection of the public. Sincethat time the Legislature, in its wis-


dom and humanity, altered the lawin this respect, and ordered thathenceforth executions should be per-formed in private. For this reasonthe scaffold, though outside the wallsof the prison proper, was perfectlysecluded, so that there was not anypossibility of the execution beingseen by the public. Still, there weremany, who influenced by a curiosityto witness an execution, stood on theroad opposite the gaol, from whichthey could only witness a confusedview of a small portion of the woodof the scaffold.

Daly was upwards of 40 years of ageand from Dungannon, of which hisparents were natives. His father diedwhen he was very young and his onlybrother died in his early yearsthrough an accident at a coal pit nearDungannon. John grew up on thefarm where he supported his mother,sister and his grandmother. Hismother expected great things fromhim. After an argument with hismother, John Daly left the farm andwent to Belfast, where he com-menced work as a labourer at thedocks. Shortly afterwards he metMary Anne Whitley, a mill girl, whobecame his wife, and who was theniece of the murdered woman Mar-garet Whitley.

Daly slept until 5 o’clock on the dayof his death, when he was awakenedby a warder. He resumed his devo-tional duties with every appearanceof earnest penitence. He attendedMass at six o’clock and continuedpraying until the terrible hour arrived.Eight o’clock came and the unhappyman was pinioned with leather strapsby the executioner, who it is believed

was Marwood. The pinioning tookplace in the cell in the presence ofCaptain Keough, the governor of thegaol Daly came out of his celldressed in his prison garb, followedby the executioner, his clergyman,the Rev. Mr. Hamill, walked by hisreading prayers to the condemnedman, who it is reported walked firmlyto the scaffold. When arrived at theplace of execution the rope wasplaced on his neck, a white cap wasdrawn over his head and face. Thedrop fell and he died instantaneously.As soon as it was observed that theman was dead the black flag washoisted. Daly did not make a publicconfession of his guilt. A few min-utes before eight o’clock the dismaltolling of the prison bell was heardwhich continued up to the time of theexecution. The tolling was audible aconsiderable distance from the gaol,and to the inhabitants of the sur-rounding district it brought the intel-ligence, if such were necessary, thata solemn and impressive scene wasabout to take place within the wallsof the prison.The part of the prison bounding theCrumlin Road was quite crowded

with people on the morning of theexecution. The whole road and thestreets leading off it from FairviewStreet up to Agnes Street wasthronged, and every available win-dow in the neighbourhood was filledup with anxious spectators. The gateof the prison was anxiously watchedby the crowd and nearly every per-son who entered the prison was takenfor the executionerThe body after hanging for an houror so, was cut down and placed in anordinary deal coffin painted black,which had been in readiness for sometime. The body having been loweredinto the coffin, it was conveyed to apassage underneath the scaffold,where it was placed on a stand pre-pared for the occasion. The body ofthe wretched man was divested of thewhole of the clothing which he woreat the time of his execution, and thecoffin was filled up with quicklime.The lid was then screwed down, andJohn Daly was for ever removedfrom mortal eye. The body was bur-ied in the course of the evening inone of the gloomy passages of thegaol by the side of the last convictedmurderers, O’Neill and Ward.


WHEN THE SHORE ROADWAS A RURAL RETREAT

Not much more than a century anda half ago Belfast’s centre was prac-tically linked to fields, hedgerows,and leafy green lanes all coverednow by thousand’s of houses. To-day the name Carrick Hill may bemystifying until we learn that herewas the actual beginning of theAntrim Coast Road terminating 86miles away from Portrush. In 1826 Peter Shannon's farm oc-cupied the whole western side ofButtle’s Lane (now Clifton Street).Carrick Hill’s eastern continuation(now North Queen Street) wascalled Fishers Row because of itsrow of white fishermen’s cottages.Otherwise all the south side of thisthoroughfare consisted of fields,later to be crossed and criss-crossedin Grid iron patterns by streets hav-ing York Street as their main axis. On the north side of North QueenStreet, from the military barrackseastwards began a series of impos-ing tree surrounded detached resi-dences the mansions of Belfast’s in-dustrial aristocracy. DuncairnHouse, with its demesne extendingup to the Antrim Road. Garden Hill,Castleton, Mount Collyer,Jennymount, Lillput today they arebut mere names of places that oncewere. Until the 18th century Belfast waspractically surrounded by woods,but the heavy demands made bytanners (for oak bark), charcoalburners (for iron smelting), carpen-ters and shipbuilders as well by thefast increasing population made

havoc. Cromac woods were re-duced but the town’s most prizedapproach in the early 1800’s was itsShore Road a magnificent marinedrive, twixt woods and water. Andso came into existence a chain ofstately Georgian mansions nestlingon shelves among the luxuriantwoods extending far upwards on theCave Hill slopes. The financial crisis of theDonegall heirs caused land to gocheap, and with income tax only 7din the pound enterprising merchantscould afford their pleasures as be-fitted gentlemen.The Milewater River, coursingthrough the grounds of Lilliput, wasthe town boundary, and close bywas Jennymount, the residence ofJohn Thompson, one of the origi-nators of the Commercial Bankwhich became the Belfast Bank.Occupied in succession by theSimms family, John Sinclair andfinally until its erasure in 1918 byW. Barry Ritchie, theMountpottinger felt and fertilisermanufacturer, was the Grove, nowsuperseded by a modern school anda spacious park. In ancient times this area was "theEarl’s Meadows" granted to the Al-derman, or Earl of a county to sup-port his office’s dignity. It was heldby William De Burgh the Earl ofUlster, who was strangely slain hereby his own relatives on Sundaymorning June 6th 1333. Hence the name Skeiganeril (theEarl’s thorn) now corrupted into

Skegoneill as bestowed on "Butter-milk Loney," the nearest road a cen-tury ago to the Cavehill. Here at its junction was the notedPeggy Barclay’s Inn with its picto-rial sign, "The Mill for GrindingOld People Young," representingold men and women hobbling oncrutches into the mill hopper anddancing out merrily below. Seaview came next, the residencesuccessively of Robert Getty, JohnBommer, the cotton spinner, and,before its dispersal, by Sir JamesJohnston, Belfast’s 1917-18 LordMayor. At the Greencastle side ofFortwilliam Park entrance is Ringan(or Ringsend) point, long used as aburial ground for suicides and bod-ies washed ashore, although it wasprobably an early church site, thename being a corruption of St.Ninian. Mount Vernon was occupied byHill Hamilton the banker, and laterby Alderman Sam Lather the ship-owner, prior to his removal toKilkenny. At Lowood, adjoiningresided another banker, JohnCunningham and in 1882 it wassold to Frederick Kinahan (of Lyleand Kinahan), together with its 17acres park, for £6,000. Parkmount of its fine timbered de-mesne of over 100 acres extendingup to the Antrim Road. Originallyoccupied by the first Earl ofDonegall, it came to the Cairns fam-ily in 1796, and two of their descen-dants gained world fame.


Educated at Belfast Academy,Hugh M’Calmont Cairns (born1819, died 1885), became barristerin 1844, and was one of Belfast’sM.P.s when only 33 years old. Bothat the Bar and in Parliament (14years), his talents were so superla-tive that he became in succession aKnight, Attorney General, Judge ofAppeal, Lord Chancellor, Viscount,and in 1867, Earl Cairns ofGarmoyle. The latter was suggestedby the Pool of Garmoyle, the deepwater visible from Parkmount atwhich larger ships anchored to havetheir heavy cargoes and passengerstransferred to shallow craft com-pleting the passage to Belfast Quay. Lady Cairns was daughter of JohnM’Neill, D.L. the banker who suc-ceeded the elder Cairns brothers inParkmount, and disposed of it in1895 to Sir Robert Anderson(Anderson & M’Auley) LordMayor in 1914. The second LordGarmoyle, or "Lud Gumboil" as hewas dubbed by the wits of the time,came into very prominent noticeas the defendant in a breach ofpromise case in which the plaintiffwas Miss Fortescue, an actressclassed "a moderately good walk-ing lady." For her moral and intel-lectual loss (including a probablecoronet). Julia Sarah HayfieldFortescue received the colossal sumof £10,000. Subsequently the luckylady married another peer, LordGardner, so losing a lord provedeven greater publicity than the usual"actress has jewels stolen" headline.Today there are very few of the oldmansion houses left in NorthBelfast as the land which sur-rounded them became just to valu-able for the 'investors' to resist.

Parkmount

The Grove

Jennymount


YET MORE TRUE CASES FROM THEVICTORIAN BELFAST COURTROOMS

15 January, 1898FOOTBALL IN THE STREETSJacob Morgan, William Kennedy,Ernest McKee, Coote McKee, andAlbert Morgan, five little boys, weresummoned for playing football in thestreet. Constable Penders, AntrimRoad, proved the offence, and defen-dants were ordered to pay the costsof the Courts. Sergeant Campbellproved a case of a similar natureagainst Samuel Orr and John Wilson.They were kicking a tin in the streetin Mountpottinger on the 28th ofDecember. They were also orderedto pay the costs of the Court. Therewere about twenty other similar casesagainst young boys at the suit of theBallymacarrett police, and the sameruling was made. The Judge (Mr.Nagle) stated that this was the lastoccasion on which he would let theboys charged with this offence off soeasily and that he would strike aheavy fine in future. Their conductwas dangerous, and the police wereconstantly being requested to put astop to this practice.

29 January, 1898A NOVEL CURE FOR

DRUNKENNESSA man named Gourley was chargedwith stealing seventeen eggs at thequay. Mr. McErlean, who defended,put in the plea that the accused wasdrunk and took the eggs with the in-tention of eating them raw as an an-tidote against the liquor. The Mag-istrates failed, however, to see thematter in this light, and sent the pris-oner to jail for seven days.

12 February, 1898INHUMAN NEGLECT

OF CHILDRENA quay labourer named JohnMcCune was charged with havingsystematically neglected, ill-treated,and abandoned his five children. Thelatter, who were all under the age oftwelve years, were present in court,clad in workhouse apparel. Mr J.Donnelly, who prosecuted, said thatthe case was one of the worst that hehad ever come before the Court.Sergeant Magee deposed that at half-past eleven o’clock on Saturday nightweek the children were brought intoHenry Street Barrack by PatrickMcNally, who stated that he hadfound them wandering about thestreets. The night was cold and wet,and the children were very poorlyclad. One of them who was just re-covering from typhoid fever hadnothing on at all but a light pinafore.Witness sent the children to theWorkhouse, and afterwards pro-ceeded to a house in Little Corpora-tion Street, where he had ascertainedthe father resided. He found himthere drunk. Witness issued a sum-mons against him, but having failedto appear in the Summons Court awarrant was issued for his arrest. Theprisoner was a drunken, worthlessfellow. Joseph McNally, prisoner’sbrother-in-law, stated that McCune’swife died a year and nine months ago.At that time they had a comfortablehome, in which there was about £50worth of goods. After his wife’sdeath the accused pawned clothingand furniture and spent the money so

obtained in drink. On two previousoccasions witness had found the chil-dren on the streets at night. Thehouse was in a filthy condition, andthere was nothing for the children tolie upon except an old rotten mat-tress. At Christmas witness spent £117s on clothes for the children, butthe clothes were almost immediatelypawned. Since his wife's death wit-ness had visited the house twice aweek, and only on two occasionsduring that period had he seen foodand fire in the place. Mrs Knockerand Inspector Barry, N.S.P.C.C.,were also examined in support of thecase for the prosecution. Prisonerwas sentenced to four months impris-onment, and ordered hard labour.

19 February, 1898AN EXCITED PRISONER

A woman named Catherine Daviswas charged with drunkenness andwith having maliciously broken twopanes of glass in the public-house ofJohn Kelly, North Street.It appeared that when the prisonerwas arrested at a late hour on Satur-day night she gave the constable con-siderable trouble. Mr. Kelly’s evi-dence showed that the accused cameinto his premises on Saturday night,and, having partaken of a drink, shesmashed a half-pint measure.She was then ejected from the shop,and while on the street she lifted astone and threw it at the window,smashing two panes. There wereseven convictions against the pris-oner, and she was sentenced to afortnight’s imprisonment. As soon


as the sentence had been pronouncedthe prisoner, who became very ex-cited, produced a hard bap from un-der her shawl, and threw it at themagistrates. It fell short of the bench,and struck a gentleman at the Presstable.The judge ordered the woman to beremanded to the cells till the conclu-sion of the business. At this momentMr Kelly, the prosecutor, passed un-derneath the dock, and the prisonercaught him by the hair and made useof abusive language towards him.At the end of the business the pris-oner was brought back into the dock,with great difficulty by two police-men, and sentenced to a month’simprisonment.

5 March, 1898A SHILLING FOR A SHILLING!James Leonard was charged withbeing guilty of indecent behaviour.The evidence went to show that theaccused was on a trap announcing toa crowd that he would sell pursescontaining 5s for a shilling. He hadfour or five confederates with him towhom he sold a few of the pursescontaining the sum specified, but onone of these finding its way into thehands of a member of the crowd theprisoner threatened to beat him if hedid not return it. The other pursesthe accused had in his possessioncontained only three halfpence. Theprisoner was ordered to pay a fine of20s.

12 March, 1898CRUELTY TO A WIFE

Bridget Crawford, 43 SpringviewStreet, summoned her husband forhaving used abusive language to-wards her. The defendant was boundover in his own recognisances in £10.

26 April, 1898A CAREFUL MOTHER

Elizabeth Trainor was put forward onremand on the charge of not taking careof her children. She was found by apoliceman staggering about the roadwith one of her children in her arms,whose head every now and then was indanger of being knocked against thewall. When the constable entered thehouse another baby was in a flood ofwater which covered the floor from abroken pipe. A sentence of six monthsimprisonment was ordered.

28 May, 1898AN ITALIAN ON THE WARPATHAlfonso Messa, who carries on the busi-ness of an ice-cream vendor in DonegallStreet, was charged by Constable Leewith having assaulted Michael Archer.According to the prosecutor’s evidencehe went to the shop of the accused atmidnight on Saturday and ordered apenny worth of hot peas. He paid hismoney, but as the peas were not suppliedhe protested. The accused thereupon made a dash atwitness and chased him from the shop.Archer, who further alleged that he wasstruck on the cheek with some implementran down Donegall Street, and to escapethe Italian he jumped through a barberswindow, doing damage to the extent of7s 6d. The prisoner promised to pay forthe smashed window, and on this condi-tion he was let off with a caution.

In Victorian Belfast itwas a real serious

crime for young boys toplay football in the

street!


A FATAL SHOT FIREDFollowing the shooting of Mr. LyleGardiner, a seventy-eight year oldman, in Dervock on 30th April 1894,the police swiftly arrested a localman, Mr. Robert Gilmore for thecrime and a few days later an inquestjury was established, the purpose ofwhich was to investigate and returna verdict on the death of LyleGardiner. The inquest was held inthe kitchen of the deceased’s housewhere he had been shot dead severaldays previous. The first witnesscalled was Mrs. Gardiner, the wifeof the dead man. She was only askeda few questions by Mr. C. R. Ander-son, solicitor of Coleraine, who inconjunction with Dr. Taggart, solici-tor, of Ballymoney, had been en-trusted with Gilmore’s defence. Theonly other witness called were medi-cal men, who gave evidence as to thecause of death, and on this testimonythe jury had no difficulty in return-ing an open verdict. Shortly after thepost-mortem examination the bodywas placed in a coffin and the funeraltook place that very evening atDerrykeighan graveyard.Public interest, at the monthly fair inBallymoney that Thursday, wascentred around the tragic incident.All sorts of statements and sugges-tions were made as to the motives,and explanations offered, but manyof these were based on assumptionson the facts that were in the policepossession were shown to be com-pletely groundless The police at oncetried to trace all of Gilmore’s move-ments on that fateful day in order tobuild a case against him. It wasfound that on leaving Dervock the

young man was driven toBallymoney on a cart by some youngwomen and that he returned in thedirection of Dervock in the same carand in the same company. Accord-ing to Mrs. Gardiner's statement atthe inquest, when she last sawGilmore on Monday night as he wasleaving the front of the house. Thenext was seen was at a house of afamily friend named Wilson, somehundreds of yards away, but a com-paratively short distance from hisown residence. The theory of thepolice is that Gilmore did not leavethe yard, but went round the houseto the back window, watched his op-portunity, fired the shot, then escapedover a hedge. From this field hecrossed a bank into a field sown withoats, and then into a grass field, in acorner of which is a large patch ofwhin bushes, a number of these form-ing a hedge. On the top of the shoughis an old path, which is a short cutbetween Wilson’s house and someother farm houses. It was in the whin

bushes, just underneath the path, andinside the shough, that the gun hadbeen cleverly concealed. The discov-ery of the gun happened merely bychance and if fate had not so desiredthis vital piece of evidence would nothave arisen.

DETAILS OF THE CRIMEThe crime for which the unfortunateyoung man suffered the extreme pen-alty of the law was committed undercircumstances which point to thegreatest possible coolness and pre-meditation on Gilmore’s part. Thevictim was an aged farmer who livedclose to to the farm which was occu-pied by Gilmore’s father. Betweenthe two families, close and friendlyrelations existed. Some weeks be-fore the night of the shooting, adaughter of the Gardiner’s gave birthto a child, of which it was said thatGilmore was the father. There ap-pears to have been some talk aboutan action being brought againstGilmore in respect of his relations


with the daughter and judging fromthe conversation that took place onthe fatal night between the murdererand the murdered man, this talk ledto the commission of the crime.Early on the evening of the fatal dayGilmore took a horse into the villageof Dervock in order to have it shod.He left the animal at the village forge,and, procuring a cart, he drove intoBallymoney. In this town he pur-chased at the shop of Mr. Hamill, asingle-barrelled hunting gun, a quan-tity of powder and shot, together witha few other articles. With these in hispossession he returned to Dervock,and thence found his way to thehouse occupied by Gardiner. He wasseen looking around the house byboth Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner whocame out to investigate. The two menthen had a conversation in regard toprobable proceedings with regard tothe child and Gilmore then wentaway in the direction of the gate ofthe farmyard. Whether or not he leftthe yard has not yet been ascertained;but this fact is certain, that within avery short time he was at the rear ofthe house, having in his possession aloaded gun. While the old man wasstanding in front of the fire, and whilehe was in the act of undressing,Gilmore fired the fatal shot and fled.The police received notice of the in-cident at around eleven o’clock andarrested Gilmore in bed at his ownhome at around one o’clock. In hispossession was found the powder andshot purchased during that day, andan examination of that showed thatsufficient had only been used to makeone charge. The gun was later foundunder some furze bushes about fourhundred yards from Gardiner’s

house, and in the direction Gilmorewould have most probably taken toreach his own house where he wasproved to have spent an hour and ahalf after the murder in friendly con-versation. At the police court inves-tigation which was held on May 6th,at Dervock, Robert Gilmore wascharged with wilful murder, andcommitted for trial. The trial tookplace at the Assizes for the Countyof Antrim, before Mr. Justice Gibson,and on the verdict of guilty beingbrought in by the jury, sentence of

death was passed in accordance withthe law.Just as the bolt was being drawnGilmore exclaimed, " Farewell to all‘till we meet again." So marked thefinal moments of Robert Gilmorewho found himself standing on thescaffold on the morning of 17th Au-gust 1894. The executioner, T. H.Scott, ensured that the execution wascarried out as quickly as possible onthis the fifth person to suffer the ex-treme penalty of the law at BelfastPrison.

The Old House in Little Patrick Street at the begining of the last century

McCusker’s Warehouse, Haliday’sRoad around 1910.

The top of the New Lodge Roadis to the right.


CRUEL MURDER AT BUSHMILLSWilliam Woods was the sixth victimof the hangman of North Belfast’sCrumlin Road Prison and the first tobe executed in the new chamber spe-cially constructed within the jail. Ateight o’clock on the morning of Fri-day January 11th 1901, WilliamWoods was convicted at the Assizesheld in Belfast for the wilful murderof Bridget McGivern at Eagry, nearBushmills, on 26th September 1900,suffered the extreme penalty of thelaw. The crime committed by thecondemned man was of an appallingcharacter in its cruelty, without anyextenuating circumstances.The City Coroner, Mr. E. S. Finneganheld an inquest at eleven o’clock inthe Boardroom of the prison on thebody of the deceased WilliamWoods. The necessary formalitieshaving been complied with at theentrance to the jail, the coroner inti-mated to the officials that any resi-dent in the County of Antrim whowished to be present at the inquestmust be admitted.After the jury had been sworn in, theyproceeded to the execution chamber,accompanied by a number of report-ers, and viewed the body and thescaffold.At the end of the proceedings the juryagreed with the doctors verdict whichwas read by the coroner and dulysigned :- " That the said William Woods, amale person, of the age of fifty-eightyears, and a pedlar, was a prisoner inBelfast Prison under judgement ofdeath for the murder of BridgetMcGivern, and that the judgement ofdeath was duly executed on him by

being hanged by the neck till deadwithin the walls of the said prison onthe 11th January, 1901; not more thantwenty-four hours before holding ofthis inquest, and that the body onwhich this inquest is held is the iden-tical body of the said William Woods,adjudged to death aforesaid."

