Nationalists not subject to 'pogrom' in 1920s Belfast

THE NOTION that the nationalist community in Belfast during the 1920s was subjected to a pogrom does not stand up, it was argued at a commemorative lecture in the city.

Historian Dr Alan Parkinson said it was the case that there was a “disproportionately high” number of Catholic victims of violence at that time.

“However, there were also many Protestant victims of violence, including hundreds of dead and injured, as well as considerable financial and commercial losses suffered in the wake of the IRA’s bombing campaign.

“Additionally, the statistics relating to Catholic victims reveal that only a minority of the Catholic community was directly affected by such violence or lasting displacement from home or workplace,” he said.

“Co-ordination of the murder campaign was not executed by the official administration for the region, though the new Northern Ireland government was culpable for its inactivity and largely lethargic response to the escalating violence, especially that emanating from loyalist groups.”

Dr Parkinson, author of Belfast’s Unholy War: The Troubles of the 1920s, asked whether this constituted a “pogrom” as some commentators have claimed.

He said the term implied the elimination or large-scale massacre of a minority religious group in a particular area, orchestrated by its central authority.

“No one term adequately catches the multifarious nature of this conflict, though the ‘unholy’ character of disturbances between two communities, each justifiably claiming a sense of isolation and besiegement, perhaps comes closest to describing it,” Dr Parkinson concluded.

His lecture on Wednesday night at Stranmillis College, Belfast was part of the series A Decade of Anniversaries 2012-2023.