The Belfast Boycott

Welcome to the History of Ireland. Last episode, we looked at what was going on in the north of Ireland during the summer of 1920. And things were not pretty. Riots, sectarian violence, towns being burned, events some describe as pilgrims, and the Unionists, the IRA and the Ancient Order of Hibernians all at each other’s throats. None of this was ignored in the south of Ireland.

And on August 6th, the Dáil met to discuss the issue, along with immigration, food supply and lots of other born-government-y things. Now, remember, the Dáil was an illegal organisation at this point, and any meeting had to be held in secret. This one in particular was held at Fleming’s Hotel at 32 Gardiner Place in Dublin. The hotel is pretty pedestrian, just one in a row of red-brick old buildings. Totally unremarkable. Which is exactly what you want for a secret meeting of an illicit government. It was a huge risk for the Dáil to gather. Virtually all leading Republicans would be in one spot. Sitting ducks for the British. But if the Dáil didn’t meet, well, then there weren’t really a government, and so what was everyone fighting over? It was vitally important and incredibly risky.

On the day, the hotel would have received a series of deliveries from grocer’s vans, packed full with the normal goods you’d need for a hotel. But amongst the fruit, veg, milk, eggs and bread, you’d have had a bunch of cramped TDs, who would be snuck from the van into a meeting room in the hotel. Others would have arrived in rather ridiculous disguises. As one TD put it, I was greatly amused by the disguises adopted by certain people when the going was hard. The same TD told of how Pierce Baisley, ever the fan of theatrics, quote, wore a black moustache and spectacles and adopted the antics of a stage conspirator. So picture some climbing out of fruit vans, others twirling moustaches like something out of a silent movie, all gathering in this rather small hotel at 9.30am on Friday the 6th of August. Presumably after some handshakes, people shuffling to their seats, and maybe a TD or two arriving late, order would be called and the proceedings started.

Arthur Griffith, as Deputy President, kicked things off. You can actually follow the whole thing on the Euroctas’ website and see how the meeting was carried out. Griffith started with some remarks about false rumours of negotiations, the arrival of a bishop and who’d be sent to meet him, a comment on food supplies and then finally he got to the issue of Belfast. The records laid out as follows. A very serious crisis has arisen in Belfast. The position brought about there was that practically speaking the majority of Sinn Féin workers have been driven out of employment. The people in Belfast were very anxious that the Dáil should take action on the matter.

This was Sean McEntee’s cue. McEntee was a TD for Monaghan and was there representing prominent Catholics from Belfast. He stood up and began a speech which sums up the position in Belfast pretty well. Though remember it’s obviously very one-sided. He said, We assume that you’ve read the press reports of the pogrom which started on July 21st and the violent expulsion of well over 5,000 people, of the murders, wrecking, looting and wholesale eviction of families. The situation for expelled workers grows worse daily and all signs go to show that the persecution is to be continued with unabated vigour. No one, not being in Belfast, can have any adequate idea of what our people are suffering now and must continue to suffer.

From the first, the promoters of these outrages have been publicly declaring that they are out to fight Sinn Féin and drive it from the north-eastern pale. Already thousands of young men from every county in Ireland have been forced to fly and thousands of others are idle here with destitution staring them in the face. The only condition on which they will be permitted to work is that they sign a declaration of loyalty to the British government. We earnestly appeal to Sinn Féin, through the Dáil, to take up this straight challenge and fight Belfast, the spearhead of British power in Ireland.

He added that this outbreak was more than a purely sectarian matter. It was the first direct attack upon the Irish Republic. It was the first open act of rebellion against the Republic and they should be prepared to deal firmly and strongly with such acts.

McEntee then finished his speech with a plea to boycott Belfast businesses and banks. Ah, an old favourite of Ireland, the boycott raises its head once again. McEntee knew that the IRA didn’t really have the strength to fend off the unionists in Belfast, but he believed that an economic attack could be equally effective. Belfast had always been an economic powerhouse within Ireland and so it made sense to try and target its economy.