Following the business of a pedlar,it appeared that woods was in thehabit of visiting Bushmills and stay-ing in the house of BridgetMcGivern, a widow with two chil-dren. William Woods went into theTaggart’s shop in Bushmills on 25thSeptember and bought a razor, stat-ing to the assistant who sold it to himthat he wanted it to sell again. Hesubsequently went to BrigidMcGivern’s house and stayed thereuntil a late hour where he had tea.He produced a naggin bottle of whis-key, gave the deceased a drink fromit and then proceeded to take the resthimself. Ultimately they all lay downto rest. There were two beds in thesingle room which formed the cabin.The deceased, preceded by the chil-dren went to one of them and Woodswent to the other. The youngest boydidn’t rise till late the following

morning and missed his mother fromthe bed.

Looking round in the dim light of theearly dawn, he saw her lying on theother bed, while Woods had disap-peared. Going over to his mother thepoor lad found her covered in bloodand, horrified he fled out the door toalarm the neighbours. WilliamWoods however had already went tothe police barracks in Bushmills. Hisclothes soaked in blood, he calmlyadmitted the murder of BrigidMcGivern. The police rushed to thescene and found the unfortunatewoman lying dead on the bed, herthroat cut from ear to ear. The bodyby this time was almost cold. Theplace was like a shambles. Woods’muffler had been thrown over thepoor woman’s throat, and his coatplaced under her head. Later onNovember 17th, a razor, identical tothe one sold to Woods at Taggart’sshop, was found in an old ruin halfway between the scene of the mur-der and the police barracks.The case proved to be quite a simpleone because in addition to the otherconclusive evidence which theCrown produced there was also the

The cottage in which Woods horrifically murdered Bridget McGivern.


Woods’ statement of admission. Atthe trial before Mr. Justice Maddenin December, Woods was reported bythe press to seem to take very littleinterest in the proceedings, and ap-peared was very callous throughout.He was ably defended by Mr. Tho-mas Harrison, who suggested that thecrime was not one of premeditatedmalice but homicidal mania; but thejury after a short deliberation re-turned a verdict of guilty. Woodsshowed no sign of anxiety as to theresult and after the judge had sol-emnly pronounced the death sen-tence Woods airily remarked, "Oh itsnot as bad as a bad marriage". Hewas returned to the prison to awaithis execution where he was attendedto daily by his minister, the Rev. Dr.Spence.This was not the first time howeverthat William Woods had appeared incourt. In the spring of 1890 he nar-rowly missed execution for the bru-tal killing of Mary Irwin. This inci-dent happened near the village ofClaudy after he was arrested alongwith Mary Irwin for drunkenness.Both were released from the barracksat midnight. Next morning thewoman was found tied to a cartwheel, brutally hacked to death witha scythe. It transpired that the de-ceased had often given the accusedprovocation, and the jury, taking thisinto consideration, and believing thatthe crime was not premeditated, re-turned a verdict of manslaughter.Woods was sentenced to twelve yearspenal servitude, and released in July1899. As further proof of his violentcharacter it was also shown that hehad been convicted on thirty-twoother occasions, mostly for assaultson the police, and in one case on a

magistrate.Early on the morning of Friday Janu-ary 11th crowds began to assemblein the vicinity of the prison. A newstone execution chamber which wasspecially constructed for hangingswas ready to accept Woods as its firstvictim. This room was to be a per-manent feature of the jail and wasbuilt in the wing adjacent to theMater Informorium Hospital. It wasdescribed at the time as a substantialapartment entered from the corridorof the prison, with roughly plasteredwalls, and a glass roof. Beneath thetrap door, which is on a level withthe floor, is a deep pit, sufficient, itwas said , to give any length of dropconsidered necessary by the execu-tioner. The scaffold was only a fewyards away from the condemned cell.Scott of Huddersfield was the hang-man and he quickly pinioned Woods

and placed him in position over thetrap door. The white hood was placedover his head. The noose was ad-justed round his neck. The lever waspulled and Woods was hanged. Foran hour or so the body remainedhanging, after which it was cut downand placed in a coffin, which was laidout in the death chamber ready forthe inspection of the jury.

Outside at a quarter to eight the belltolled to send the message through-out the neighbourhood of the grimevents which were about to takeplace. Crowds had gathered at theprison and stood silently awaiting thehoisting of the black flag. The bellsuddenly stopped at eight o’clockand the flag was hoisted. Then thebell recommenced, intimating that allwas over. The crowd afterwards qui-etly dispersed.

William Woods


SOLDIERS IN THE DOCK WHENBELFAST WAS A GARRISON TOWNOne item which I am always high-lighting through my writings is thefascination of looking through oldnewspapers. Recently I had beenlooking up some material relating tothe old Victoria Barracks when Icame across some interesting courtappearances of soldiers based there.The first I came upon was on the 11thof April 1881 when a soldier namedJohn O’Donnell, of the 86th Regi-ment, was charged with having as-saulted a woman named Ellen Scott.The prosecution stated that on theprevious day, at about half past nine,she was going down Donegall Streetaccompanied by another youngwoman. The prisoner was comingin the opposite direction. When hecame to them he shoved them off thefootpath, and gave her a violent blowwith a stick. She then had to go tothe Royal Hospital in FrederickStreet to have her wound dressed.The prisoner said that the reason hestruck the girl was because she saidwhen he was passing her "There goesone of the 86th murderers."A certificate was read from the housesurgeon of the hospital to the effectthat Scott was now free from dan-ger.The prisoner was remanded for aweek and on his next appearancefined and confined to barracks.

A few days later, on April 18th, Aprivate in the 16th Regiment namedSamuel Torbitt, was put forward incustody, charged by Sub ConstableDickson with having assaulted himon the previous night.

From the evidence it appeared thatthe prisoner had been disorderly in apublic house, and that the constablehad been called to remove him. Whenoutside the prisoner struck him ablow with his fist, cutting his lip. Onthe way to the Police Office he be-came so violent that handcuffs hadto be put on him.He was imprisoned in the Belfast Jailon the Crumlin Road for one month.The next prisoner to appear in thecourt after Torbitt was yet anothersoldier. He was Patrick McVeighagain of the 86th Regiment who wasdescribed as ‘a fine young fellow’and who was put forward by SubConstable Breen charged with beingdrunk and disorderly by shouting.An officer of the Regiment was incourt, and stated that the prisoner hadonly been eighteen months in the ser-vice, and twelve months out of thattime had been spent by him in jailfor breaches of military laws.The magistrates imposed a fine of

20s and costs, with the alternative offourteen days’ imprisonment.

On the 10th of May a private in the19th Regiment named James Crone,was put forward in custody of SubConstable McCabe, charged withhaving been drunk and disorderlyand with having assaulted him.The constable disposed that on theprevious evening, shortly beforeseven o’clock, the prisoner formedone of a large crowd which had col-lected in Clifton Street. The con-stable went forward and told thecrowd generally to move into themiddle of the road so as not to ob-struct the thoroughfare. The prisonerstepped forward and made use of badlanguage. The constable said hewould send for a picket to have theprisoner removed to the guardroom,when the prisoner became so disor-derly that he had to arrest him. Afterthe arrest he became so violent thathe had to be taken to the Donegall

In Victorian times soldiers based in the North Queen Street Barracks were no strangers tothe local courts. In this picture the Recy can be seen in the background.


Street Barracks, where he was hand-cuffed, and gave all the trouble hecould. It took three policemen to takehim to the Police Office on a cart.Colour Sergeant Booth told the courtthat the prisoner had only been ashort time in the regiment, and borea bad character.The magistrates sentenced the pris-oner to prison for three months forthe assault on the policeman, andfourteen days for the drunkennessand disorderly conduct.A few days later, on the 13th of May,Mary Jane Patterson, and HenryWood, a private soldier of the 2ndDragoon Guards, were put forwardin custody of Sub ConstableGalbraith, charged with having re-ceived a silver watch, and with hav-ing stolen it, the property of WilliamGowan.Gowan, it appeared, had been in themilitary barracks on North QueenStreet on the 14th of April. He wasdrunk at the time, and had gone inwith another soldier, who was not themale prisoner. He fell asleep, andwhen he awoke his watch was gone.The female prisoner was identifiedas having pawned the watch. Whenarrested she said she got it in HenryStreet from the male prisoner, who,when arrested, denied that he had sto-len it.The magistrate remanded the femaleprisoner and discharged the soldieras the evidence against him was in-sufficient.This was just in the period of the fewweeks I was looking through so itgives a good idea of the amount ofsoldiers who came before the localPolice Courts when Belfast was agarrison town.

The Royal Damask Weaving Factory, ArdoyneVillage at the turn of the last century.

Harmony Village,Ligoniel mid 1960’s.

Frederick Street around 1895 showing thelast thatched cottages in Belfast.


CHILD KILLERS ANDA ROBBERY GONE BAD

Following the execution of WilliamWoods in the Crumlin Road Jail in1901 two child killers were hanged.The first was Richard Justin in 1909for the horrific murder of youngAnnie Thompson in the New Lodgearea and the second SimonMcKeown for the murder of MaggieFullerton on the slopes of Cavehill,both cases covered in the first partof this publication. The next casewas that of Michael Pratley who washanged on the 8th of May 1924.On March 7th 1924, Nelson Leech,an employee with Messrs. Purdy &Millard (Sculptors) of Hamill Streethad just returned from the UlsterBank at Queen Street having col-lected the money to pay the wagesof the firm’s employees. Unknownto him he was being stalked by a gangof robbers. Upon his return he was‘held up’ by three masked men whoburst into the office. All three menwere carrying revolvers. As Mr.Leech ran to the phone to raise thealarm a shot rang out, which hit thephone kiosk above the head of theterrified employee. Mr. Leech con-tinued to the phone to summon thehelp of the police when one of theraiders pounced on him. As a resultof the ensuing struggle another shotrang out and Mr. Leech fell fatallywounded to the floor. At this thethree men immediately fled the pre-mises followed in quick pursuit by agirl from the office. One of the raid-ers ran down Hamill Street while theother two ran along Galway Street.Meanwhile an office employee was

able to catch the attention of a po-liceman who was coming out of theBarracks at College Square. He im-mediately went after two of the raid-ers and caught one of them, MichaelPratley from Moira Street, Belfast.

As he caught up on him however itwas claimed that Pratley pulled outhis revolver and tried to shoot himbut the gun jammed and he wasquickly overpowered. This revolverwhen later examined had eight car-

ABOVE - Purdy & Millard's workshopBELOW - The office in which the killing took place.


tridges in it, seven of which wereunused. One of the bullets had beenfired, but the cartridge had not beenejected from the chamber. It waslater discovered that Pratley had an-other clip containing eight more car-tridges, and when his house wassearched another revolver was found.

The Crown tried to prove that if nec-essary Pratley was prepared to killanyone who tried to prevent him car-rying out this robbery. The AttorneyGeneral also pointed out that even ifthe Crown failed to prove that theman who fired the shot was Pratley,but proved that he was one of theraiders when the crime was commit-ted, then the prisoner was guilty ofmurder.Alexander Briggs, an employee withPurdy & Millard, told the court ofwitnessing the whole sequence of

Constable Morteshed who arrested Pratley

Michael Pratley

events from the entrance of themasked raiders, the scuffle with Mr.Leech, the shooting and the escapeof the perpetrators.Elizabeth Allen corroborated his evi-dence and continued to tell how sheraised the alarm which led to Con-stable Morteshed catching MichaelPratley in a nearby street. She saidthat she had no doubt that Pratley wasone of the gang of armed raiders.Constable. Morteshed said he was onduty on 7th March when he heard thealarm in the street. He ran out and

ABOVE - The spot in Barrack Street where Michael Pratley was arrestedBELOW - College Square Barracks which is facing Purdy & Millard's


saw a crowd at Galway Street.Someone shouted , "They ran downthere". Constable Morteshed reachedDurham Street and told of how hesaw two men running into BarrackStreet. He caught Pratley half waydown the street. He explained thatwhen he eventually caught up withhim Pratley whipped around andpulled out an automatic pistol. Thepistol however jammed and heknocked it out of the prisoners hand.Head Constable Slake was thencalled as a witness and he told of hisexamination of the premises ofMessrs. Purdy & Millard, where hefound a bullet hole in the sheetingunder the stairs. When he followedthe line of fire he discovered embed-ded in the wood of the stairs, a bulletof the same calibre as those inPratley’s revolver and it also corre-sponded to the one which killed Mr.Leech.District Inspector Jennings told ofhow, when charged with the crime,Pratley said he did not fire the shotwhich killed Mr. Leech. He admit-ted taking part in the hold up but saidhe only fired one shot, which wentover the Deceased’s head.On cross-examination Pratley re-fused to name his co-conspirator, oneof whom he claimed was the personwho shot Mr. Leech. He readily ad-mitted entering the office with theintent of stealing the wages andclaimed they all carried loaded re-volvers to ‘fire over their heads’.When he was asked to account forthe fact that the bullet which killedMr. Leech corresponded to those inhis revolver he claimed that all therevolvers were the same."Do you admit that the weapon you

had when the constable caught youwas the same as you had in theshop?" - "Yes.""And you had it in your pocket whenthe constable caught you?" - "Yes."The prosecutor then produced a pen-cil written letter and asked him wasit his writing. "It might be".The Attorney General explained tothe court that the letter had been in-tercepted and was evidently writtento the prisoners wife although it hadbeen addressed to someone else."MY DEAREST JOE - I want to saya few things that are best said now.When I stand on my trial it is notunlikely that I may be sentenced todeath, and it is best to know it now,instead of coming as a shock later on.This letter is being slipped out, andit would be better to burn it in case itcomes into the hands of the police.No matter how the case goes I hopethe two men who were with me willdo their best for you. When the trialcomes I am going to say that afterthe shooting I changed guns with oneof the others, as his gun was too bigto go in his pocket. That was how Ihad that particular gun."On being further grilled about thegun he admitted that he had neverexchanged guns.The defence counsel appealed to thecourt on behalf of his client. He

claimed that the evidence indicatedthat there was no premeditation andthat Mr. Leech died as a result of astruggle. It was undoubtedly a crimethat the man had been shot but thedefence’s point was that it was notnecessarily murder because the manwas shot and he further suggestedthat if the gang had gone to Purdy &Millard’s offices with murder in theirhearts then Miss Allen and indeedMr. Briggs would have certainlynever have been allowed to surviveas witnesses. He went on to say thatthe attempt on the life of the con-stable had been brought in as evi-dence purely to prejudice the chancesof the man in the dock. He suggestedthat the jury should consider theshooting of Mr. Leech as manslaugh-ter.The jury retired at 1.17p.m. and re-turned at 1.45p.m. with a verdict ofguilty. Michael Pratley showed noemotion on hearing the verdict andwhen asked by the judge had he any-thing to say, he calmly replied - " Ihave no more to say than I have al-ready said."

The execution was duly carried outin accordance with the law on Thurs-day May 8th 1924. The executionerwho was paid to hang Pratley wasWillis.

A large crowd assembles outside the BelfastPrison on the day of Pratley's execution


Ask most people today where the Fenian Gut was and no doubt the response you’ll get will be bewilderment.Well to answer the question the Fenian Gut was the area bordered by North Queen Street, Henry Street, York

Street and Great George’s Street. The construction of the Westlike has halved the original district and thesection remaining is today known as the Henry Street area.


BELFAST - THE CITY OF RIOTSIf there is one thing that can be saidabout Belfast it is the fact that it iscertainly a city of riots. Now we areall aware of the riots of the past thirtyodd years of conflict in but the factof the matter is that Belfast has beenat conflict within itself basicallysince day one. Even in the years be-fore we became a city Belfast hadriots and in the days before the re-cent conflict they were always overthe same thing - Fenian's and Prodsgetting into each other!Regular readers of my material willbe aware that one of the worst peri-ods in our history was the horrificviolence during the partition of Ire-land when hundreds were killed in ashort period of time and brutal atroci-ties committed which are still talkedabout today, the McMahon Murdersbeing one example. But another pe-riod of horrific violence occurred inthe 1930’s when it seemed that theconflict of the early 1920’s was go-ing to be repeated. Now I don’t planto go into the details of what exactlyoccurred because the basic answer isI don’t know. The problem for themodern historian is that history is tolddifferently by both sides. For ex-ample if we consulted old newspa-pers and read what was going on inthe Northern Whig, when you lookedup the same period in the Irish Newsyou would instantly think that theywere talking about completely differ-ent incidents.A lot of the riots in Belfast’s historyseem to have occurred as a result ofOrange parades and a look at theUnionist Northern Whig of July 13th,1935 would confirm this. Under the

heading "Belfast’s Tragic Night ofRioting" we are told that there were"Dastardly Attacks Made on a Re-turning Orange Procession" and thenthe details of what (in their opinion)occurred. We are informed that thetrouble broke out following a das-tardly attack on the Orange Lodgeswhen they reached the Markets area.Showers of stones were thrown byhostile crowds at Stewart Street,Turnley Street and Annette Street.

Soon after the parade reached NorthStreet a number of revolver shotswere fired at it and when it reachedLancaster Street while going alongYork Street more shots were fired.This resulted in the worst trouble andit is here that the paper begins to con-tradict itself. In one line we are in-formed that "incensed processionistsendeavoured to retaliate, but werepressed back by their marshals andpolice" but reading down the page a

An R.U.C. patrol in Little Georges Street

R.U.C. patrols at the junction of North Queen Street and New Lodge Road


A member of the R.U.C. commandeers a car during trouble in York Street

bit we are informed that "in a fewmoments general trouble developed.Shots were fired from the narrowstreets intersecting York Street andrival parties threw pavers across theroadway."Leaving this aside the Orange ver-sion was that they were fired uponfrom Lancaster Street but the Catho-lic version is that Lancaster Streetcame under attack from the parade -sound familiar!Whatever the truth the result was oneof the biggest riots ever seen in thecity which left a number dead andscores injured. Houses were attackedand set on fire in North Ann Street,Earl Street, Nelson Street, TrafalgarStreet, Corporation Street, Little YorkStreet, North Thomas Street, DockStreet, New Dock Street and DockLane. In the whole area rival crowdsclashed with each other and when theR.U.C. reached breaking point theysent for the military in nearbyVictoria Barracks. By this time the

gunmen on both sides were out andthe sniping had began. Four R.U.C.men from Glenravel Street Barrackswere shot and injured as were count-less civilians including women andchildren two examples being 7 yearold Norman Boardman who was ad-

mitted to the Children's Hospital and74 year old Lydia O’Connor of VereStreet who was shot in the head.Those killed were Thomas Jordan,aged 18, of Ninth Street, WilliamLyttle, aged 23, of Collyer Street bothshot in the head, Margaret Broderick,of Marine Street who was shot in thechest and 18 year old Edward With-ers of Nelson Street who was shot inthe abdomen.As the rioting progressed theStormont Government were forced toimpose a curfew which basicallymeant that anyone seen out after acertain time could be shot dead butthe rioting continued.

All this was in the 1930’s and it’s asubject which I will be coming backto but today, as were are four yearsinto a new millennium, we wouldthink that this is a thing of the pastbut remember the old saying - themore things change, the more theyremain the same!

Junction of York Street and Donegall Street during a sniper attack


During my tours of the Donegall Street/Half Bap area one of the topics raised was the uncovering of human bones inthe area during the Victorian period. No sooner had I completed my latest tour when a glance through one of the oldnewspapers revealed another discovery. This time in was in Waring Street when the foundations of a building werebeing laid and two human skulls were unearthed. It would seem in the Belfast of really olden times people must havebeen buried here, there and everywhere. It was also while looking through the old newspapers that I came across yetanother incident of human bones being discovered, this time in the Peter’s Hill area. However this one was a fascinat-ing case and I reprint the whole article as it appeared in the Weekly Northern Whig of Saturday, 27th May 1871: -

EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY OF HUMAN REMAINSMr Mairs, who for some time pastcarried on a grocery establishmentat the corner of Peter’s Hill and BoydStreet, has had a number of labourersemployed during the past week intaking down the old building that thepremises may be reconstructed on anextensive scale.On Monday morning, about eleveno’clock, some of the workmen, whowere making excavations and clear-ing away the debris, prior to puttingin new foundations, made an extraor-dinary discovery of human remains.

While they were digging in the rearof the building they brought up anumber of bones, and on continuingtheir work, they found, within a dis-tance of a few yards and not morethan a foot and a half beneath thesurface, no less than nine humanskulls, and as many bones as wouldgo to make up nine human bodies.The place where the remains werediscovered would lead to the beliefthat they must have been interred atsome point subsequent to the erec-tion of the old house, as the spot

where the excavations were beingmade was where a doorway existed,leading from one room to another.When the old doorstep was removed,the skulls were found resting againstthe stonework of the foundations, andthe bones lay in a straight line fromeach skull in a manner in which bod-ies are interred in graveyards.The news of the discovery soonspread, and in a short time thousandsof people were attracted by curiosityto the place, and different opinionswere formed as to when, and owing

Peter’s Hill at the turn of the last century.

Map of the area at the time


to what cause, the remains had beendeposited in this place. Some per-sons who examined the skulls saidthat at least three of them were thoseof females. By some they were setdown as being the remains of per-sons who fell during the rebellion of1798. Others said that the house wasbuilt on a prison graveyard, and thatthey were the remains of persons whohad suffered execution. Some peoplewent so far as to assert that a whole-sale murder had been perpetrated,and that the guilty parties had bur-ied their victims in the place wherethe bones have been discovered. Forthe present, however, there is no re-liable one to unravel the mystery.During the day, the thoroughfare ofPeter’s Hill was almost impassable,as hundreds assembled from all partsof the town to obtain a view of thebones, and to make inquiries as totheir discovery.The remains were placed in a box,and an eccentric individual tookcharge of it and would allow no per-son to view it its contents, unless hereceived a money contribution for theprivilege of inspection. The matterwas reported to the police, and ontheir making inquiries in theneighbourhood they found that "theoldest inhabitant" remembered adoctors shop in existence at this cor-ner at one time. This may accountfor the bones being found there.When the coroner was informed ofthe discovery, he ordered the remainsto be buried.A fascinating article indeed but byreading it there are a few theories thatcan be ruled out. No prison existedthere and all of the executions dat-ing from before the 1798 rebellioncan be accounted for. In relation to

the rebellion they could not havebeen the bodies of those who fell asno battle took place in Belfast but thetheory of this being a pre-Victorianserial killer is indeed an extremelyinteresting one. Because of the de-scription of the bones resting againstthe stonework then it is obvious thatthe stonework was there before thebones so it’s obvious that a previoustenant of the building buried these.With the ‘oldest resident’ remember-ing a doctor’s being there is it pos-sible that he was buying corpses frombodysnatchers? It is certainly a rea-sonable thought bearing in mind thatit was the remains of nine bodies dis-covered thus ruling out the straight-forward murder with the body lobbedbeneath the floorboards.

As covered in my tours of this areathere are numerous cases of bonesbeing uncovered all around what isnow the city centre. There were thosediscovered at the junction of RoyalAvenue and North Street when thefoundations of the old Foster Greenbuilding were being laid and a fewmonths later a complete human skel-eton was found nearby. In the samearea in February 1894 a total of nineskulls were unearthed at Royal Av-enue. It is thought they date from1700, as coins dated 1742 were foundin the same place.

These are just a few examples so thenext time you think that all old hu-man remains are buried in the oldgraveyards think again!

Map of the area at the time of the gruesome discovery

e of the gruesome discovery


WE HAVE GARDENS, AVENUEAND PARADE BUT WHERE WAS

DUNCAIRN STREET?Duncairn Church pictured when

this section of the Antrim Road wasknown as Duncairn Street.

Many of us remember the DuncairnStreet post office which was situated afew doors down from the Phoenix Baron the Antrim Road. But here’s an in-teresting question which I’m surepeople have asked over the years -where exactly is Duncairn Street? Wehave a Duncairn Gardens, a DuncairnParade and even a Duncairn Avenue butno Duncairn Street. Many would thinkthat it may have been a nearby streetwhich is now gone due to the blitz oreven redevelopment but you would besurprised to know that, technicallyspeaking, Duncairn Street is still withus. The reason is simple as the nameDuncairn Street was later changed tothe Antrim Road!Now the whole of the Antrim Road wasnot named Duncairn Street as this wasonly from Carlisle Circus up to the junc-tion of the Cavehill Road and Lime-stone Road and from there on up wehad the Antrim Road. The street got itsname from the massive private estatewhich made up the right hand side ofthe New Lodge Road and Tiger’s Bayand which was called Duncairn. It isan Irish word and translates roughly asmonumental pile of stone which wouldhave been an old Irish shrine or even agrave. Many names still survive fromit such as the above street names, a com-munity centre and the Duncairn Churchat the top of the New Lodge Road.But what was this street like all thoseyears ago when the Duncairn Estate wasstill there? Well there is only one wayto find out and that’s through an old

Belfast Street directory with my choicebeing that of 1884.On the right hand side coming up fromCarlisle Circus the first building wasthat of an A.F.O Beyer and which islisted as a pianoforte, harmonium andorgan wareroom. Next door was thegrocers and provision merchants ofWatt & Co., then a sweet shop of MrFlemming. Next to him was a Marga-ret Flanagan who is listed as a flesherwhich does not sound like a very pleas-ant occupation, and next door to which

was a stationer and fruit shop. Roughlywhere Pim Street is situated today wehad a back entrance into the militarybarracks and then a row of houses calledBrookvale Terrace with a professor ofmusic at number 5, a solicitor at num-ber 2 and Miss Brady, dress and man-tel maker at number 4. Next to this isanother row called Duncairn Place andit is then that we come to DawsonStreet. Crossing over we come to CliveVilla which was home to Captain Jack-son of the Royal Irish Rifles and then


another row of houses called AntrimPlace leading up to Annadale Street.The next row of houses is called La-burnum Terrace with another militaryman living in 27, this time a MajorAnson who was the staff paymaster.The next row of houses was known asLaburnum Place and at the corner theDuncairn Arms which was then underthe ownership of a P. Leonard.Crossing the New Lodge Road wecome to Eafleson Place and the direc-tory informs us that new houses areunder construction with a Post OfficePillar Box at number 61. A few doorsaway we had a posting establishmentand next to it a Margaret McMenamywho ran a servant’s registry office there.The Phoenix Bar was then not longopened and was under a woman namedEliza Hughes. Next door was anotherflesher, James Rollestone and then arow of houses called Fortview Terracealthough what fort it was viewing is abit of a mystery unless they were look-ing out their back window (DuncairnEstate was also known as Fortfield).This row also had a derelict ManorHouse as part of it. Then we come toGloucester Villa which brought us upto Atlantic Avenue. (rememberDuncairn Gardens did not exist then).Crossing we came to Cavendish Ter-race which led on to Antrim Terrace. Itis here that the modern offices of theNorth Belfast News are situated but weare informed by the directory that in1884 it was here that a Gilbert Ogilvielived and he was a sub-editor of theBelfast Newsletter. Crossing BalticAvenue the next row is known asBenvista with a watchmaker at num-ber 2, Lloyd’s local shipping surveyorat number 6 and where the Sinn Feinoffice is situated, that was Miss Annie

Henderson the bookseller. After Oce-anic Avenue we had Arthur Terrace witha post office at number 5 , anotherflesher at number 9 and a Peeler Bar-rack at number 12 this then brought usto the Limestone Road and the begin-ning of the Antrim Road.Moving back down to Carlisle Circusit is time to have a look at the left handside. Once again one of the first build-ings is piano related and is once againa property of A.F.O. Beyer who thistime is listed as a pianoforte tuner al-though I suspect that this may have beenhis home. Crossing Annesley Street thefirst house we would have come to wasthat of a James Smyth who was a sur-geon in the nearby Mater Hospital. Atthe opposite corner, this time withAdela Street was a grocer shop and thena row of houses known as Adela Ter-race, which ended in a street also knownas Adela Place. We then reached thegates of St Malachy’s College with thepresident being listed as the Rev. H.Henry before coming to Lincoln Av-enue. Here the row of houses werecalled Cranston Place and at number 3was Andrew Wright who was a pawn-broker. Crossing Cranebourne Street (asit was spelt then) we came toMcCormick’s Stone Works and thenMurray's Lime Works. This has an in-teresting point today. If we look at thelevelled ground where Coulter’s wassituated, at the top we can see a mas-sive amount of limestone - now weknow why! After this was a small laneleading to the park called Murray’s Rowand then a row of houses known asDonegall Terrace with a ship ownernamed Alexander Blaney living at num-ber 5. St James’s Street then intersectedand then a row of houses named CliftonTerrace. It was at the corner house here

that the Rev. Hugh Hanna lived, or, ashe was more commonly known, "Roar-ing Hanna". Next door to him was aCharlotte Griem who was a teacher ofGerman. Crossing Kinnaird Street wecame to two large rows of houses calledThorndale Terrace and Duncairn Ter-race with two private houses in betweencalled Woodbine Cottage andClanerlean. Crossing Duncairn Avenuewe come to Duncairn Church and thenPebble Cottage which was then thehome of a builder called WilliamMiskimmon. This brought us to theCliftonville and St James’s Church atthe other side and their schoolroomsnext to that. Then we had St James’sVilla which led up to Hillview and thenEia Street. On the other side of this wasEia House, Laurington and HollyMount. Allworthy Avenue then inter-sected and at the other side the homeof Edward Allworthy. Now it’s obvi-ous that the nearby street is named af-ter him but it was also he who namedEia Street and not knowing which oneof his three daughters to call it after hesimply took the first letters of their firstnames and there we have it. Next to himwas the Mariner’s Parsonage which washome to the Rev. John Spence, the min-ister of the Mariner’s Church.Antrimville was the next big house andthen Brookville which later became aMasonic Lodge but at this time washome to a ship owner called SamuelLawther. Crossing Broovale Avenue wethen came to the Waterworks and thegate lodge at that time was home to theparks two caretakers, William Smithand William Ball.And so there we have it, a simple bit ofhistorical research using an old direc-tory which I hope explains howDuncairn Street looked in 1884


"A CRIME OF REVOLTINGHORROR AND BRUTALITY"

The above heading was how the At-torney General described the horrificmurders for which William Smyliewas hanged in the Belfast Prison. Inreturning to my series of articles onthose executed within the CrumlinRoad jail in North Belfast we look atthe hanging of the tenth man withinits walls The Armoy murder forwhich William Smylie paid the su-preme penalty of the law was com-mitted on the 24th of May, 1928. Thevictims of this ghastly murder wereMiss Margaret and Miss SarahMacauley, both sisters in their for-ties who lived on the family farm atMullaghduffbeg, County Antrim.The crime created widespread pub-lic interest as it had been the firstdouble murder perpetrated in theseparts in a very long time.

William Smylie was a trusted servantof the Macauley family and on thatfateful day in May the two Macauleysisters were found dead on thekitchen floor with terrible head inju-ries. They had both been shot at closerange and the gun lay beside the bod-ies. The only other persons at thefarmhouse that day were WilliamSmylie and another house servantKate Murdoch. The other Macauleybrothers were out in the fields work-ing. It transpired that after the mur-der was discovered, Smylie rushedoff to inform the police. Severalstatements were subsequently madeand eventually Smylie had impli-cated himself in the whole affair. Onsearching Smylie it was found that

he had thirty pounds stuffed into hisboot. It was later discovered thatthirty pounds had been stolen fromthe house that same day from AndrewMacauley’s cash box. Upon beingfurther questioned he admitted thathe had stolen the money but that hedid not murder the two sisters.

The Lord Chief Justice summed upby pointing out that Smylie had beenfound in possession of the stolenmoney and there being no evidenceof other persons having been in thevicinity of the house at the time ofthe double murder it was up toSmylie to explain how he came tohave the money. Was it before themurder or after? He emphasised thatif the jury thought there was a rea-sonable doubt they should give theprisoner the benefit of it. If there wasno doubt, the prisoner would have topay the penalty for one of the most

barbarous and brutal murders thathad happened in their time and gen-eration

Less than a quarter of an hour wastaken by the jury to reach their deci-sion. The court was hushed and in afew moments it was realised the ver-dict which was agreed upon wasGUILTY. The clerk of the court thenasked Smylie if he had anything tosay. Smylie who was slightly palestood up and stated firmly, "I AMINNOCENT OF THE MURDER!"He was then taken across to theprison through an underground pas-sage which leads between the court-house and the prison directly belowthe Crumlin Road.

It appeared that on the day of themurders Margaret Macauley was leftin the house after dinner. The ser-vants had all left to go about their

The cottage where the brutal murders occurred.


work and Sarah Macauley had wentto bring dinner to her brothers whowere out in the fields working, acouple of hundred yards away. It wasat this stage that the ghastly sequenceof events unfolded.

Kate Murdoch, a domestic servant atthe Macauley house gave some in-teresting evidence which when addedto the evidence of one of theMacauley brothers formed part of theconclusive evidence submitted by theprosecution. Kate Murdoch statedthat she was watering the cattle afterhaving dinner at 12.20. She saw Sa-rah Macauley coming from whereher brothers were working. Shewaited for Sarah to join her and sheleft Sarah to go to back of the houseto bud potatoes. After working a fewminutes she heard a shot, and a fewminutes later she heard the sound ofhorses feet. She described her hor-ror when she went into the house andsaw both sisters lying dead in theirown blood. She told Smylie, who atthis time was ploughing, about themurders. He immediately ran to thehouse while she went out to raise thealarm. Leslie Macauley told thecourt that from where he was stand-ing he had a clear view of the farm-house. He estimated that his sisterSarah would get back to the houseafter leaving them at about 1 p.m. andthe first movement he noticed at thefarmhouse was around 1.25 p.m.when he saw Smylie leaving thehouse. Smylie told the brothers aboutthe murder while they were workingin the fields at around 3.30 p.m. andtold them that there had been a raidand that the gun was lying acrosstheir dead bodies.

This gun had been hanging on thekitchen wall and it had been sug-gested that it had almost certainlybeen loaded in front of MargaretMacauley before Sarah had comeback from the fields. It was sug-gested that only the accused couldhave done this without arising thesuspicions of the murdered womanfor he had used this gun on severalother occasions.

The defence counsel declared that thecircumstantial evidence of the Crownwas inconclusive and would not jus-tify the jury in returning a verdict ofguilty. He claimed that Smylie defi-nitely did not commit these murders.He reminded the jury that the kitchenwas like a shambles on that instantand that the sisters had been shot atclose range yet there was not onespeck of blood on Smylie’s clothes.

He also drew the attention of the juryto the fact that the police were un-able to find any of the accused man'sfingerprints at the scene of the crime.Smylie when he was arrested told thepolice that he had accompaniedLeslie Macauley back to the farm-house and had entered the house andthe bedroom. When there, heclaimed he found the money whichwas discovered hidden in his boot."It was lying on the floor near Andy’scash-box."Leslie Macauley however testified tothe fact that Smylie was not allowedto enter the house after the murderand did not accompany him to thebedroom.Asked if he had entered the houseafter the murder, Smylie said he wentin at 5.30 p.m. along with LeslieMacauley while Constable Waughwas on guard duty. They went up-stairs to the loft (bedroom) to see ifthe money was right. There werepapers scattered all over the floor andhe claimed he took three £10 noteswhich were lying in a lump under thedressing table. It was not until hemade a closer examination in thestables that he found the lump of pa-per contained the £10 notes.Lord Chief Justice -"You did notthink it was paper at the time! Youwould not steal paper?Smylie did not answer the question.In passing the death sentence thejudge stated that he agreed with thedecision of the jury - "You gave thoseunfortunate women not a momentbefore you hurled them into eternity.The law is more merciful to you be-cause you will be afforded some pe-riod in which to make your peacewith your Maker!"

Kate Murdoch who made thehorrific discovery.


VICTIM No.11 GETSHANGMAN’S NOOSEVictim No.11 of the hangman atthe Crumlin Road Jail was Will-iam Cushnan was executed on themorning of April 8th, 1930 for thebrutal murder of James McCann,a postman on May 16th, 1929. Hehad been sentenced in March 1930after the jury at his original trial inDecember had disagreed. After theexecution Fr. McGouran said,"Cushnan died with great Christiancourage and charity." and he wasafterwards interred within theprison in accordance with the lawAn eyewitness recalled thatCushnan was in the condemnedcell that morning praying alongwith a priest when at two minutesto eight the Sub-Sheriff accompa-nied by Pierrepoint, appeared at thedoor and demanded that the pris-oner be handed over for execution.The Governor of the gaol, MajorLong formally handed over hisprisoner. Cushnan stood up and thehangman strapped his arms to hisside. In a moment the processionto the scaffold had begun.Cushnan had only a dozen steps totake and on the stroke of eight hewas dead. The morning had beencold and wet and a slight fog whichhung over the city added to the dis-mal scene.James McCann was a rural post-man who carried the mail fromToomebridge Post Office toCrosskeys. He had to make a de-livery of letters to people upon theway, and having done so, he wenton to Crosskeys Post Office where

he left the remainder of his deliv-ery. On the days when the old agepension was paid out he also col-lected it at Toomebridge andbrought it to Crosskeys with therest of his delivery. Toomebridgeto Crosskeys is a distance of aboutfour and a half miles and on themorning of his murder, ThursdayMay 16th, he had the money in asealed bag which had been sentdown from head office in Belfast.James McCann set off fromToomebridge on his bicycle at 8.20a.m. and should have reachedCrosskeys around 9.30 a.m. Thefact that he carried the old age pen-sion money every Thursday wascommon knowledge around thatarea, a fact that the prosecutionimpressed upon the jury. His bodywas found later that morning. Hehad apparently been robbed andshot dead. The Attorney General,Right Honourable A. B. BabingtonK.C., submitted that the murderwas done by a local, who obviouslyhad prior knowledge of both thelocality and of McCann’s move-ments and also knowledge of thefact that McCann would be carry-ing the money on that particularmorning. He finished his addressby stating, "the prisoner at the baranswered the description sug-gested by these facts".McCann had been shot through theneck with a shotgun. Alcohol waslater found to be in the victimsstomach when the post mortem ex-amination was carried out. The

police also found a porter bottle ofpoteen close to where the body wasfound. These facts seemed verystrange to the detectives who won-dered why he would have beendrinking at such an early hour.The Crown suggested thatMcCann had been lured down thelane by Cushnan by offering him aquick drink of poteen. (McCannwould not have perceived that sucha move would have proved fatal ashe knew Cushnan). It was this baitwhich ultimately led to his deathand the stealing of the £60 fromhis delivery. The murder had ob-viously been meticulously plannedout beforehand. The gun had beenconcealed in a hedge in thelaneway where the murder tookplace.They therefore had the motive forthe crime - robbery. They had themethod used - the use of poteen asa bait and the callous use of a shot-gun to shoot the victim at closerange. They had also narroweddown the suspects to someone whowas living in the locality.Many people seemed to have heardthe shot that morning but thoughtit was someone scaring crows. Re-ferring to Cushnan’s possession ofa gun, the judge thought it strangeto have a certificate when hisfamily’s position did not reallywarrant the need for one. Whenpolice went to inquire about thisgun only the butt could be found.Cushnan when asked what hap-pened to the barrel claimed that it


had been left in an outhouse whenhe was ‘flitting’ from one house toanother and someone must havelifted it. Witnesses were producedhowever who testified having seenhim with the gun after he hadmoved house. Cushnan alsoclaimed to have been working in acertain field from 9 to 11 a.m. onthe morning of the murder butother witnesses were produced bythe prosecution who gave evidenceto the contrary. They claimed thatthey had been working in adjoin-ing fields and on that particularmorning he didn’t come into thefield until well after 10 o’clock.Witnesses also told of seeingCushnan’s bicycle in the lanewaybefore the murder and it was stillthere at six or seven that sameevening. The greatest evidence ac-cording to the prosecution was apiece of cloth allegedly identicalin texture to that of the coat whichwitnesses said the accused waswearing on the morning of themurder.On the morning of the murder afriend of Cushnan’s, Mrs.Robinson and her niece told thecourt of how Cushnan hurried pastthem while they were talking at thedoor. She noticed that he waswearing a darkish coat and brownkhaki riding breeches and leggings.Cushnan denied talking to eitherwomen that morning. Mrs.Robinson also claimed thatCushnan called at her house abouta week after the murder asking ifthe police had interviewed her andif they had asked her had she seenhim that day. Only one witness,Mrs. Brown saw anyone acting

suspiciously that morning and herevidence was used to outline thesupposed scenario. " It would bethe natural thing for the murdererto go through the back fields ratherthan through the village. A man,for the moment there was no evi-dence that it was the prisoner, madehis way up the back fields and gotas far as a point from which hecould be seen from Mrs. Brown’shouse. This stranger was seen byMrs. Brown from a distance ofaround 200 yards. Although Mrs.