However, Ernest Blythe, another TD from Monaghan, disagreed with McEntee and after his speech was finished, Blythe called for the floor, stood up and laid out his argument. To declare an economic blockade of Belfast would be the worst possible step to take. If it were taken it would destroy forever the possibility of any union. Belfast could not be brought down through the banks. The basis of every trouble in the North was sectarian. It was that fact that made possible the fury of the anti-Catholic forces there. You see, he believed that any boycott would simply entrench the divide between North and South and speed up the process of partition.

Next, Countess Markievicz stood up. She liked the idea of the boycott, but didn’t believe it could be effectively implemented. She said, to declare a blockade would be playing into the hands of the enemy and giving them a good excuse for partition. It was even possible that this was a trap on the part of the English government to cut off trade with Belfast and so make Ireland into two trading centres. Michael Collins, kind of hilariously, argued that the whole thing was overblown and that there was, quote, no ulster question. Yeah, sure Mick.

Eventually, it was an idea of Griffiths that won out. It’s a bit complicated, but bear with me. He was against an all out blockade and boycott of Belfast. Like the others, he believed, quote, it was practically a declaration of war on one part of their own territory. If the proposed scheme of dislocation were passed, it would be an admission that Belfast was outside Ireland. However, Griffiths continued, there were 12 or 13 million pounds paid annually into the Belfast banks from Leinster, Munster and Connacht and the middle class employers depend on this money to keep their business going. That could be cut off. If they held up the banks, it would bring the unionist gentleman to their senses very quickly. I would have the same objection to any other employer in any part of Ireland imposing a test on his employees as in Belfast and it should be declared illegal to impose a test on an employee. If the Belfast employers refused to comply within seven days, then a blockade of Belfast could be declared. In this way, they could cut off the whole of Belfast for a period.

So you see what Griffiths has done here? He tried to make it more about the individual employers rather than the region. Sort of. He wanted to simply boycott anyone who refused to hire Catholics. A practice pretty much only being carried out in Belfast. So when Belfast employers broke the new law, the Dáil could have its boycott without playing into the hands of partition. Or so the thinking went. It was a nice idea and eventually the Dáil voted in favour of it.

And so local county councils all across Ireland began boycotting Belfast banks and businesses who refused to hire Catholics. For example, the next day the Monaghan County Council passed a resolution stating that as on Dáil has declared the imposition of religious or political tests for industrial employment in Ireland illegal, we call upon the people of County Monaghan to refuse to have any dealings with the firms in Belfast or any other part of Ireland which are guilty of this illegality. Now I know I’ve just inundated you with a whole bunch of notes and speeches from various meetings, but it’s super interesting that it’s all there and so I kind of think it makes sense just to go through it.

So that was that. The boycott started. It began a tad unorganised with differing levels of enforcement throughout the country. But by October the Dáil had created a boycott committee and the IRA were working diligently. Though as ever the severity of enforcement really depended on the local IRA unit. Throughout the country Belfast produce was boycotted as was produce from towns nearby. The IRA would stop lorries, vans and trains and dump any and all goods coming out of the area. And Protestant stores across the country, whether they were anti-boycott or not, suffered as people would simply avoid Protestant businesses altogether.

So despite Griffith’s clever logic the Belfast boycott as it became known did exactly what Ernest Blythe was worried about. It further alienated the North and actually increased tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Which at this point doesn’t even seem possible. You see before the boycott Protestants and Catholics in the likes of Monaghan and Cavan actually had a pretty good relationship, compared to Belfast anyway. In fact at the beginning of the boycott there was a meeting of both Catholics and Protestants and one of the county councillors was said to have been delighted to welcome their non-Catholic townsmen and added that quote But unfortunately this positivity didn’t last long.

Other unionist groups refused to uphold the boycott because they believed it would hurt them more than it would anyone from Belfast. And they were right. Cavan and Monaghan relied heavily on produce from Belfast and now could no longer receive it. This hurt both Protestants and Catholics alike. By the end of August, fairs and markets were running out of produce, there was a shortage of bread and Protestants felt more and more like they would never be treated properly under a southern government. As the local newspaper put it, the result was quote And unfortunately the rupture was anything but temporary.