Brown knew Cushnan from child-hood she could not positively iden-tify him although from her obser-vations she could confirm that hewas of small build (similar toCushnan) and wearing a darkishcoat and khaki-coloured trousers.Did they think that the man wasthe murderer or someone con-cerned with the murder trying toescape? That was a matter for thejury. On May 29th police arrestedCushnan and charged him withmurdering James McCann.

The murdered postman James McCann


BELFAST LOUGHHISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OR JUST A STRETCH OF WATER?

One fascinating aspect of NorthBelfast and Newtownabbey is theabsolutely amazing view some partshave over Belfast Lough, a featurewell known to those who have wentup Cavehill. Now there are many outthere who may just state that this isonly a stretch of water and can’t re-ally have any history connected withit - well they’d be wrong. BelfastLough started out as CarrickfergusLough and has been the scene ofmany an amazing naval battle. Butit has also been the scene of tremen-dous tragedy and the amount ofpeople who have lost their liveswithin it is simply countless. As anexample I have looked back to Vic-torian times and one of the worsttragedies to have occurred withinBelfast Lough. For the story we lookat the Weekly Northern Whig of Sat-urday 25th June, 1859 under theheading of:-DISTRESSING ACCIDENT ONBELFAST LOUGHToday it was our melancholy duty torecord an accident, attended by thegreatest loss of life that has takenplace for very many years in thisharbour. Indeed we cannot call to ourrecollection, either from reading ormemory, an event in the history ofthe Belfast harbour so tragic from thenumber of deaths connected with itas that which occurred nearly oppo-site Whitehouse, on Wednesday af-ternoon. The news of the catastro-phe reached down in the course ofthat evening, but in the form of avague rumour, and, although the state

of the weather gave probability to themelancholy, intelligence, nothingcertain on the subject was knownhere till an advanced hour of thenight. On Thursday, we despatcheda reporter to the coastguard stationnear the scene of the disaster, and,from inquiries made there and else-where, we have ascertained the fol-lowing particulars in relation to thisshocking disaster:-Captain Wright, the gentlemancharged with the duty of enlighten-ing volunteers for the Navy, had en-rolled the names of thirteen youngmen willing to embark in that branchof the service. The Wellington, cut-ter, under orders to proceed round thecoast, and bring off recruits from thedifferent stations to the Ajax nowlying in Kingstown harbour, arrivedin this lough for that purpose, andanchored near the lighthouse, andabout a mile from the coastguard sta-tion on the Antrim wide. Early inthe day, a boat, with four of the crew,was sent off from the cutter to bringthe volunteers on board. It was incommand of the steward, a fineyoung man, named JonathanWoodcook, who was fated never toreturn to his ship. He seems to havebeen much respected, and, amongstthe ill-starred eleven, he is particu-larly lamented. On reaching thequay, Woodcock and his three com-panions proceeded to the sailors’Home, where the young men hadbeen quartered, and where theirsteady and respectable conduct elic-ited the admiration of Captain Wright

and Mr. M’Clean, the excellent su-perintendent of "the home." Thevolunteers have quickly got ready,Lieutenant Hardy, commander of thecutter, and two others from the crewof the cutter, and two others of thecrew who had been on shore, joinedthe party, who, twenty in number(thirteen volunteers, and seven of thecrew of the cutter, including the cap-tain), left the quay at a quarter pastthree o’clock, in an open boat, abouttwenty-five feet long. It had a logsail,which was closely reefed. The vol-unteers and all in the boat were per-fectly sober, and, as Captain Wrightshook hands with some of the vol-unteers, he felt much satisfaction inhaving enlisted so fine a lot of steadyyoung men for the important serviceon which they had willingly entered.Throughout the morning the weatherwas showery and very unsettled; butthe wind was favourable, and it wasexpected they would send down tothe cutter in a very short time. It hasbeen remarked that the boat wasoverloaded, and there is some reasonfor the opinion; but, as LieutenantHardy is an experienced officer, andwas going in the boat himself, wemay concluded that, at least whenleaving the quay, no danger threat-ened in any alarming shape. Thecaptain reports that the weather wascomparatively moderate when theboat was shoved off, but it came onto blow when she was half way downtowards the cutter. It blew in dan-gerous squalls from the N.W., and theboat was stuck by three "flowing


seas," which broke right over andcompletely swamped her when abouthalf a mile north of the lighthouseand three quarters from the cutter.The dreadful accident was observedby those parties who hastened to therescue, namely the men on board thecutter, those of the pilot-boat, and ofthe coastguard station at Whitehouse.There was a very heavy sea runningat the time, and the squalls came rap-idly, with all the strength of a wintrystorm. The boat from the cutter firstreached the sufferers, and was soonjoined by the yawl from the pilot-boat. The captain was rescued, afterbeing three-quaters of an hour in thewater; two others of the cutter’s crewwere also saved, and six of the vol-unteers - the other eleven sinking to

rise no more alive, despite all effortsto save them. The men of thecoastguard at the Whitehouselaunched a boat with all possiblespeed, and pulled to the assistance ofthose endeavouring to preserve thedrowning men. The task was a mostdifficult one. One of the boats thathad been engaged in picking up thedrowning men was swamped along-side the pilot boat, so heavy was thesea during the evening. The crew ofthe Wellington having succeeded ingetting the nine rescued placed onboard the pilot boat, every attentionand all possible kindness was shownto them. On being sufficiently re-stored, they were all taken on boardthe cutter, with the exception of JohnM’Connell, an ordinary seaman vol-

unteer, who is in "sick quarters" atCarrickfergus.The names of the volunteers savedare:- Henry M’Kee, landsmen; JamesFinley, stoker; John M’Connell, or-dinary seaman; William Wilson, sec-ond-class ordinary seaman; HughDouglass, assistant stoker; and JohnHart a boy. Those of the cutter rescued are-Lient. Hardy, John Devine (a boy),second class; John Lanigan, able sea-man.The volunteers drowned are- HenryWalsh (joiner), William Moore (aboy), William Stothart (able seaman),Finlay Murray (ship carpenter), AlexStraw (a boy).Those of the cutter’s men lost are-Jonathan Stapleton (first class boy),John Kitson (able seaman), J. Barker(able seaman).Those rescued, with the exception ofthe one who lies ill at Carrick, havequite got over the effects of the acci-dent. An inquest will, of course, heheld as soon as any of the bodies arerecovered, and the county in whichit will take place must be determinedby the side of the lough on which thefirst body is found. We have not yetbeen able to ascertain the places towhich the volunteers belonged; themajority of them are believed to benatives of Belfast. The cutter sailedon Thursday evening forKingstown, those on board being, nodoubt, much depressed by the mel-ancholy occurrence connected withtheir visit to Belfast Lough.Needless to say a dreadful tragedyand just one of many to occur inBelfast Lough. Something to thinkabout the next time you hear that astretch of water can’t have a history!


DOWNFALL OF SOOTY!Like everything else the subject oflocal history is never what it seems.For example each year various Na-tionalist organisations march to thegrave of Wolfe Tone as the founderof Irish Republicanism when adeeper look at local history will re-veal that the real founder lies forgot-ten in North Belfast’s Clifton StreetCemetery. This is just an exampleof a major historical event but thesmaller ones are ignored even more.Take a look at this picture. It is ofone of North Belfast’s mansionhouses which were all over this partin Victorian times. This one isJennymount and needless to say isone hell of an impressive house.Historians would look at this pictureand mention when it was built, bysuch and such and then go on to givea list of all those who lived in it. Butbefore I go any further on the sub-ject of this house and receive a letterstating that this house was Castletonit was only named this from 1847 by

the grandson of its builder RobertThompson of the family which gaveus the famous (or infamous) GalloperThompson. Now I know I alwaysgo for the underdog but when histo-rians are looking at the people wholived in houses such as these and il-lustrating their wealth and societystanding I would look at it and won-der who the labourers and craftsmenwere who actually built it. I wouldalso wonder who the gardenerswould have been, who cleaned thewindows, who the servants were andwhat their lives would have been like.I would also have wondered at whatsort of lives the little boys who raidedtheir orchards lived and, going intodetail, who would have cleaned thechimneys looking at the amount ofpots shown in the picture.There is an old superstition that asweep is a bringer of luck, but whythis should be is somewhat of apuzzle, as it was this very occupa-tion which was the cause of it.

In Victorian times unwanted childrenwere sold to sweeps who forced themto climb up the wide chimney’s ofthe period - often while the fire wasstill burning. For this slave drivingthe sweep received (to quote from aBelfast price list of 1843) sixpencefor cleaning a chimney of two sto-ries, rising by steps of 3d to 1s 3d fora chimney of five stories.Worse still, as sweeps of that periodwere notoriously heavy drinkers, thechild’s only reward for his deadlywork would often be a beating afterhis master had returned from drink-ing the day’s earnings in one ofBelfast’s dodgy public houses.The unfortunate children - usuallyspoken of as ‘Climbing Boys’ - sel-dom had beds and often slept on abag of soot, spending their short livesin an atmosphere of kicks, grime anddirt until death released them.It is horrible to think that in January,1834, one of these climbing boys wasactually roasted alive while sweep-


ing a Belfast chimney. The localnewspapers state that "the house-holder would not have the fire putout while the sweeping was beingdone. The child twice came downthe chimney, saying it was too hot,but was forced up again until he camedown for the last time dead, withlarge patches of his skin burnt off."A protest meeting of the townsfolkfollowed the death of the boy, but itwas not until there had been manysimilar accidents in England that theGovernment was forced to take ac-tion. In 1840 legislation was passedforbidding the use of boys to cleanchimneys.This did not come into force, how-ever, until 1842 and even after thatdate it seems to have been neglectedas in June, 1851, Belfast papers re-

port that the boys were still climb-ing, and in August of the same yearit was estimated that there were up-wards of 30 climbing boys workingin the town. (We did not become acity until 1888).It is not to be wondered that theseunfortunate children were lacking inmorals, as everyone’s hand musthave seemed to be against them. InJanuary, 1843, a sweeps boy whostole a pair of shoes from one of theselarge houses in which he was work-ing was given a savage prison sen-tence of several months. A localnewspaper which reported the caseseemed quite gleeful at what theycalled the "Downfall of SOOTY."Mechanical chimney cleaners wereadvertised in Belfast in 1841, but solittle was thought of a child life -

despite all the efforts of the reform-ers - that climbing boys were stilloperating in Belfast up until the early1900’s.

These so called ‘good old days’ werenot so good unless you were wealthywhich 99.9% of us would certainlynot have been. I have illustrated whatlife was like for the poor kids in-volved in the cleaning of the chim-neys but on top of that there were thepoor gardeners who had to rely onthe weather and therefore their goodnatural appearance and of course theservants who had to endure standingfacing walls when householderspassed them, overwork and, quiteoften, rape at the hands of the ‘mas-ter’ or his sons and often both. - Thegood old days indeed!

The old Belfast Poor House on North Queen Streetaround 1880. Built in the early 1770’s by the Belfast

Charitable Society from a design submitted by Henry JoyMcCracken’s uncle, Robert Joy. The building remains to

this day and is now known as Clifton House.


THE FIVE MARY’SGhosts is a subject, I must confess,which I find absolutely fascinating.Now I have to admit that I myselfhave believe that I have seen a ghostbut this was some years ago inMaastricht and is a yarn that I haveto keep for another time. But muchcloser to home I am aware of a num-ber of incidents similar to that in thecommunity centre and all in NorthBelfast. But we have to understandthat this part of the city is full of thesestories and many of them stretch backthroughout our history hence my per-sonal interest.

One old case which was well knownin the Dock areas for many years wasa story which was known as ‘TheFive Mary’s’ and which was centred

on an area of Nelson Street. For yearschildren would never go near the sitein question as many incidents werereported relating to it. These rangedfrom people being pushed by unseenhands through to the hearing of pierc-ing screams late at night.Leaving the ghostly aspects aside themodern historian is then required toresearch the site in question to see ifit was the scene of some tragedy andfor this story we do not have to lookback very far.

Shortly before the 1916 Easter rebel-lion and at the height of the FirstWorld War a horrific tragedy did in-deed occur at this site and the wholestory can be taken up by a reportwhich appeared in the Northern

Whig on Thursday 23rd March,1916.

FIRE TRAGEDY IN BELFASTYesterday afternoon a fire broke outin the stores of Messrs. O & TGallagher, rag, waste and paperstock merchants and marine storedealers, 41 - 53 Nelson Street.Owing to the inflammable nature ofits contents the whole structure offour floors became almost instanta-neously involved, and in the courseof a few moments the entire premisesfrom the ground to the roof were amass of flame. A number of womenworkers who were in the upper por-tion were caught by the flames.

LEAPING FOR LIFESome of these, desperate in theireagerness to escape from the threat-ening flames, jumped from the up-per windows on to the street. A lorryFiremen at the site of the tragedy


laden with tow had been drawn un-derneath the windows with the ob-ject of breaking their fall, and thewomen were encouraged by the ex-cited spectators to leap for it. Sev-eral succeeded in alighting upon thetow and escaped with shock and mi-nor injuries. Others were less fortu-nate, and, coming into contact withthe cobble pavement, were more orless badly hurt.

No fewer than six women leapt fromthe third floor window. All fell on thetow with the exception of one poorcreature, who struck the side of thelorry and came to the ground, sus-taining a fracture of the spine. Blan-kets and rugs held by onlookersbroke the fall of some of those whoescaped through the lower windows.At the fourth or top floor windowsseveral women were observed by thehorrified spectators appealing pite-ously for aid.

VAIN EFFORTS AT RESCUESergeant Stafford, of the Henry StreetPolice Barracks, and some civiliansobtained a ladder, which they placedagainst the building and mounted.By this time, however, the womenhad disappeared, and the shouts tothem of the plucky would be rescu-ers met with no response. The Ser-geant and his helpers indeed had todescend the ladder very quickly toescape the flames, which were nowbursting through the windows withgreat fury.

This all happened before the Brigade,which had been promptly sum-moned, and which promptly turnedout, had time to arrive. When the first

of the fire appliances reached thescene the building was simply envel-oped in flames, and all the firemencould do was pour water on it fromthe outside. As one spectator ex-pressed it, "The whole place went uplike a train of gunpowder." In lessthan half an hour nothing remainedof it but the blackened and bulgingwalls.

TRAGEDY OF A FEW MINUTESOccurring as it did in broad daylight,the outbreak caused a big crowd tospeedily assemble on the scene. Butthe tragedy of the fire had really beenenacted almost before anyone wasaware that life was endangered. Itoccupied but a few moments. Onlythe police who were hastily sum-moned from Henry Street Barracksand the residents of the immediatevicinity saw the workers’ desperateleap for life from the third floor andthe awful spectacle of the haplesswomen trapped on the floor above.Now saw the still more awful climaxinside the burning building. Findingno help coming by way of the win-dows, these poor creatures doubt-lessly tried to make their way down-stairs, only to meet their fate fromthe storm of flame and smoke thathad by this time gained possessionof every part of the lower floors.

TWELVE INJURED - SIX MISSINGTwelve people were taken to hospi-tal within a few minutes after theoutbreak had been discovered, suf-fering from concussion, fracture,shock and burns.Six women who had been on the pre-mises at the time of the outbreak werereported missing.

SITE OF THE TRAGEDYNelson Street is a long, narrow thor-oughfare running from Great PatrickStreet to Whitla Street. Most of itsbuildings are artisans’ dwellings, butit contains also a number of storesand industrial establishments. Thepremises of Messers Gallagher con-sisted of a brick fronted buildingabout 75 feet square, near the junc-tion of Great George's Street withNelson Street on the Great PatrickStreet side. The place was burneddown a few years ago, and re-built,so that it was practically a new struc-ture. The firm have for many yearscarried out an extensive trade aswaste, tow, and rag merchants andthey employed ordinarily some fiftyor sixty hands, mostly women, en-gaged chiefly in rag and tow sorting.The office and plant of the firm oc-cupied the ground floor, the otherthree floors having been stores con-taining large quantities of most in-flammable material.Adjoining the premises on the GreatPatrick Street side are those ofMessers Love, cartage contractors,who usually kept there some seventyhorses.

WHERE THE FIRE BROKE OUTWhen the fire was discovered mostof the regular workers were on thepremises. The outbreak occurred onthe ground floor and in a few min-utes the entire building from groundfloor to roof was ablaze.The alarm was given from MessersLove’s premises the call reaching thecentral Fire Station at ten minutespast five. As shown with what ter-rible rapidity the injury to life andlimb occurred, giving the Brigade no


Map of Nelson Street at the time of the horrific fire


chance, it may be stated that just fourminutes after the fire call came theambulance call from the scene. Inthat brief period the tragedy had re-ally been enacted.

Under the charge of SuperintendentSmith and Assistant SuperintendentStafford the Brigade turned out fromheadquarters, contingents comingalso from the Shankill, Ardoyne, andWhitla Street Stations. Streams ofwater were soon playing on the burn-ing building, not in the hope of sav-ing it, for it was already doomed, butof preventing the extension of thefire. Messers Love’s premisesseemed to be in danger of becominginvolved, and the horses stabled therewere removed to a place of safety, aswere also the occupants of the housesopposite. However the fire was con-fined to Messers Gallagher’s pre-mises. One of the firemen - Johnston,of the Ardoyne Sub-Station - got hishead rather badly burned while en-deavouring to reach a point of van-tage from which to direct his hoseand had to be treated at the RoyalVictoria Hospital.

Those who had been burned or in-jured by jumping from the windowswere removed to the Mater Hospi-tal, the Brigade ambulance convey-ing seven of them, while some of theothers were taken on lorries. Theywere promptly attended by DrO’Doherty, visiting surgeon, and DrPaul, resident surgeon.

GOOD WORK BY THEPOLICE

Sergeant Stafford and the police fromHenry Street deserve every credit for

their prompt attendance and goodwork in connection with the fire. Anumber of the local civilians alsoexerted themselves in praiseworthymanner to try and save the women -notably a man named Reilly and anItalian named Satinia. Twice the Ser-geant, assisted by these men,mounted the ladder which they hadobtained from the adjoining premisesin the hope of rescuing the womenwho had been seen at the top floorwindow. However, before the laddercould be reared the women had dis-appeared from the window, doubtlessto make their desperate and fatal dashdownstairs.

During the evening a great crowdgathered at the scene of the fire, andmuch excitement prevailed. With theaid of the police and a number ofbluejackets who came on the scene,the firemen kept the people well backfrom the burning building, and even-tually a barrier was erected on eachside of it. This was fortunate, forabout nine o’clock the front wall col-lapsed with a great crash, scatteringthe debris all over the narrow street.The firemen continued to pour wa-ter upon the smouldering ruins untilan advanced hour, pursuing mean-time the search for the bodies of theother women who were believed tohave perished.

The regular firemen were ably as-sisted by a number of the police who,since the depletion of the strength ofthe Brigade owing to the war, havebeen specially trained for fire brigadework. Of these Sergeant Gordon es-pecially did excellent service.

THE MISSING WOMENThe names of the missing women

are:Mary Ann Johnston,56 Little York StreetMary Ann Worsford,

Academy StreetMrs McClinton,

79 Academy StreetMary Ann Gibson,

24 Little Corporation StreetMrs ShieldMrs Digney

THE INJUREDMargaret Ellen Casey,17 Little Patrick Street

Bridget O’Halloran,5 Edward Street

Mary Ann Mooney,Market StreetMary Clifford,

Academy StreetMaggie Ward,

66 Little Patrick StreetAnnabell McKenna,

71 Little Patrick StreetFannie Alderdice,1 Carolina Street

John Hickey,13 Little Patrick Street

Mary Ann Plunkett,Little Patrick StreetAgnes Mulholland,

61 Little Patrick StreetAgnes Kinnaird,

Little Patrick StreetAfter the fire had been extinguishedthe bodies of the missing were foundin the smouldering ruins and as canbe seen from the names four werenamed Mary. Obviously one of theothers was also named Mary there-fore giving us the story of "The FiveMary’s"


ANOTHER FOR THEPRISON GRAVEYARD

Returning to my series of articles re-lating to all those hanged in theCrumlin Road Prison I now cover thetwelfth hanging in the jail.Few crimes in the North have sentsuch a thrill through the communityas the double murder of the twoAiken sisters nearNewtowncrommelin, Ballymena, onthe afternoon of 22nd May 1931.Both were shot while they workingin a bog cutting turf. The most ex-traordinary feature of the crime how-ever was the fact that the perpetratorof the cowardly deed carried out thisfoul act in broad daylight and in fullview of several eye-witnesses. Thelast double killing in county Antrimwas at Armoy when the Macauleysisters were both shot dead in May1928.Thomas Dornan, a farmer from thesame area, eventually stood trial forthe brutal deed. The crime appearedto have been committed as an act of

revenge by a man who was appar-ently brooding over an imaginarywrong, or a financial burden. Dornanwas a married man. An industriousfarmer he held a high reputation asa respectable, hardworking memberof his community. He had been onfriendly terms with the Aiken familyfor a long time but a closer friend-ship soon blossomed with theyounger girl, Bella. In December1929, Bella gave birth to an illegiti-mate child of which Dornan admit-ted to being the father. He had agreedthrough a firm of solicitors to pay asum of six shillings per week in sup-port of the child. The payments ofthis maintenance, it was claimed,were in arrears from time to time.

THE PROSECUTIONPremeditation was stressed by theCrown at his trial. They proceededto outline this premeditation bybringing the jury’s attention to the

fact that on the afternoon of the crimeDornan had walked down andviewed the scene before going to hishome and ultimately returning to theplace with a loaded shotgun. Dornanalso had a number of cartridges inhis pocket. He calmly approachedthe girls who not even suspecting hisevil intent continued with their work.The first shots rang out and the girlsrealising the danger they were in triedto flee from their assailant. As theytried to get out of the ditch they clungto each other in terror. More shotswere fired at them and the two girlsfell to the ground, wounded. JamesAiken, a brother of the two girls, wasan agonised spectator of the terriblescene and was horror stricken to seeDornan standing over the two girlsfiring shot after shot into their life-less bodies. Six shots, it was latershown, were fired into one of the girlsand four into the other. Dornan it wasalleged, walked home in a leisurely

The cottage at Skerry East where the ill-fated girls lived


fashion and even stopped on the wayto tell a woman that he had shot thetwo girls.Medical experts at his trial suggestedthat he was not responsible for hisactions at the time of the murders andthat he was acting through an uncon-trollable homicidal impulse.The jury however weighed up all theevidence brought before them andafter an absence of 32 minutes theyreturned with a verdict of guilty.Dornan was sentenced to death. Hisexecution was scheduled for July31st 1931 and he was brought backto Crumlin Road Jail where he wasplaced in the condemned cell to awaithis fate. Various pleas for a reprieveof his sentence failed.Long before the execution, specta-tors began to assemble and were

marshalled on the Court-house sideof the Crumlin Road by the police.There was an ominous hush as thefatal hour (8.00 a.m.) approached andthe tense silence was only broken byoccasional tramcars passing up anddown.Dramatic accounts of the executionwere given at the inquest later thatmorning. Dr. O’Flaherty, the prisonmedical officer claimed that Dornanmet a painless death. The Rev. Mr.Simms told the inquest that he hadvisited Dornan three times a day andhe was very penitent. "He died happy- I have no doubt of that" added Mr.Simms and he said Dornan told himhe knew nothing about what had hap-pened on the day of the actual mur-der. After the inquest the body wasburied in the prison graveyard.Maggie Aiken

1920 photograph of the Belfast Mercantile Collegewhich stood in Glenravel Street.


BELFAST MANSIONBURNED BY SUFFRAGISTS

If there is one sad thing about our localhistory I feel that it is the fact that there isvery little information about very impor-tant subjects and indeed groups. For ex-ample when we think about the suffrag-ists today our thoughts turn to their activi-ties in England such as chaining them-selves to railings and leaping in front ofthe kings horse at a major horse meeting.Now for me the sad thing is that that titbitof information is really about all mostpeople know about these extraordinarywomen.

The suffragists were extremely active andin this part of Ireland they were very busy.They planted bombs, burned down com-mercial property and, if caught, stagedhunger strikes, dirty protests, disturbedcourt hearings and refused to co-operatewith the authorities in any way. Otherproperty that was targeted by them wasthe mansion houses of the wealthy andmany in and around Belfast were burned.For example one newspaper report on Fri-

day 27th March, 1914 tells us of an attackon the outskirts of North Belfast. It reads:-

"The palatial residence known asAbbeylands, Whiteabbey, the property ofSir Hugh McCalmont, was burned to theground at an early hour this morning. Thehouse was looked upon as one of the fin-est residences on the coast line. It stoodon an elevation of several hundred feetabove the sea, and commanded an idealprospect, embracing the Holywood hills,immediately opposite, and was surroundedby demesne lands opulent in plantationand foliage.A comparatively modern structure - itdates back to 1880 - the house was builtwith obvious regard for architectural el-egance and massive solidity, whilst theinternal fittings, including a grand oakstaircase, were of the most chaste andcostly description. Everything has beendemolished - reduced to a cinder - and allthat remains of this splendid residence arethe bare walls.

How the outbreak originated is a mysterywhich has not yet been solved, but thereis little room for doubt that it wasprompted by malicious motive, and car-ried out by preconceived design. A bro-ken pane of glass at the east end of thehouse furnishes the pretext for this as-sumption.The portion of the window that was intactwas besmeared by a soapy substance witha carbolic odour, and the police are of thegrounds had been placed at the disposalof the Ulster Volunteers for military evo-lutions, and this circumstance was a themeof special public significance. The houseitself had been idle for a number of years,and contained no furniture.

DISCOVERY OF THE OUTBREAKThe outbreak was first discovered at halfpast three o’clock by William John Boyd,the night fireman of the Whiteabbey Mills,who lost no time in communicating withthe resident gardener at Abbeylands, MrMaurice Bunting. It was an exceptionally


clear, tranquil morning, and for this rea-son the glare of the fire was not as accen-tuated as it would have been with a darkerbackground. The volume of flame, how-ever, was such as to reveal in all its scenicglory the surrounding landscape, and fur-nish a morning spectacle impressive in itspicturesqueness, but tragic in its terribleconsequences.The Belfast Fire Brigade were summonedby telephone from Dr Reid’s private house,and the police were personally apprisedby Mr Bunting. The Volunteers of the dis-trict were also called out and there re-sponded to the order with such celerity thata force of 250 disciplined men were avail-able shortly after three o’clock. The Vol-unteers were under the command of MrJames Tait and Mr Robert Tait and the dutythey undertook was to guard the buildingfrom encroachment, and to assisting asbest they could the operations of the mem-bers of the Fire Brigade. They were forthe nonce fire fighters of a most effectivetype.

A MASS OF FLAMESSuperintendent Stafford was in charge ofthe brigade, and the task before him calledfor judgement and promptitude. Theflames were bursting through all the win-dows with the exception of a few at theeast end, whilst the centre of the mansionreminded one of a devouring furnace hav-ing an unrestricted out up into the sky likerockets forced with powder."I never saw anything more impressive inmy whole existence than the fire at thispoint," said a white haired, old veteran.He remembered the house being built; hewas proud of it gallant owner and its pic-turesque associations, and he looked onin silent horror at the grim relic of formersplendour, remarking, "How can humanbeings bring themselves to do a deed soterrible as this?"

As indicated at the beginning of the re-port, everything was reduced to nothing-

ness. The preparations for setting the placeon fire were manifestly deliberate, andwere planned with scientific precision.At first there was apparently some doubtas to the origin of the affair, but the dis-covery of Suffragist literature places itbeyond all possibility of doubt, that thefire is another instance of the mad tacticspursued by the militant advocates. Theymust have exercised wonderful elusive-ness in their campaign of destruction, forthey managed to escape all observation.No suspicious visitors were seen about thedemesne, and no danger was apprehended.They came like thieves in the night, andhaving broken into the house theysprinkled their fire lighters over the build-ing, set them ablaze and decamped. Thepolice succeeded in rescuing some of thesefire lighters, and their composition is suchthat they ignite as readily as paraffin.Hundreds of the people in the Whiteabbeyarea visited the scene of the fire, and itwas a matter of some curiosity to observeamongst the spectators a crowd of ladiesand gentlemen in evening dress, who werereturning to Belfast from a dance inCarrickfergus. Major McCalmont, a rela-tive of Sir Hugh, who was summoned bymessenger, motored to Abbeylands and re-mained for several hours. Dr Reid wasalso there.

INTERVIEW WITH THEGARDENER

Mr Maurice Bunting, who has been gar-dener at Abbeylands for eleven years, gota great shock when he heard of the fire."I was all through the house on Thursdaynight, and everything was perfectly intact.There was no furniture of any kind or de-scription, and singular to say the onlythings stored in the basement were theprivate fire fittings, which were accord-ingly not available when they werewanted."There is a rumour current to the effect thatthere was a large quantity of ammunitionin the mansion. I assure there is no foun-

dation for the suggestion - "None whatso-ever," was Mr Bunting’s emphatic reply."That was the first question put to me thismorning; but you can take it from me asconclusive that there was not an ounce ofshot or even a toy pistol there."

Of course, you never dreamt for an instantthat anyone would perpetrate such an actof incendiarism? - Not at all. Such athought never entered my mind, and therewas nothing to arouse the slightest elementof suspicion. It must have been after mid-night, and by very quiet manoeuvring thataccess was obtained to the demesne, for Iwas about myself until a quarter pasteleven o’clock. There was an incidentwhich, in the light of subsequent events,has made an impression on my mind. Thebarking of the dog attracted my notice, butas this is not an unusual thing it did notfill me with any sense of alarm.

FINDING OF THE FIRE-FIGHTERSWho discovered the fire lighters? - Theywere first found in the drawing room atthe east end of the mansion by SergeantMcFarlane, who was accompanied byConstable Smith, Bearn, Kenny andMoore. In one of the windows of the draw-ing room, about three feet from the ground,there was an aperture sufficient to admitthe body of either a man or a woman. It ismy opinion that the fire originated in thefront hall under the grand staircase.When you came on the scene what wasthe fire like? - Even then it had gutted thewhole inside, and the roof fell in a littlelater.Mr Bunting added that it was a sad butmajestic sight, with the flames risingabove the tops of the highest trees and dis-seminating a glow of brilliant radianceover the whole countryside. The noise ofthe falling brickwork - the mansion is builtentirely of red brick - and the smashing ofthe window panes furnish a weird accom-paniment to the lurid drama of destruc-tion."


SUFFRAGISTS TORCHCAVEHILL TEA-ROOMS

Another attack which the Suffragistscarried out in this part of the city wasthe burning down of the CavehillTea-rooms in Bellevue. Lookingthrough the old newspapers and read-ing about their attacks is absolutelyfascinating and the story on theCavehill one can be seen in the localnewspapers for the 18th of April1914:-Another chapter in the unhappy his-tory of Bellevue Gardens is writtentoday. The handsome and costly teahouse, which occupied a command-ing central site in the well laid outpleasure grounds, was reduced toruins by fire at an early hour thismorning, and that which yesterdaywas a beautiful ornamental enhance-ment to pleasant natural surroundingsis rendered gaunt and unsightly ob-ject today.The fire was first detected ten min-utes to four, when the flames weregetting a secure hold on the structure.Some time necessarily lapsed, before

communication could be establishedwith the fire brigade. The firemenhad three hours’ strenuous work un-der handicapped conditions, but fromthe first there was no hope for sav-ing the building. The suspicion thatthe suffragists were responsible forthe deplorable happening is general,but is supported by the customaryevidence, as literature was found inthe vicinity as well as other traceswhich feminist fire-fighters generallyleave in their trail

THE FIRST ALARMThe Bellevue grounds are patrollednightly by a watchman, AndrewLarmour, whose home is atGlengormley. Larmour on his roundshad passed the teahouse at threeo’clock and at that hour all was well,with nothing to disturb the peacefulearly morning stillness nor to givepresentiment of impending disaster.The watchman returned to his hutsome distance away, under the shel-

ter of the Antrim Road wall, wherehe had a meal before resuming hispatrol. Great was his consternationat ten minutes to four to observesmoke issuing from the south end ofthe teahouse, with an ominous glareof flame. His first thought was toget in touch with the fire brigade, sothat a minute inspection of the build-ing at the only the when it would bepossible to discover if the walls hadbeen saturated with paraffin or otherinflammable liquid, was out of thequestion. He dashed off at once tothe caretakers home, which is situ-ated in another part of the gardensand where the keys of the tea houseare kept. He alarmed the caretaker,Mr Ralph Dudgeon, who hurriedwith the watchman to the burningbuilding, which was already enfoldedin flames. The object of the men wasto gain access to the manager’s of-fice on the ground floor, which wasequipped with a telephonic installa-tion. Slates and timber were, how-ever, falling by this time, so that itwas only too apparent that approachto the apartment was out of the ques-tion, while in any case the hope ofpassing the call to the brigade de-partment from the house was re-moved, as the wire was severed by adescending girder. Larmour then setoff towards Glengormley to the near-est telephone. He knocked up DrLoughridge and the Glengormleypolice, and, with SergeantMcMinnis, got into communicationwith the fire brigade through the

The Cavehill Tea Rooms


medium of Mr McMahon’s tele-phone.Meantime the alarm had alreadyreached the brigade. So bright andvivid was the spectacle which theburning building in its commandingsituation presented that it was seenfrom the Shore Road direction, anda tramway conductor on his way toearly morning duty broke the firealarm lamp at Greencastle and thusturned out the brigade. The firstmachines made their way toGreencastle, and thence, on ascer-taining the exact location of the out-break, made a rapid run along theWhitewell Road to the scene.The spectacle which met their gazeas they drew nearer the conflagrationwas at once impressive and almostawe-inspiring. The once ornatestructure was wrapped in a garmentof lurid flames, shooting up theirmyriad's of sparks, and lighting upthe entire surroundings with the mostvivid effects, the massive outline ofthe Cave Hill lending to the picturethe setting of a majestic back ground.

FIREMEN HANDICAPPEDThe first arrivals were quicklysupplemented by men and machinesfrom headquarters, Whitla Street,Shankill Road and Ardoyne stations,with assistant SuperintendentStafford in charge of the entire op-erations. The salving of the teahouse, which was a wooden superstructure of bungalow pattern,erected on a brick built base, was anutter impossibility, and added to thedifficulties of the firemen was theawkward situation of the buildingfrom a fire fighting standpoint, andthe absence of the usual facilities in

regard to water supply. Hoses had tobe laid for nearly half a mile to con-nect with the Water CommissionersWorks at Glengormley. The connec-tion was, however, expeditiouslymade, and a turbine pump set in op-eration. Water was played on thebuilding in copious streams, and theefforts of the men were devoted toprotect as much as possible the un-der storey, which was used for stor-age and other purposes, for, as stated,the teahouse above was beyond allhope of saving, and was being gradu-ally reduced to ruins.The work of the firemen was at-tended with grave risks. There wasa constant shower of slates andbeams, while one after another themassive iron girders supporting theoverhanging eaves that formed theveranda came tumbling down, add-ing to the desolate pictures of gen-eral havoc and wreckage.The Brigade were successful in cut-ting off communication between theaffected and non affected portions,but the teahouse itself was entirelydemolished. Nothing remains but thebare chimney walls, all else havingbeen reduced to heaps of smokingashes. The handsome building, withwhose attractive external appearanceand chaste internal decorations themajority of the Belfast public hadalready made themselves familiar,has been completely wiped out. Theornamental counters, the neat mirrorsinset in the walls, and the otherchoice furnishings have, of course,all been involved in the

conflagration.The firemen remained for two orthree hours, after which the machinesreturned to the stations, one or twomen only being left on duty.About 7 o’clock Mr A. Nance, tram-ways manager, and Mr A. Blackburn,chief engineer of the tramways, ar-rived on the scene by motor and werespectators of the woeful havoc whichthe fire had created.

WAS IT THE SUFFRAGISTS?In view of recent happenings the sus-picion is general that the Bellevuefire marks a continuance of the se-ries of diabolical outrages for whichthe militant Suffragists have beenresponsible locally. What wouldseem to confirm this is the fact thattwo foolscap sheets of paper werefound containing the usual silly ref-erences to Sir Edward Carson. Fewstructures would have lent them-selves more readily to the sinisterends of the incendiarists.The teahouse is accessible from avariety of directions, and in this casethere would not even be the neces-sity of breaking and entering. A dashof paraffin on the woodwork on theoutside and the application of amatch would only have been thework of a minute, but work suffi-ciently dastardly to encompass thedisastrous results which have now tobe recorded. The hour at which thefire occurred lends colour to theuniversally accepted theory that thelamentable event was maliciouslycaused.

You can readJoe’s column every

week in the ...


UNLUCKY FOR SOME!The 13th man to hang in the CrumlinRoad Jail was American EddieCullens who was hanged on Fridaythe 13th in conclusion to one ofBelfast’s strangest murders whichtook place on September 4th 1931.The naked body of Achmet Musa, aTurk, had been dumped in a field atSeskin near Carrickfergus after ahorse on a milk cart refused to go anyfurther on the nearby road. The manwho had previously been shotthrough the head was naked exceptfor a woman’s blue and white rubberbathing cap. The murder was simi-lar to the Chicago style gangster kill-ings in the United States of the timeand caused great public interest in theNorth.

Through channels known only to theUlster police a girl was found whohad seen the distinctive blue andwhite bathing cap in the car of a man,later to be identified as EddieCullens, who she had met and wasabout to join on a trip to Derry Citybefore the body of Musa had beendiscovered. Patient inquiries, and theintricate process of deduction, basedon and centred around the bathingcap enabled the police to spin thethreads of circumstantial evidenceinto a rope strong enough to hangCullens.

The story that later transpired toldhow Cullens and Musa had been partof a syndicate formed in New Yorkwith another Turk, Assim Redvan, inan enterprise to exploit an old mannamed Zaro Agha, who was reportedas "the oldest man in the world", aged

156 years. The quartet arrived inEngland and became a side showwith Bertram Mills’ travelling circus.While in Liverpool it seems some-thing happened which led to the be-ginning of the plot to murder AchmetMusa. Both Cullens and Musa splitfrom the other two and went to liveat a house at Wavetree. The land-lord told the police of how Cullens,who now called himself BernardBermann, had negotiated the leaseand was interested whether or not thegarage floor was concrete. The land-lord later told of how he had dis-turbed Cullens as he was digging inthe garage. At the subsequent trial,the Crown suggested that they be-lieved he was digging a grave forMusa and because he was disturbedhe had to think of another way tomurder his victim.

It was after this that the two menended up in Ireland. Cullens bor-rowed his other partner’s (AssimRedvan) car. The pair arrived inBelfast on the morning of SaturdayAugust 29th and put up at Ryan'sHotel, Donegal Quay.On the Sunday afternoon, Cullensmet two girls outside the GeneralPost Office in Royal Avenue, intend-ing to pick up Musa on the way toBangor. While Cullens was chang-ing the wheel of his car he asked oneof the girls to give him out a towelwhich was in the pocket of the cardoor. It was then that the bathing capfell out. This incident proved to bethe damning at his trial.

After the run to Bangor there wereother excursions until the crucial dateSeptember the 2nd. On that evening

The body ofAchmet Musa


Cullens said he went to the dog rac-ing at Celtic Park with Mr. Ryan andleft Musa outside in the car. Whenthey later came out he claimed Musamust have wandered off because hewas no longer in the car. He said hereturned to the hotel with Mr. Ryanand remained there for the rest of thenight. Ryan however denied thisversion of events and both he and hiswife swore that Cullens did not stayin the hotel and that they never sawhim again after leaving him, Mrs.Ryan from earlier that day and Mr.Ryan since leaving him at theGrosvenor Road at around seveno’clock.