The boycott continued all the way up until 1921 and many historians argue that it further sped up the partition process making Sinn Féin’s goal of a unified Ireland less and less likely. Terence Dooley puts it quite well in his article From the Belfast Boycott to the Boundary Commission, saying Thus precise shape was given to Protestant fears of discrimination at the hands of the nationalist government. With their custom declining, those who owned smaller businesses found the economy too unstable to remain in the county. What Ernest Blythe had predicted before the initiation of the boycott was largely realised. Furthermore, the boycott reinforced psychological partition and the subsequent erection of an economic border in 1923 ah, spoilers only encouraged both sides to see Ireland in terms of two mutually hostile people and states. Yeah, so Dooley would argue that the Dáil should have listened to Blythe.

So that’s the Belfast Boycott. But before we go, I want to tell one last story from the Ulster summer of 1920. It was an event that occurred on August 22nd and was simply more fuel poured onto the fire burning in Ulster. You’ll remember back in episode 29 we went through the murder of Thomas McCurtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork. Now, Michael Collins had been friends with McCurtain and was fairly shook by his murder, saying With this in mind, he and his men were determined to avenge McCurtain’s death.

In the court case at the time of the murder, an RIC district inspector by the name of Oswald Swansea was named as one of those responsible. Because of this, he’d been very quickly transferred to Lisburn County Down to keep him safe from Republican reprisal. But that didn’t stop Collins, who immediately sent his men off searching for the DI. In August, they found him and sent a leading member of the Cork No. 1 Brigade, Sean Culhane, up to Down to shoot Swansea. An initial attempt carried out by four men failed, but on August 22nd, as Swansea left church, he was shot by Culhane and another IRA man. The mission was a resounding success. Quick, efficient and deadly. Collins brought the men back to Dublin where he and Richard Mulcahy were in their congratulations.

But wait, what constitutes a success? Collins had had one RIC man killed, but what happens next makes it feel like it maybe wasn’t really worth it. The attack on Swansea further enraged an already angry Protestant community and Lisburn was in flames even before Culhane had left on the train to report back to Dublin. The historian Pierce Lawler described what happened next as sectarianism at its most blatant. Going on to describe how practically every Catholic owned business in the town was burned to the ground and the parochial house was totally destroyed. One UVF leader described the scene in his diary as follows, he said, it reminded me of a French town after it had been bombarded by the Germans as I saw in France in 1916. Over a thousand Catholics were forced to flee the town and only seven showed up for mass the next week. And like, could you imagine being those brave seven? Heck. General McGready at the time even went as far to say the burning would rather shake one’s faith in the discipline of the Ulster people when one sees their destruction.

Occurring at the end of August, it really was just a brutal full stop to a horrific summer. Though it would be far from the last piece of violence that would occur in the area, not by a long shot. There had actually been talk of the British helping the Unionists and the UVF throughout the summer of 1920, but up until this point the idea had been shut down. McGready was against quote, arming the Protestants, while some argued that to arm one side and not the other in a civil war of this sort is madness. But after Swansea’s death, a certain Winston Churchill came on board with the idea and a new special force designed specifically for Ulster was developed. One that became known colloquially as the B-Specials and remained in action right up until the 1970s. So I wonder if Collins would still consider the attack a success. But anyway, that’s getting way ahead of ourselves.

Thanks for listening. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and if you’re enjoying it, give us a review on Apple Podcasts or tell your friends. It really helps. You can also support the show, buy merch and get in touch all through our website, thehistoryofireland.com or you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter. It’s always great hearing from you guys. And if I’ve made a mistake, please do let me know. The History of Ireland was written and produced by me, Kevin Dolan. Additional research and fact checking by Robert Babington, music by Liam Doyle, and additional help from assistant producer Aoife Murphy. This podcast was recorded in the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Sovereignty was never ceded.