It was on Wednesday night that afarmer at Seskin near Carrickfergusidentified Cullens as the man heclearly saw in the beam of his carheadlights as he was sitting in aparked car not far from where Musa’sbody was discovered. On Thursdaya parcel of men’s clothes, cut andblood-stained were found on a door-step at Church Lane in the centre of

Belfast. On Friday, the dead body ofthe murdered Turk was found in afield at Seskin.

Cullens meanwhile had left Belfaston Thursday and travelled back toEngland. The police found in hisbaggage at Leeds, the case of a pis-tol of the odd pattern used in themurder. Cullens was later arrestedby the London police on instructionand description supplied by theRoyal Ulster Constabulary.A long and complicated trial lastingthree days followed his indictment

which even the genius of the eminentdefence counsel could not overcome.The jury brought in a verdict ofguilty, the sentence of death was pro-nounced and the execution was fixedfor January 13th 1932. Cullensclaimed American citizenship andvarious appeals for clemency miser-ably failed.

Eddie Cullens was 28 years of age atthe time of his death. Rabbi Shachter,who ministered to the condemnedman was quoted as saying, " He wentto the scaffold with the deep convic-tion that his hands were clean andclear of the blood of this man."Regardless of these claims he wasexecuted at eight o’clock in themorning on Friday January 13th1932 by Pierrepoint and his assistantWilson.So ended a series of strange andtragic events which began in East-ern Europe, travelled the ocean toAmerica, came back to England andended at Belfast Prison on theCrumlin Road.

Eddie Cullens arrives at Belfast Docks from England to stand trial for murder.

Eddie Cullens


FROM THE RICH TO THE POOR

Everyone who holds an interest in thehistory of Belfast is undoubtedlyaware of the existence of CliftonStreet Cemetery. Most People knowit for the same reason and that is thatHenry Joy McCracken is buried thereand almost everyone who comes tothis graveyard come only to see hisgrave. But there are thousands ofothers buried within this sacredground and these range from the richfamilies who prospered in the oldtown of Belfast through to the poorpeople who literally built it.Anyone who visits this groundshould look further than the grave ofHenry Joy McCracken. They shouldread the inscriptions carved out toothers, within them is not only thehistory of this graveyard but also thehistory of the city in which we live.Although many of us throughoutBelfast know this site at CliftonStreet Cemetery it is difficult toimagine that its official name is "The

New Burying Ground." For manyyears a brass plate bore this inscrip-tion at the entrance gate on HenryPlace and although it described it as‘New’ it had been erected well overone hundred years after the graveyardwas opened. According to Benn inhis History of Belfast, the followingadvertisement was given publicity:-Poorhouse, March, 1797. - The pub-lic are informed that the BuryingGround near the Poorhouse is nowready, and that Messrs. RobertStevenson, William Clarke, and JohnCaldwell are appointed to agree withsuch persons as wish to take lots.And it would appear from the datethat the gentlemen concerned in thisventure were no amateurs in busi-ness. They must have possessed asort of prophetic instinct that troublewas brewing, but could they possi-bly have foreseen a rebellion?You will find sufficient proof thattheir confidence was fully justified

if you stroll through the grounds hid-den away behind the modern edi-fices, which form the eastern side ofCarlisle Circus. Every now and againin this perfect labyrinth of tombs youmay notice dates which follow veryclosely on the date of the advertise-ment. But all other considerationsare ousted in the joy of surprises atthe familiar names of famous towns-men - men famed in every businessand profession that has made Belfastwhat it is today. One gets puzzledwith the rush of memories. Here isthe tomb of the distinguished DrAlexander Henry Hailday, the inti-mate friend of Dr Drennan and ofLord Charlemont, who was review-ing officer in the days of the BelfastVolunteers. At the wall which skirtsthe Antrim Road lie the remains ofhis companion, Dr William Drennan,who played such a prominent part inthe "Hearts of Steel" rising. Whenendeavouring to dissuade the

Clifton Street Cemetery


"Hearts" from attacking the militarybarracks and releasing their comrade,the doctor was seized by the mob andsworn to aid them. He carried outthe terms of his oath, got Douglasreleased, but not before many of themob had been killed and wounded.A few years later he was one of thefounders the Belfast Society ofUnited Irishmen but distanced him-self from it before the 1798 rebellion.His memorial bears the followinginscription:-

Pure, Just, Benign; thus filial love would traceThe virtues hallowing this narrow space.The Emerald Isle may grant a wider claim,And link the Patriot with his country’s name.This poem was the first ever men-tion of Ireland becoming known asthe ‘Emerald Isle,’ a name which isnow a world famous reference to the

country. Many of the plots aroundthe walls were protected by tall ironrailings and in some cases stoutvaults with iron doors and bars serveas a resting-place. There are alsorelics of the body snatching dayswhen grave robbers would come overthe surrounding wall and remove thebody of someone recently interred.These would then be packed off tothe dissecting table of a surgeon ineither Dublin or Scotland, as therewas no local demand.Today when we hear ofbodysnatching we automaticallythink of it occurring in Britain orEurope, but it also occurred in Belfastand it did occur at Clifton Street. Oneof the few legal cases concerning lo-cal bodysnatchers surrounded a casewhere the bodysnatchers approachedthe caretaker of the New Burying

Ground and offered him cash re-wards for turning a ‘blind eye’ to theiractivities. The caretaker agreed andthen laid a trap for their capture.There were also armed guards placedhere to keep bodysnatchers away butthese were soon disposed off afterthey began firing their muskets topass away the long nights. A ‘coffinguard’ was also uncovered at CliftonStreet at the turn of the last centuryto stop the body being removed fromthe coffin. This iron cage can beviewed today in the Ulster Museum.The activities of the bodysnatcherswere stopped when new laws werepassed in the early 1830’s giving thesurgeons a new source of supply. InBelfast the bodies of ‘unknowns’were given to the medical research-ers and their eventual remains wereburied in an unmarked grave in thelower ground of the burying ground.There is evidence within the grave-yard today, which shows other mea-sures taken to preventbodysnatching. Many graves stillhave large stone slabs covering themand the large vaults of the upperground show the measures taken bythe more wealthy Belfast citizens.The graveyard is the final resting-place of the many merchants,millowners, bankers and shipbuild-ers who lived during the last century.It is also the resting-place of thetown's poor citizens. Within the up-per ground there are two large openspaces which contain very few tomb-stones. These are the graves of thou-sands of unfortunate Belfast folk whodied during the cholera and feverepidemics of the 1840’s, as well asthose who died over the years in theold Poor House.

The old Belfast Poor Housewho opened Clifton Street

Cemetery(Today’s Clifton House)


GRAVES OF CLIFTON STREETThis place is so full of interestingmemorials as to be positively bewil-dering. Here is the burying groundof Narcissus Batt - the Batt's ofPurdysburn; although the last of theline is buried at Ballylesson. JamesLuke, the banker; John Gregg, aname also connected with the city’sprogress; Valentine Jones, "an emi-nent merchant and a gentleman of thefirst respectability," even though hewas one of the many Belfast mer-chants who wanted to bring a slavetrade here and very many more areall gathered together here in a finalrest from their labours. Occasionallywe come across something out of theordinary. Men of learning are ofteneccentric and one tablet exemplifiesthis when it states that "Young!Moulders Here. This is over the re-mains of an eccentric College Pro-fessor, at one time connected with theBelfast Academical Institution. Nextto this grave is a colleague,

Revd William Cairns, LL.D,for 33 years Professor of Logicand Belles Letters in the RoyalBelfast Academical Institution.

Died 1848. Aged 64If his term of tutorship only endedwith his death he must have joinedthe staff shortly after the opening in1814, when he had as a colleagueJames Sheridan Knowles. The news-paper world is represented by FrancisDalzell Finlay, founder of the ‘North-ern Whig,’ and Alexander Mackay,jun, who was connected with the ear-lier days of the ‘Belfast Newsletter.’Even so long ago as 1800, shipbuild-ing had lost several masters, notablythe Ritchie's, from whose yard in

1807 was launched "a very large shipof 400 tons burthen."Up until the beginning of the lastcentury many of the families, whohad still living representatives wereproviding new memorials. Thesewere generally placed in front of theoriginal tombstone, and thus the an-tiquity and the records were both pre-served. Chief among these was theSinclair Family, about which Bennsays in his History of Belfast,"Whether we consider their consis-

tent political opinions or their highstanding in commerce, the Sinclairfamily must be deemed one of themost important in Belfast."There are the Hyndman's, which hada statue of a dog on top of the newstone, and the legend is that this isthe representation of a faithful ani-mal (belonging to the family) thatwas so much distressed at itsmistress’s death it could not be tornfrom her grave, and it eventually diedthere.


Not far away are the Joys and theEkenhead's, while a very modestmemorial covers the last resting placeof the parents of Sir Donald Currie.It would simply demand an entirevolume if an attempt was made togive a full list. There is also the graveof Michael Atkins, who was a wellknown Victorian Belfast actor. Butwe will return to the lighter side, andreproduce gems which have beengathered from this mine of informa-tion. On a flat stone is thefollowing:-

Raisedto the Memory

ofHenry M’Dowell

eldest son of Henry M’Dowell, ofBelfast,

in the 7th year of his age.For his years

This engaging boy was intelligentand pleasingly inquiring,

Evincing an eagar desire forinformation

and blending with sweetness oftemper

a disposition the most affectionateBy his endearing manners

exciting early and warm attach-ments

By his deathleaving behind him deep and

sincere regret. He certainly accomplished a greatdeal in his seven years, but manyparents would not consider ‘the de-sire for information’ in their childrenanything to write epitaphs on, whilethe ‘pleasingly inquiring’ youngsteris the worry of many a fond father’slife even today. In another portionof the graveyard we have one erectedto Captain John Mullin. He was

probably a sea captain, but his vir-tues and other things are eulogisedin the following couplet:-Fair science frown’d not on hishumble birthBut melancholy marked him for herown.In the early years of the nineteenthcentury it appears to have been thecustom to express the grief or other-wise in verse. That it was sometimes‘otherwise’ is proved by the follow-ing token, a small insignificant stonehidden among the over hanging trees,and over shadowed by the largermemorials around it:-

Charles Minnifs, jun., whodeparted this

life March 25, 1806,Aged 24 years.

How loved, how valued once,avails thee not

To whom related or by whom begotA heap of dust alone

remains of thee‘Tis all thou art and all

the proud shall be.Someone must have been unhappywhen they chose or composed thatverse. A plain black railing with ametal tablet and the simple inscrip-tion:-

The Burying Placeof

Henry Joy McCracken.Many visitors to the graveyard takethis to be the insurgent chief, andflowers are frequently depositedthere, but although he may have beensome relation to the hero of ‘98 he isnot ‘THE’ Henry Joy McCrackenwhose grave can be found elsewherein the cemetery.Next to this plot is the grave of Dr.


Map of the lower Antrim Roadarea in 1880 showing Clifton

Street Cemetery


Stuart, the historian of Armagh, whowas once connected with ChristChurch in Belfast and where therewas a large memorial tablet dedicatedto his memory.The cosmopolitan nature of the in-habitants is further enhanced by thepresence of a few foreigners:-

Here Lieththe body of Nicholas Burdotof Chaumont in Bossigni in

Champagneand nearby is one to a "Dorenza Eid,"beside which is another poeticalepitaph. It is to

John Pritchard Clarke -three months:-

Grieve not my parents dear.I am not dead but sleepeth here.

My debts are paid and that you seePrepare for death and follow me.

He certainly was wise for his age, andif he was consulted at all in the con-struction of his epitaph, he was a pa-triarch in wisdom. Imagine havingdebts at three months!

Everywhere one turns they are con-fronted with the most elaborate ar-rangements - quite different fromanything in other cemeteries. Thereis a miniature chapel to the late Wil-liam Dunville, with ornamental irongate.The Bristow's, of banking fame, arestrongly represented, and there is oneto John Hamilton who was one of"The Four John’s" concerned in theearly financial institutions of Belfast.In his History of Belfast,’ GeorgeBenn says there were no constablesin Belfast in 1801, but they must havebeen introduced shortly after, for wehave a memorial here to

John Smith,High Constable of Belfast

who died in 1810.We have a curious case in a stonewhich records that

Here lyeth the body ofJames M’Gee

and, after giving particulars, states he

died in 1714. Aged 80 years. Therealso lies here

James M’Gee, Merchantin Belfast, son of James M’Gee.

and he died in 1703. As the buryingground was not opened for nearly acentury after they died it is obviousthat their remains, or the memorial,was taken from another buryingplace, probably the old buryingground in High Street.The grounds are divided into twoseparate sections by a wall runningparallel with the Antrim Road, and itis natural enough that the lower ornew portion does not contain somuch of interest to the historins. Butseveral of those mentioned in thisarticle are to be found there.Every stone seems to breathe chap-ters of history, and although when thenew section had been opened thefashion in epitaphs had changed con-siderably, yet the names alone fur-nish substantial food for thought tothose interested in local history.


THE BRUTAL MURDER OF MINNIE REIDOn August 3rd 1932 a group of chil-dren came across the body of awoman lying in some bushes nearDerryane in Co. Armagh. They im-mediately contacted the local policewho in turn set up a murder investi-gation. The C.I.D. from Belfast weresoon at the scene and upon furtherinvestigation identified the remainsto be Minnie Reid. Her throat hadbeen cut.The scene of the crime was coveredin dense undergrowth, which madethe search for clues more laborious.A bloodstained razor was eventuallyfound in the undergrowth about 14feet from the body. Head ConstableSlack of the C.I.D. and District In-spector Anderson conducted the in-vestigations and after a fortnight thepolice trail led them to arrest a mannamed Harold Courtney. After be-ing questioned at Coalisland. He wascharged with murder and taken intocustody.In his statement, Courtney acknowl-edged that he had known MinnieReid for four or five years but hadnever kept her company at any time.He claimed he heard she had gone towork at Portadown but did not hearwhere she was until he read of herdeath in the papers. He further saidthat he read she had gone toVernersbridge Station and then toVerner’s Inn to meet a man on theMonday before her death. Courtneycould not account for his own move-ments on that date, claiming he hadbeen in so many places he could notnarrow it down to a specific location.Courtney’s clothes were taken fromafter his arrest and sent to London

for forensic examination.The accused was returned for trial atthe Ulster Winter Assizes atDownpatrick, before Lord JusticeAndrews, and the case excited thekeenest interest all over the North.The defence case claimed "notguilty" while it sought to prove thatthe woman had possibly committedsuicide. Courtney to this end wasmagnificently defended by Mr. Wil-liam Lowry, Kings Counsel and Mr.B.J. Fox and the trial lasted for fivedays with almost fifty witnesses be-ing examined. In the witness box

Courtney had a severe ordeal. In hisdirect examination by the Crown headmitted that practically all his state-ments to the police were fabricated,but he claimed that he lied becausehe did not want his name linked toMinnie Reid as he was engaged.He said Minnie Reid had asked himto meet her in Portadown on July12th, and as he was going there to adrumming party he saw her. She toldhim she was in trouble and he prom-ised to make inquiries and he prom-ised to make inquiries regarding ahospital for her. He was to meet her

An attempt was made to save Harold Courtney from the hangman butwithout success


at Vernersbridge to tell her the resultsof his inquiries and went there, butapparently did not see her. He thenwrote to her asking her to meet him.He hired a car to keep the engage-ment, but on the Tuesday night hedecided to have nothing more to dowith the affair and wrote her to thateffect, posting the letter atAughnacloy.The jury finally disagreed andCourtney was sent forward to theArmagh Spring Assizes. There prac-tically the same evidence was ten-dered, but the defence brought instrengthened evidence that thewound had been suicidal. The trialagain lasted five days and the juryreturned a verdict of guilty but rec-ommended the prisoner to mercy.Before passing the death sentence theLord Chief Justice (Rt. Hon. Sir Wil-liam Moore) said he cordially ap-proved of the verdict, but profoundlydisagreed with the recommendationto mercy. "I think it was cold-blooded, calculated and callous mur-der." "I think you betrayed this girl,and under the stress of her claimsupon you, you butchered her and herunborn child."

With passive countenance HaroldCourtney, the 23-year-oldDungannon motor driver, heard sen-tence of death passed upon him.Asked by the judge if he had any-thing to say why sentence of deathshould not be passed, Courtney, infirm, ringing tones declared, "I amnot guilty, my Lord. I did not killMinnie Reid, and I am not guilty."Harold Courtney protested his inno-cence to the end. But was this theend of this convicted killer?

Rumours for years afterwardsabounded in the Armagh area thatHarold Courtney was indeed aliveand well in Australia where he wassaid to have been seen by severalpeople who took advantage of the£10 Programme. They must havesurely been mistaken though becausethe inquest into his death was carriedout at Belfast Prison by the City

Coroner, Mr. T.E. Alexander at teno’clock that same morning, twohours after the bolt was pulled.Pierrepoint was the reported execu-tioner. Witnesses to the executionwere; the prison medical officer, Dr.O’Flaherty; Captain R.W.Stevens,the prison governor; Mr. ValentineWilson, the Under-Sheriff for theCounty of Armagh.

After his execution rumours began to circulate that Harold Courtneyhad been seen in Australia. However, his hanging was overseen by a

number of witnesses including the governor of Belfast prison CaptainThomas Moore Stuart.


YORK STREET MEMORIESIn the first edition of this publicationI compiled an article on Clifton Streetdescribing how it used to be usingan old Belfast Street Directory andmy own scattered memories. Fortu-nately I seem to have got most of itright as there are always those whowill make sure you are aware of anymistakes. I thought I would try thisagain only this time on a street fa-miliar to most North Belfast residents- York Street.Because the street directories go rightback to when the street was first builtthe most difficult aspect of this ispicking a year to cover so I though Iwould go for the mid 70’s to allowme to throw in a few personal memo-ries.

To give a basic history, York Streetis named after the Duke of York,Frederick Augustus, as is the nearbyFrederick Street. Now, like myself,most of us would never have heardof this chap but he is the same Dukeof York of 10,000 men marching upa hill fame.York Street was once an extremelybusy thoroughfare made up of of-fices, shops and of course houses.Looking at it today we would findthis very hard to believe given thatall it seems to be now is an exten-sion of the motorway.The street in 1975 was certainly verydifferent to what it is today and it isaround that year that I would like todescribe, in part, what it was like.

We all know that it begins at the junc-tion of Lower and Upper DonegallStreet and runs up to the York Roadso we will begin out journey on theleft hand side heading country wards.Needless to say many of us will re-member the co-op stores and it wasat this corner where they began. Herewas situated the co-op Travel Agentswhich, if I stand correct, is still go-ing although not at this corner. Nextto this was the Green Shield Stampsshop where you took your stamps andexchanged them for various goods.These stamps were given out withvarious different purchases but to behonest I don’t remember too muchabout them. Then we had the mainbuilding of the co-op itself which was

When the Co-op Department Store was bombed in 1972 it was Christmas everyday to the local kids - myself included!


moved into this section after the de-partment store at the junction ofFrederick Street was destroyed in anIRA bomb attack in 1972. Now Iknow it wasn’t a bundle of laughs forthe co-op but to us kids living nearbythis bombing was heaven as it wasChristmas every day. There werequite a few ways in past the Peelersand the amount of toys we obtainedwas quite phenomenal. We did nothave Action Men - we had armies ofAction Men and every one of themwas married to a Barbie. When wecame out I remember the Peelerswere mainly unconcerned as it wasthose who were in looting electricalequipment and jewellery that theywere after. The Peelers only gave usa clip on the ear or a boot in the @*$!but they never took the stuff off us.Back to the replacement building andone little remembered memory is thatit was in here that the Orpheus Res-taurant and Ballroom was situated.Moving along we come to York Laneand then the site of where the abovementioned bombed out store stood,but in 1975 it was a building site witha new store under construction.Crossing Frederick Street we cometo what we called the ‘Bible BashersShop’ but what was really called theBethel Missionary Trust. I remem-ber a big massive Bible in their frontwindow and every day they wouldturn the page. Next door was twodraper shops one under the name ofP. Tully and the other Miss M. Tully.Above these were office equipmentsuppliers and I remember my mumworking as a cleaner in these. Eachnight she would take me down togive here a hand and it was there thatI first saw one of those office desk

ball gadgets. Now I don’t know itsname but you swing the end ball, ithit the next one, and the next, andthe next and then the other end wouldshoot up before repeating the wholeprocedure again only in reverse.Once I discovered that all I could saywas that mum never really got a handagain as I was constantly trying towork out how it worked.Back down to the street we then hadMcNeill & Co, decorating shopwhich only closed in recent years.Then we had a bookies, a newsagentsshop and at the corner of LancasterStreet the barbers of John Turley.Crossing this street there was a va-cant ground and then the Rivia Cafeowned by a man called Peter (al-though this is not what we calledhim!) and next to him was a derelictshoe repair shop. Crossing GreatGeorge’s Street there was a massivewaste ground, which was cleared forthe construction of the WestlinkMotorway. Henry Street was next

and then the large factory ofGallaher's. We then came to SussexStreet and the small garage of DavidCraig, which was directly next doorto the Bank of Ireland and the admin.offices of Gallaher's. Crossing EarlStreet we then came to another mas-sive section of the Gallaher factorywhich stretched along to MeadowStreet. Crossing here we came to‘The College’ which was a ladies andchildren's’ clothes shop. Next to thiswas Fosters of Castlereagh and thenRidgeway Ices, which was a sweetand poke shop. Next door was theFlower Basket and then SpencerStreet. At its corner was a localbranch of the T.S.B. and next to thisJohn Wilson McCready & Sons, tai-lors to the R.U.C.. Then we hadWilson’s newsagents before reachingBrougham Street.This is where most people think YorkStreet actually ends but they wouldbe wrong. York Street continuesright up to the junction of the Lime-

Troops from the nearby Victoria Barracks clear rubble from the junctionof York Street and Great Patrick Street. The original co-op building can

be seen in the background.


stone Road and it is from there thatYork Road begins.

Today one of the most famous build-ings on York Street is, without doubt,the Art College. A few weeks agowe were talking about this buildingand about how the art students oncemade a display which looked asthough a plane crashed into the build-ing. Needless to say this became oneof those pub arguments so if anybodyhas a photograph of this then pleasesend me a copy so that I may collecton a few drunken bets! The Art Col-lege was built on land cleared afterthe German Luftwaffe blitz of 1941.Now I am ‘way to young’ to have anymemories of this but I have spokento quite a few who do. This wholesection of the street was destroyedduring the blitz right up to LittlePatrick Street wiping many ofBelfast’s well-known buildings - theInternational Hotel at the junction ofDonegall Street being one. The ArtCollege ends at Curtis Street and in1975 the Universal Furniture Com-pany took up the opposite corner be-fore it became a showroom for Alfa-Romeo cars. Next was a vacantground the other end of which wasoccupied by Wynns Carpets and thenMcCausland Car Hire at the cornerof Great Patrick Street. This com-pany then moved to a temporary sitebehind the A1 Taxis and then to a newpurpose built building on GreatGeorge’s Street. I remember when itwas there that we used to tell youngerkids that it was a prison because withthe amount of barbed wire - that’sexactly what it looked like.Back to York Street and crossingGreat Patrick Street we had a gov-

ernment building here (it still is) andon the ground floor was Hopkirk’sCar Spares which was blown uparound at around this time. Next wasthe Regent Furnishing Company andthen Thomas McClune Glass mer-chants concluding with the UnitedConfectioners at the corner of LittlePatrick Street.Crossing over we had Conway’s Pub(which, if memory serves me right,was also known as the ‘Sports Bar)and then the large building of PhilipsElectrical Company. Phillips werejust one of the tenant’s and I remem-ber this is where the army recruit-ment office moved to after it wasblown up when it originally stoodnext door. Next was the fruit shopof Miss Purse, McKeown’snewsagents, McKenna’s Dental Lab.,and then the A1 Taxis, which remainhere to this day. Crossing GreatGeorge’s Street the North BelfastMission Hall was at the corner andnext door was Shalloway’s Uphol-stery shop. Next to this was the drap-ery store of Isobel Harrision and thenMcCabe’s butchers. Then we had the

York Street Foot Clinic and next doorthe York Street Pharmacy beforecoming to the printers of JohnMcCaw. Around five vacant shopsfollowed this and then we reachedNile Street where vacant ground wassituated between it and Henry Street.This was also the case betweenTrafalgar Street, Earl Street, NorthThomas Street, Dock Street, FleetStreet, Ship Street and ending atWhitla Street. This may seem like alot of land going to waste but whatwas occurring was that the entire areawas being cleared to construct thepresent road and railway system.Often I think of how I rememberdown these parts with houses on allthe above mentioned streets. Howmany homes were destroyed becauseof these roads?Crossing Whitla Street we came tothe railway terminal of Northern Ire-land Railway’s and one of our localmysteries. Even though this terminuswas situated on York Street why wasit known as the York Road Terminal?And that folks is the York Street ofthe mid 1970’s.

The Army Recruitment Centre after an IRA bomb attack. Conway’s Pubcan be seen at the corner.


Execution number fifteen in the BelfastPrison on the Crumlin Road is withoutdoubt the most famous of all that institu-tions condemned cell, in fact it is such anotable case that there are still manypeople who think that it was the only hang-ing in ‘The Crum.’On July 31st 1942 legal history was madein Ireland when six young Belfast menwere sentenced by a court on Belfast’sCrumlin Road to be executed on August18th. There had been times when six hadbeen sentenced by court-martial and therehave been six fold executions in Dublinthroughout some of Ireland’s troublesomehistory, but this was the first time sixpeople were condemned to forfeit theirlives for the life of one other.Those condemned to death were ThomasJoseph Williams (19), Henry Cordner (19),William James Perry (21), John TerenceOliver (21), Patrick Simpson (18) and Jo-seph Cahill (21), all were residents of theKashmir Road area.On Easter Sunday 1942, R.U.C. ConstablePatrick Murphy was patrolling the Kash-mir area of Belfast when a burst of shotswere fired at them by the I.R.A. The po-lice van in which Constable Murphy wastravelling gave chase and later stormed ahouse in Cawnpore Street. ConstableMurphy was the first to enter the propertythrough the back door and he was laterfound dead in the scullery of the house,still clutching his revolver, from whichthree shots had been fired. One of theyouths who was arrested was 19 year oldThomas Joseph Williams of BombayStreet. He had been shot three times andhad been in police custody in the hospitalbefore standing trial with the five othermen. A woman, Margaret Nolan who wasalso charged was tried separately after

pleading guilty to a lesser charge.Thousands signed petitions for the men’sreprieve and the whole country awaitedthe response. Mr. D. P. Marrinan, the so-licitor for the young men, brought the newsto them on Sunday night August 30th. Thesix men who had been divided into threecells, were brought together into one roomfor this extraordinary legal visit."I have very good news for you all withone exception". All had been reprievedexcept Williams. The other five men wereimmediately taken to another part of theprison and Williams was left to face thehangman.Father Alexis of Holy Cross Monastery,Ardoyne, celebrated Mass in Williams’cell on the morning of the execution andthe condemned man received Holy Viati-cum. At 7.15, Fr. McAllister, the prisonChaplain and Fr. McAneaney of St.Malachy's, celebrated a second Mass af-ter which Williams was anointed. Fr.Alexis said, "Williams was praying all thetime as he walked to the scaffold, a matterof a few yards. He seemed to be quiteresigned to his fate. The condemned man

went calmly to his death without a tremor."Crowds of rival demonstrators had gath-ered on the Crumlin Road, outside theprison. A prison official opened the gateand the Declaration of the Sheriff wasnailed to the door.

An inquest was held at the prison threehours after the execution. The jury of fif-teen availed of the opportunity to witnessthe dead body, which after hanging for thetraditional hour had been cut down andlaid out in a coffin below the gallows. Dr.Lowe, the City Coroner said the execu-tion was ‘carried out to the letter of thelaw’ Death, in his opinion, had been in-stantaneous. A verdict was returned ac-knowledging that the body was that ofThomas Williams and that the sentence ofdeath had been duly carried out. After-wards, the body was taken and buried at aplace set aside for such burials within theprison complex where it lay until the endof the last century. His remains were re-moved and buried in a family grave inMilltown Cemetery on the 19th of Janu-ary 2000.

THE MOST FAMOUS EXECUTION


SAM McLAUGHLIN HANGSForthy year old Samuel McLaughlin,of Cloughmills, County Antrim, wassentenced to death for the murder ofhis wife Nellie, and was hanged atBelfast Prison on Tuesday July 25th1961. His hanging was the latest af-ter a nineteen year lull.

The condemned man had been wait-ing in his cell in ‘B’ Wing, fromwhere a corridor led directly to theexecution chamber. The other pris-oners in the jail were awakened atseven and went to breakfast, but weretaken back to their cells until afterthe execution instead of starting workas usual. A prison officer was quotedas saying that, "the atmosphere in-side the walls was like that of a Sun-day morning as the men sat quietlyon their beds."

A small crowd gathered at the jail andas the time for the execution drewnearer it had increased to around ahundred. Some women amongst thecrowd wept openly and others wereseen to pray.Mrs. Nellie McLaughlin was foundwith severe head wounds in the bed-room of her home on the 19th ofOctober 1960 after the police werecalled, by a relative, to break into thehouse. Her husband, Samuel, hadbeen working in England but hadbeen home for the past few weeks.They had no children.At the winter Assizes the jury failedto agree on a verdict and the trial wasrescheduled to take place at theAntrim Spring Assizes in April. Hisappeal to the Court of Criminal Ap-peal based on the defence that he was

in an alcoholic delirium failed eventhough two petitions with severalhundred signatures were submittedfor his reprieve.McLaughlin claimed that he had norecollection of what happened onOctober the 18th except walkingalong a grass verge next morning. Heclaimed he couldn’t remember howhe even came to be there. It was laterwas revealed at his trial that he hadcome back from England when hiswife brought maintenance proceed-ings against him. He had been drink-ing heavily that weekend. After thecourt case he had tried to see his wifeon several occasions and he eventu-ally met her in Richmond's publichouse in Cloughmills on October the17th. His wife, who was under theinfluence, started to sing and this

apparently made him cry. He askedher to set up home with him again inDerby, England, where he had a jobas a foundry worker. He then wentto Lislaban that night with his wifeand mother in-law and stayed thenight. The next day he and his wifewent to Loughiel and then returnedto the cottage at Cloughmills.McLaughlin claimed that he hadbeen drinking again and can’t re-member what happened next.

It was suggested by the defence thata verdict of ‘guilty but insane’ shouldbe the proper action for the jury. Infact the defence counsel, Mr. R. W.Porter elaborated by saying, "Youhave already heard from Crown wit-nesses that McLaughlin had been aheavy drinker for a number of years

The cottage where Nellie McLaughlin was murdered.


and I suggest to you that you will besatisfied on the evidence you havealready heard that he had consumeda considerable amount of alcoholbetween October the 13th and 18th.You shall hear moreover that on oc-casions in past years McLaughlinsuffered from blackouts as a resultof his alcoholism."

It was brought to the attention of thejury that when the couple separated,Nellie McLaughlin claimed her hus-bands heavy drinking and violenttemper were part of the problem. Athis trial, McLaughlin told of the ex-tent of his alcoholism. Between Oc-tober 13th and 18th he claimed heconsumed, three dozen bottles ofbeer, a half bottle of rum and a halfbottle of whiskey daily.Several witnesses were called in hisdefence testifying to his alcoholismand blackouts. It was the view of aneminent psychiatrist, Dr. JohnNabney, called by the defence, thatMcLaughlin did not know what hewas doing at the time of the murder.At eight o’clock on the morning of

A small section of the crowd who gathered outside the Belfast Prison on the morning of the execution of Sam McLaughlin.July 25th 1961 Samuel Mc Laughlin,the 40 year old Cloughmills man wasexecuted within Crumlin Road Gaol.‘He prayed with the chaplain and

took communion immediately priorto his execution’ This was the fif-teenth person to be hanged at theprison.

A warden nails the execution notice of Sam McLaughlin to the maindoor of Crumlin Road Prison.


EVERYTHING HAS A HISTORY!There is an old saying which statesthat the history we process is the his-tory of the upper classes. For manyyears this was true as the history wewere told was about those who wereWKW (well known and wealthy).For example there is a memorial inthe grounds of the City Hall to thosewho died on the ill fated Titanic. Thiswould seem like a nice gesture butthose who are named on it are listedin terms of importance and wealth.Another aspect of this was the housesin which these people lived in. Weare often told about the history oftheir great mansions but the simplefact of the matter is that every singlebuilding in Belfast has a history. Forme to give an example I have cho-sen the burnt out remains of 202Duncairn Gardens. Looking at thepicture none of us would give it asecond glance but lets look at its past.Duncairn Gardens was laid out in thelate 1880’s and its first buildings be-gan to appear in the mid 1890’s. Itwent through the massive gardens ofthe Duncairn Estate (hence the name)and on this estate stood two mansionhouses, Duncairn and Fortfield. Inthe Belfast street directory we areinformed that most of Duncairn Gar-dens has been constructed but it doesstate that houses 164 - 200 are underconstruction. In the following yearsdirectory the property is listed asnumber 200 but the fact of the mat-ter is that it is situated four doorsdown from Halliday’s Road so theactual numbers can indeed be some-times confusing. Its first tenant wasa butcher named Samuel Bink andnext door a newsagents was estab-lished which actually remained untiljust a few years ago when it wasforced to close after a horrific loyal-

ist attack. In the directory after thatthe butcher is listed as a Mr Pink andthen in 1900 the shop is lasted asvacant.The Belfast Street Directories areextremely useful in listing who livedwhere but when we come to 1901there is an excellent second resourcein the form of the Census of IrelandReturns which are actually quite de-tailed. Sadly the only census returnsavailable are for the years 1901 and1911 as all the others were destroyedin Dublin during the Irish Civil Warin the early 1920’s. The census re-

turn for number 202 tells us that an-other butcher moved in by the nameof Robert Ellwood and that he was abeef butcher. He was aged 28 andlived with his wife Elizabeth, alsoaged 28, and their one year old sonEarnest. Mr Ellwood came fromAntrim but both his son and wifewere born in Belfast and all wereChurch of Ireland. Those who com-piled the street directories were ob-viously not doing a very good job asthe shop was listed as vacant until1904 when it became a hairdressersshop under a H. MacMahon. Mov-

The burnt out remains of 202 Duncairn Gardens


ing forward to the 1911 Census ofIreland Return we are told that the Hstands for Henry, that he was 32,single and a Presbyterian. Obviouslythe hairdressing business was a lotbetter that the butcher trade on thisspot as Mr MacMahon stayed hereuntil 1927. But try and imagine wasmust have been talked about in thishairdressers during Mr MacMahon’speriod. Among the discussed topicswould have been the building andsinking of the Titanic, the First WorldWar, the Easter Rising, the partitionof Ireland and quite a few other no-table events.Back to the directories we are toldthat a hairdresser of the name H. A.Reynolds took over. He stayed until1935 until it was taken over by yetanother hairdresser called Rolstonwho seems to have remained hereuntil 1980. Now I don't think that MrRolston remained the hairdresser inquestion for 45 years so it wouldseem that it must have been a familyaffair. During their time here it wasone conflict leading to another. Theshop had a narrow escape during theLuftwaffe Blitz of 1941 when a lotof Duncairn Gardens was bombed onthe German’s way to the Waterworkswhich they had to destroy in order toreturn for a firebomb attack – nowater, no defence! It was also in theirownership at the outbreak of theTroubles in 1969. Between 1980 and1984 it was listed as a ladies hair-dressers and in 1985 was listed as theShalom Hairdressing Salon up until1990 when the listing changed to justShalom before becoming the ShalomThrift Shop right up to its destruc-tion by fire a few years ago.So there we have it. Here is a burntout wreck of an old shop, which hasa fascinating history so, what is thatold saying about history and the up-per classes again!

The 1901 Census of Ireland return listing Robert Ellwood and family

Picture 3 The 1911 Census of Ireland Return listing Henry MacMahon

The shop had a narrow escape during theGerman Blitz. This picture shows the

upper end of Duncairn Gardens where the flats now stand.


A middle aged woman, wife of a re-tired linen worker named ThomasMathers, was found dead yesterdayin the kitchen of her home at 5Gainsborough Drive, Belfast. Herhead had been battered in, apparentlywith a coal hammer that was foundcovered with blood near by, and thediscovery of the tragedy followed astatement said to have been made byher husband.

Mathers, a middle aged man, shortof stature, with hair turning grey,walked into York Road Police Sta-tion, which is a short distance fromhis home, and, it is reported, told thesergeant in charge that he had killedhis wife. Police were sent to investi-gate his statement, and found thewoman lying in a pool of blood inthe kitchen.

A peculiar feature of the affair is thatMathers was allowed out on bail inBelfast Police Court on Thursday,when he was charged with attempt-ing suicide. Evidence then revealedthat he had been found unconsciousin a gas filled room,, and, as reportedbelow, the magistrates, in taking amerciful view of the case, were in-fluenced by the appeals of his wife.While the case was being heard Mrs

One of my all time favourite pastimes is looking through old newspapers for interesting stories from our past. Quiteoften I would bring some of these reports to you via this column but there are some out there who seem to think thatthis is the easiest thing in the world to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. With the exception of researchers,no one quite understands the amount of old newspapers that must be searched through to obtain a good story. Then itmust be typed up and checked for accuracy. I enjoy bringing the old reports as they appeared as the use of words insome of them is absolutely fantastic and the detail something else. For example one such case was a North Belfastmurder which appeared in the Northern Whig on the 9th of July, 1929: -

BELFAST WOMAN MURDEREDHead Battered in With Hammer

Mathews pleaded earnestly for herhusband, describing him as "the bestof husbands."Neighbours state that both Mathersand his wife had for a long time been:funny in their ways." Mathers, it isstated, usually wore a vacant look,but the couple seemed devoted toeach other. They had no children, butwere apparently perfectly happy.

THE POLICE DISCOVERYOutwardly the house inGainsborough Drive presented nounusual appearance when the policearrived. They were accompanied byMr Hawe, a grocer, whose shop is atthe corner of the Drive.

"It was a terrible job," said Mr Haweto a Northern Whig representative."Mr Mathers must have left the frontdoor unlocked, for we did not needto use a key when we reached thehouse. He must have been agitatedwhen he left for the police station,and forgotten to lock the door."The interior of the house was in per-fect order when the police entered,but a gory sight met them in thekitchen. Here, in the centre of thefloor, was the body of Mrs Mathers.She was dead, and an examinationdisclosed that the side and top of the

skull had been almost battered in.Pieces of bone were protruding out-wards and inwards, and her hair wasclotted with blood.

The body lay in a pool of blood, andby its side was a small coal hammer.This also was covered with blood,and strands of hair adhered to itshead. The woman’s injuries wereterrible, and it was obvious that shewas quite dead.No screams or sounds of strugglewere heard by the neighbours on ei-ther side, but it is believed that MrsMathers was attacked unexpectedlyfrom behind, stunned by the firstblow, and afterwards battered todeath.The murderer must have hit the un-fortunate woman with great force,and a tremendous rain of blowsseemed to have descended on herhead. Splashes of blood were to beseen on the walls and pictures. Theseindicated the ferocity with which theblows had been struck.

HUSBAND’S "FUNNY WAYS"Mr Hawe accompanied the constablethroughout his examination of thekitchen, and he afterwards sum-moned an ambulance in which thebody was removed to the RoyalVictoria Hospital.


Mathers, meanwhile, had been de-tained in the police station. He didnot return to the house, which is nowoccupied by a police constable, butwas removed later in the day to themain Bridewell at Chichester Street.The dead woman was slightly tallerthan her husband. Both were aboutfifty years old, and Mathers, whoseappearance is mild and inoffensive,is short and grey haired. MrsMathers was about 5ft 7in in height,with dark hair and a dark complex-ion. She was described by aneighbour as a fine looking womanof slim build.

Mr and Mrs Mathers were of a re-served disposition. The dead womanrarely spoke to her neighbours, buther husband had a habit of talkingto strangers in the street."He would talk about all sorts ofthings," a neighbour said, "and oftenhis conversation was just so muchnonsense. But they were both quietand very respectable, and I can notunderstand why she has been killed.If Mr Mathers has done it it must bebecause of his funny ways. He hasnot seemed very well for some timelately."

Mrs Mathers, it is learned, belongedto the Dollingshead district ofLurgan. She and her husband hadlived for some years in America.They returned when Mathers retired,and lived for a time in the Cregaghdistrict until they bought the housein Gainsborough Drive nearly twoyears ago.After hearing of the attempted sui-cide case on Thursday Mathers andhis wife returned home, apparently

quite happy. Later in the dayneighbours saw them leave the houseand return together, and there seemedto be nothing wrong. Surprise andsympathy are general in theneighbourhood.Now if it were not for me comingacross articles such as this then there

are very few people in Belfast whowould ever have heard of this caseand its later outcome was one of sym-pathy. Due to his ‘funny ways’ thehusband escaped the hangman’snoose in Crumlin Road Prison but hewas later committed to the DistrictLunatic Asylum for life.

The house in Gainsborough Drive where the murder occurred


THE FINAL EXECUTIONThere is not a man in this court cansay I killed Pearl Gamble, becauseI didn’t, I am innocent of the crime!That was part of the dramatic speechfrom the dock by Robert AndrewMcGladdery who was found guiltyof the wilful murder of a 19 year oldshop assistant. The speech came af-ter a jury had returned a guilty ver-dict on the seventh day of his trial onOctober 16th, 1961. The trial cap-tured the attention of the general pub-lic and Lord Justice Curran presidedthroughout. Pearl Gamble was foundstrangled and stabbed in a field nearher home on January 28th after at-tending a dance at Newry OrangeHall. Her dead body had beendragged or carried across three fieldsbefore it was left partially concealedin a clump of whin bushes at a placeknown as Weir’s Rocks at Damolly.McGladdery who had danced twicewith Pearl at the dance that night de-nied having any part in the killing.He claimed that after leaving thedance hall he walked home alone bythe Belfast Road. He had been in thewitness box for almost six and a halfhours in an attempt to save himselffrom the hangman’s noose. His de-fence was conducted by Mr. JamesBrown Q.C. and Mr. TurloughO’Donnell (instructed by LukeCurran of Newry) and took 100 min-utes in their closing address. At theend of this Mr. Brown asked the juryto retire to their room and ‘weighwell all these grave matters,’ andbring in a verdict which the defencesubmitted would be the proper one -Not Guilty.

The Attorney General, Mr. W. B.Maginness, with Mr. C. A. NicholsonQ.C. and Mr. R. J. Babington ap-peared for the Crown. Their addresstook 80 minutes to deliver and theysubmitted that if the jury was satis-

fied, ‘that the man in the dock on thatawful morning of January 28th killedthat young girl in this ghoulish fash-ion, then as men and citizens, help-ing in the administration of justice,and satisfied beyond all reasonabledoubt, you will do your duty andbring in a verdict of guilty.’There was a lot of circumstantial evi-dence and witnesses involved in the

case although no-one actually sawthe killing. The point of what clothesMcGladdery had been wearing on thenight of the murder was investigatedin great detail during the trial. Inparticular, the articles of clothing,which corresponded in description tothose, which witnesses claimedMcGladdery had been wearing at thedance and were subsequently found

Pearl Gamble


hidden in a septic tank (close to thescene of the murder). There werethirteen witnesses and although somedisagreed about the exact colour allagreed that it was a "light suit".McGladdery denied he had everowned a light suit and claimed hewore a blue suit at the dance. He latertried to implicate his pal, WillCopeland, by claiming that he hadloaned him some clothes similar tothose which were discovered in theseptic tank.

Lord Justice Curran had taken twohours summing up. The courtroomwas crowded and many more stoodoutside unable to gain admittance.The all-male jury brought in theirverdict of GUILTY after being outfor 40 minutes. Lord Justice Curranstated that "the facts cry out that thiswas a brutal killing" donned the tra-ditional black cap and fixed the dateof the execution for November 7th.An appeal was immediately enteredon McGladdery’s behalf by the de-fence counsel and they were quiteconfident of gaining a reprieve.While back in prison McGladderywrote a 16-page autobiographywhich was submitted to the Cabinetas part of his appeal. All his attemptsat avoiding the hangman failed andhis execution was re-scheduled totake place four days before Christ-mas, December 21st. Before eighto’clock came McGladdery sat in thecondemned cell and for the first timesince his arrest, and perhaps realisingthat he might soon be going beforehis Maker after listening to the ad-vice of his religious ministers, heconfessed to the murder of the poorunfortunate girl.

This execution not only ended the lifeof one Robert McGladdery but alsothe trade of the hangman in CrumlinRoad Prison as his was the last to takeplace in that institution.

Robert McGladdery


There has been a lot of mediaspeculation over the future of thetower blocks in the VictoriaBarracks area of the New Lodge. Asone who has been involved innumerous issues concerning thesehigh rise flats for quite a few yearsnow I can personally assure peoplethat these flats will be around forquite some time to come - so don’tbe getting the wallpaper for the newhouse in just yet.But one interesting thought came tome when I was asked last week onhow old the flats were and althoughwe look at them as modernstructures it’s quite hard to believethat some of them are approachingtheir 50th anniversary.Their history is also a unique oneand when we look at the area today

CASTLES IN THE SKYwe can see that the old 1950’s policyof cramming people into as littlespace as possible has failed. I wasbrought up in one of these towerblocks and to be honest it wasn’t toobad. In those days we had a massivefield next to us where the Westlinkis now built and for years we hadthe derelict houses of Sailortown tokeep us occupied but now almostevery space is taken up and today’skids seem to be getting more andmore crammed in as each yearpasses. Although we were lucky inour flat (there was only me and mybrother) other larger families werepacked in and it must have been abundle of laughs at bedtime!But back to the flats and theirhistory. They were built in the siteof the old Victoria Barracks which

had a history stretching back tobefore the United irishmen’s 1798Rebellion. This barrack was one ofthe largest in Ireland and theincident which sealed its fate wasthe Luftwaffe Blitz in 1941 when thewhole place was blown tosmithereens with many hundredskilled (mainly ATS girls)The authorities realised that such amilitary installation was now asitting duck as far as enemy bomberswere concerned and a decision wasreached to divide the base and moveit to Holywood, Lisburn and thenearby Girdwood Park.This left a massive amount of landavailable and because there werenumerous plans made in the 1950’sconcerning new road systems lotsand lots of houses had to bedemolished. With houses comepeople and these had to be rehoused

The German Luftwaffe Blitz saw the beginning ofthe end for Victoria Barracks. In this picture theold Ashton Centre and Churchill Street can be

seen in the background.


somewhere. The BelfastCorporation then acquired theVictoria Barracks site and while theoriginal development plans were tokeep many of the sleeping quartersof the barracks for housing this wasruled out on fire safety grounds.Most of the barrack was thendemolished with only a fewbuildings to remain, the gymnasium(now The Recy) and the OfficersHouses (now renamed VictoriaBarracks). This demolition workbegan in two stages. The first wasto allow the construction of theseven tower blocks while the

military kept a major section andonce they moved out of this a newhousing estate to be built (thepresent Carlisle Estate)Work began on the first tower blockin the early 1960’s and by the endof the decade all were complete withthe whole area being completed by1970.We lived in Artillery House and mydad was the caretaker of the block.When Churchill House was finishedhe was transferred there to thecaretakers flat on the ground floorand off shoots of our family haveremained there ever since.

The first of the tower blocks goes up.When completed this was named

Alanbrooke House. (Now Finn House)

Two of the blocks completed in 1963. Alanbrooke House (back) and Alexander House.To the left of the picture the last remaining part of the Victoria Military Barracks can be seen.


FROM CHURCHILL TO CUCHULAINNMy family moved into ChurchillHouse in 1969 when I was just fouryears of age. My first memories ofgrowing up here was the view fromthe roof of the flats. My dad was thecaretaker and he took me up therewhen he had to clean the engine roomand to me the view was just breath-taking (it still is!) At the front of theflats I remember looking down on theremaining section of Victoria Bar-racks which was being demolished atthe time to clear the way for the con-struction of Carlisle Estate. This wasan adventure playground for us and,to be quite honest, I’m surprised noneof us ever got killed considering someof the things we got up to in it. In ashort time the last of Victoria Barrackswas gone and work began on the es-tate. One thing that I can rememberabout this was the extremely shorttime in which Carlisle Estate waserected. One minute they were lay-ing the foundations and when youcame back a few days later the housewas there.

Back to the flats and they say that inchildhood lifelong friendships aremade. This is quite true. After a fewyears living here the friends I madewere (from top of flats to bottom) Paul‘Scelf’ O’Neill and Jamesy Davidson(both of whom lived in number 12)and brothers Terry and Paul ‘Bouncer’O’Neill (who lived in number 5).There was a sixth member to thissmall group called Jim Madden (whoalso lived in number 12) but sadly hedied in a tragic accident in 1979.However, the five of us are stillfriends and still go out on the occa-sions which we are allowed.The flats throughout the 1970’s werequite a strong community and while Iliked most of those who lived there Imust confess that there were alsothose whom I detested but thankfullythese were only a few. Now I admitthat in growing up I was no angel butthere was one person in particular whoblamed me on absolutely everythingthat happened. On one occasion shewent to the local ‘police force’ and

brought them to our flat. Once thereshe stated that she had saw me break-ing the two lifts the night before witha hammer and that everyone had towalk up and down the stairs. Under-standably everybody in the wholeblock were fuming at this but imag-ine the surprise on that woman's facewhen my mum turned to her and fac-tually told her that I had been in hos-pital the past five weeks. Needless tosay she stormed out and right up untilthe day she died there was never evena ‘sorry for my mistake.’The flats had their tragedies and I re-member one when an old woman wholived a few floors above us fell whilewashing her windows. I rememberhearing her scream as she was hold-ing on and running in to get my dad.It was then that me and my brotherwere thrown into our room so that wedid not see what happened but whatwe do know is that the poor womanfell and died.A few hundred yards from our flatswas the local bar known as McGurk’s.Needless to say we all know whathappened there and some of thosekilled lived in Churchill Flats. I re-member mentioning the McGurks

Photograph taken from the spire of St Patrick’s in the late 1960’s. Thetower block in the foreground is Churchill House under construction.To the left of the picture is the remaining section of Victoria Barracksand to the right the old army gym, which was to become the Recy. The

building at the bottom of the picture is the old St Kevin’s Hall.


bomb before in a previous article anda few of the local ‘know it alls’ statedthat there was no way I could remem-ber the McGurk’s Bar bomb as I wastoo young. Well I must that them forthe compliment in acknowledging mytender age but when a massive bombgoes off facing where you live and fif-teen people are killed then in has atendency of sticking in your head.My main memory relating to thisbombing was the way all the brokenglass in the flats piled up. When allthe windows blew out the glass waspiled in a weird triangle shape whichlooked as though someone had spenthours piling and shaping it.Next to Churchill House was the Recyand for year this was our haunt.Shortly after we moved into the flatsthis was opened up as a recreationcentre (hence the name Recy) and tobe quite honest it was brilliant. Thisbuilding was the old army gymnasiumof Victoria Barracks and the militaryhad left every thing behind within it.I remember all the kits bags and skis(yes skies) and all the massive ropenets. Inside large slings were tied tothe rafters for swings with the bestbeing the one in the centre. This be-came known as ‘Carlo’s Swing’ and

when he came in and saw you on it, itwas a good idea to make a hasty re-treat. In those days it was run by An-thony Duffy and the period was per-fect because if you were swinging, felland fractured your wrist it was tough.Up to hospital, plaster on and that wasit. These days its down to the solici-tors office first.Churchill House has changed dra-matically over the years and I’m glad

to state for the better. The main changewas the name as the block was laterrenamed CuChulainn House. There isnow a security service and the blockis now mainly spotless. The flats gotdouble-glazing, heating and lots of in-ternal work and they are actually nota bad place to live and if I were onmy own I would be back tomorrow.But one of my earliest memories ofgrowing up in Churchill House waswatching members of the OfficialIRA building a barricade acrossVictoria Parade. When they wenthome for the night we ‘borrowed’their tools a dug a big hole in the fieldat the front of the flats. Of coursethere was no point to this hole butwhen we reached the bottom we cameacross a set of steps which obviouslyled to one of the buildings of VictoriaBarracks on one of the steps was en-graved 1888. I remember finding thisfascinating and today I often wonderif this was the seed that led to my in-terest in local history.

Photograph taken the day after theMcGurks bomb with Churchill

House in the background.

Birds Eye view of the Barrack area in 1971. Churchill House is the towerblock on the bottom right og the picture.


HUMAN HORSES AND BONFIRES!When the previous article

first appeared in theNorth Belfast News it

created a bit of debate and I mustadmit that it made me a bit smugwriting this because an old residentof Churchill House thought she wascorrecting me and placed a £10 betthat I was wrong. Well a quick glancethrough the Registry of Electors toconfirm what floor someone lived onmade me £10 richer. Talking aboutgambling I was also reminded aboutone of the most unique features ofliving in the Barrack area and I can’tbelieve that I forgot about it. Whenwe were kids we played with ourAction Men in the nearby wasteground but the then children of a wellknown local family had a moreunique past time. On the field fac-ing Churchill Flats they laid hurdlesand when complete they then racedover them. Nothing unusual aboutthat I hear you ask but what they werepretending to do was horse racingand they were the horses - completewith whips! Now I know they aregoing to be reading this with a slighthint of embarrassment but sorry lads- it was your cousin Curly who re-minded me!Now another reminder which camemy way was about the bonfire whichused to be beside the flats. However,I must point out that I was keepingthat for a future article, but consider-ing so many people took me up on itI suppose I might as well do it now.Next to Churchill Flats was the spotof the famous (or is it infamous) Bar-rack Bonfire Gang and looking backwith a sensible head on I really am

surprised that no one was ever killedduring their exploits. In the overallNew Lodge area there were quite afew bonfire gangs during the sum-mer months and these were The Bar-rack, The Piggy, Carlisle, Sheridan,Bruslee and Glenrosa but the twowith the most hatred for each otherwere The Barrack and Sheridan asthe others didn’t really count. Therivalry between these two was so in-tense that all sorts of dirty tricks wereentertained including the burning ofeach others wood in order to have thebiggest bonfire. Now I know I’mbeing biased here when I say that TheBarrack had the biggest but there areold Sheridan members who dismissphotography and state that their‘bonie’ was always the biggest - adebate which still goes on.

As many older people will remem-ber the original bonfires on theCatholic side were lit on the 15th ofAugust but after internment theywere lit on the 9th, the first being onthe 9th of August, 1972 as part of aprotest campaign. At that time thebonfires were quite small comparedto what they developed into whichwas after the ‘competition element’came in. Collecting wood beganaround the end of June and for thekids of the estate this work was car-ried out day in, day out, and thenthere was the graveyard shift whoguarded the wood through the nightusually by sneaking out of the housethrough their bedroom window. TheBarrack was weak in this departmentas most of the gang lived in the flatsand climbing out the window was a

The Barrack bonfire under construction in 1986


wee bit out of the question!For collecting purposes our travelstook us far and wide and we gath-ered wood and tyres from the Docks,Sailortown and as far away as theMarkets. Old houses were strippedand I remember one of the biggestBarrack bonfires occurred afterGlenravel Street RUC Barracks wasstripped of all its combustible mate-rial (after the lead and copper wastaken of course!)Then there was the raids which, forthose not in the know, was the steal-ing of each others wood and tyres.In this aspect I must admit that TheBarrack were the most prolific andmost evil because what they couldnot carry off they set fire too. I canremember a delegation being sentover to the Bruslee gang on the NewLodge Road to discuss a joint raidon the Piggy which was in NorthQueen Street. The Barrack were togo down from their area at 3.00pmand Bruslee were to do the same.Come the arranged time and a placedscout had reported that Bruslee hadall went down the New Lodge Roadto which The Barrack went acrossand took every single one of theirtyres. There was not a lot they coulddo about it because Barrack hadstrength in numbers but there is nodoubt that it was a devious movewhich I know Bruslee saw the funnyside off later as most of their bonfiregang merged with The Barrack as didCarlisle and The Piggy so that in theend there was only two gangs leftwith the rivals being Sheridan.The Barrack also suffered as a resultof raids with most of the attacksmerging from the Unity Flats gang.This was one bonfire gang which we

found quite difficult to break as wefound out over the years that overthere people never seem to sleep as5am raiding parties were always de-tected. But an arrangement wasreached and each agreed to leaveeach other alone. One of TheBarrack’s strong points in defencewas the fact that it was situated nextto the tower block of Churchill whichmeant that attacks on raiders couldbe made from the roof. During thesebricks were thrown and today I mustadmit that I am glad that we missedour targets as a brick from this heightwould have undoubtedly killed who-ever it struck.

These raids were never confined torival gangs within the area as manya raid was done by The Barrack onbonfires in the Bone, Markets and,believe it or not, Loyalist areas. Onesuch raid I remember was on theLoyalist bonfire on the Shore Roadfacing the Grove Baths when a 5amraid resulted in a massive amount oftyres being taken but looking back

on this now I must confess that thehairs on the back of my neck stand -could you imagine if we had beencaught!In the days before the bonfire a lastminute push was made to get as muchmaterial as possible if it was lookingas if Sheridan were getting the up-per hand but other raids includedexcursions into Loyalist areas againin order to obtain flags for said bon-fire. For The Barrack gang the easypickings were Clifton Street OrangeHall and the Shankill Estate. Whatoccurred here was a few on the grave-yard shift would enter the area andquietly remove flags flying outside

the houses. Another competition wasto see which gang could get the mostflags but, once again looking back,this was nothing more than out andout madness as the consequences ofbeing caught are not even worththinking about.Come the 8th of August and the bon-fire now resembled a constructionsite. It was then that the men came

The Sheridan attempt in 1986


out and piled up the tons of woodwith the kids acting as an army ofants in bringing the wood up to them.Once erected everyone then went andgot ready for the night including agood bath and the compulsory carryout. At the Barrack site the one thingthat always amazed us was the num-ber from the Shankill Estate whocame to watch. They gathered on thehill at the back of the Orange Hallwith their carry outs and that wasthem getting to watch another bon-fire, have a drink and do no work to-wards it whatsoever - and who canblame them. After all they gave us abonfire to watch on the 11th of Julyand an excuse to get a carry out.This brings me to a more sinister sideof bonfire time. There was one occa-sion on said 11th night when a guyin a Glasgow Rangers shirt ap-proached the night shift of the Bar-rack gang and, in a broad Scottishaccent which nobody could under-stand, asked "what time are youslighting your fire at?" Everyone wasin total disbelief at what was goingon before their eyes when he statedthat "the boys over there sent medown to ask what time you’re light-ing your fire at." A few of the moresensible members of the gang thengot the guy, took him down to NorthQueen Street Peeler Barrack and toldthem what happened. The Peelers inturn got him into a Landrover andwanted him to point out who sent himdown. Whatever happened to him orif they got those involved we neverfound out but what I still find hard tobelieve is the fate that those who senthim thought they were sending himtoo and I’m glad that the ‘StarryPlough’ elements of the gang were

in bed when this occurred as my heartreally went out to him and his totalmisunderstanding of what he wasdoing.Looking back today I’m glad thatthese bonfires no longer exist as Inow realise the nuisance they musthave been to the local community butin their defence I must admit that theywere perfect for keeping kids occu-pied throughout the Summer becauseI remember when they were over thefew weeks we had to wait to get backto school were hell as we were sobored.There are still bonfires in Loyalistareas in July and I really think thatthat community really need to wiseup to the destruction and cost ofthese. To be honest I don’t mind ifthey burn wood but when you see allthe tyres going up in smoke then we

really need to think of the environ-ment on this one, especially when wesee bonfires made of nothing buttyres. Now I know no one on theLoyalist side is really going to listento me on this one but I would pointout one thing that was pointed out tome during a Barrack bonfire when Ihad my first child on my shoulderswatching the huge blaze. "With allthese tyres burning," he said, "imag-ine what that child is breathing in."Developments saw the end of bon-fires in the New Lodge area. Star ofthe Sea School and the Ashton Cen-tre took Sheridan's spot and theWestlink, houses and a park saw theend of the Barrack’s sacred place butto this day the arguments betweenThe Barrack and Sheridan continueas to who had the biggest "bonie."(Incidentally it was The Barrack!)

The old Mater InfirmorumHospital which was originally

built as Bedeque House byGeorge Thompson in the mid

1860’s


Fitzgerald’s Fruit and Poultry store at Number 11 Duncairn Street. This street was soon after renamed theAntrim Road and this shop stood next to the historic Clifton Street Cemetery. To the right of the picture is the

stationery shop of Miss Browne. The photograph was taken at the turn of the last century.

Peeble Cottage (below) which stood on Duncairn Street (facing top of New Lodge Road). To the left of thepicture is Duncairn Presbyterian Church with its original lecture hall in the background. This photograph was

also taken around the turn of the last century.

North Belfast Another Scattered History

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