Historical Belfast

During the course of this project, The Linen Hall welcomed a range of community organisations to take part in engagement sessions which explored the theme of civil rights ‘then’ and ‘now’. Responses to questions about the idea of civil rights ‘now’ were enlightening and raised many issues; some new and some unresolved. 

To help me compare and contrast the campaign for civil rights in the 1960s with the demands for rights in 2025 I have enlisted the help of 3 contributors:

Fergus Woods who is a former People’s Democracy activist and a veteran of the Belfast folk music scene. Maddison McCullough who is aged 17, she attends Ashfield Girls High school in East Belfast. And Odhran Morelli who is aged 17 and attends St Mary's Christian Brothers in West Belfast. Both Odhran and Maddison are part of the Youth In Government group which is a political education project for 16-18 year olds led by the YMCA. I began by asking Fergus about his own motivating factors for getting involved with People’s Democracy as a young man…

This episode was produced as part of At the Crossroads: The Campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, a project developed by The Linen Hall. This project is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and has also received financial support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

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Terence O’Neill delivered his famous ‘Ulster at the crossroads’ speech in December of 1968 though it appeared from the events at Burntollet in January 1969 that the people had chosen to continue along the same perilous path as before. The subsequent change in political landscape set the tone for action and reaction to social change for a generation in Northern Ireland. 

 To help us understand the reforms and resignations which caused so many ructions within political unionism at this time I have enlisted the help and expertise of Alex Kane.

Alex is the former Director of Communications for the Ulster Unionist Party. These days he is a political commentator and a columnist for several publications including the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. I began by asking Alex to give us a sense of Terence O’Neill’s thinking when he delivered the iconic ‘Ulster at the Crossroads’ speech in December 1968.

This episode was produced as part of At the Crossroads: The Campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, a project developed by The Linen Hall. This project is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and has also received financial support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

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By 1968 the campaign for civil rights in Northern Ireland had moved onto the streets. It was a deliberate decision, inspired in part by global events, particularly the civil rights movement in America. 

In order to help us understand better the street politics element of the civil rights movement I have enlisted the help and expertise of Dr Melissa Baird.

 Melissa is an historian of modern Irish and American history, she currently Assistant Editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy with the Royal Irish Academy. Melissa received her PhD in 2023 from Queen’s University Belfast, which examined the relationship between the Irish diaspora in the United States and the Northern Irish civil rights movement.

I began by asking Melissa to give us an insight into the thinking behind the decision to take the politics of civil rights to the streets…

This episode was produced as part of At the Crossroads: The Campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, a project developed by The Linen Hall. This project is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and has also received financial support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

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In November 1966, a public meeting was called to highlight the issue of civil rights in Northern Ireland. This was held in the War Memorial Building in Belfast and the audience was drawn from all sectors of libertarianism in NI.

By January 1967, at Belfast’s International Hotel, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) elected a 13-person steering committee and 5 broad objectives were issued to the press.

To help us better understand the demands of the civil rights movement I have enlisted the help and expertise of Dr Connal Parr and Dr Anne Devlin; a mother and son combination no less.

This episode was produced as part of At the Crossroads: The Campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, a project developed by The Linen Hall. This project is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and has also received financial support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

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Despite its structural difficulties, the new state of Northern Ireland continued in relative peace and stability from 1923 until the 1960s.

The 1960s, though, were a decade of change both culturally and politically. 

The formation of NICRA marked the formal beginning of the civil rights campaign. It was the commencement of a new era for Northern Ireland, albeit a turbulent one.

To help us understand this decade of change in the 1960s I have enlisted the help and expertise of Dr David McCann. David is a columnist for the Irish News, a political commentator, and more recently the co-host of the new Stormont Sources podcast. I began by asking David if it was fair to describe Northern Ireland as a relatively peaceful and stable society from 1923 until the 1960s...

This episode was produced as part of At the Crossroads: The Campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, a project developed by The Linen Hall. This project is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and has also received financial support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

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The concept of civil rights in Northern Ireland is as old as the state itself. Established in 1921, the new northern government inherited a deeply divided and disadvantaged society which its practices only served to deepen for half a century. 

To help us understand the complexities of this period I have enlisted the help and expertise of Dr Cormac Moore. Cormac is a resident historian with Dublin City Council, he is a columnist with the Irish News as well as editing its daily ‘On This Day’ segment, and he is the author of several books – the most recent being The Root of All Evil: The Irish Boundary Commission published by Irish Academic Press. I began by asking Cormac his opinion on the extent to which the Unionist government had inherited a deeply imbalanced society which they were incapable of fixing…

This episode was produced as part of At the Crossroads: The Campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, a project developed by The Linen Hall. This project is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and has also received financial support from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

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Using new archival sources and information from some of the relatives of these forgotten activists, in her new book Rebel Women, Margaret Ward gives us a compelling account of the courageous contributions of over fifty women who were members of Cumann na mBan, or who were attached to the IRA between 1914 and 1924 in County Antrim. The book focuses on members of the Belfast branches and of branches in the isolated communities of the Glens of Antrim. Throughout this period of conflict and partition, women played an essential role in the republican movement. Not only did they organise arms dumps, shelter men on the run, hide money and documents, provide weaponry for operations, care for the wounded and organise effective communication systems, they also paid the price in terms of raids and imprisonment.

Welcome to Episode 43 of the Historical Belfast Podcast where it is 5 years (almost to the day) since Episode 1, way back in April 2020. In this new Episode I am joined by Dr Margaret Ward to discuss matters arising from her new book. I was really delighted to get Margaret onto the podcast and I began by asking her to give me a sense of Cumann na mBan particularly in Belfast and what set them apart from the rest of the island.

Rebel Women available from Beyond The Pale at the following link: Rebel Women: Cumann na mBan in Belfast and the Glens of Antrim — beyond the pale books – books on Irish society and politics

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Did you know that at Carlisle Circus in North Belfast sits a former church building which is on a World Monuments watch list that once featured other iconic sites such as the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal? 

Well, it’s true. Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church serves as a sober reminder of the Belfast’s architectural legacy and its troubled past. Designed in the Gothic Revival style by noted architect WH Lynn and completed in 1875, the church was home to one of the largest Methodist congregations in Belfast. The sandstone and limestone exterior of the building was renovated in 1966, but the church ceased to be used as a place of worship by 1980, a consequence of the declining congregation and its location at a major interface between Catholic and Protestant populations.

At the heart of one of the most troubled parts of Belfast, the congregation shrank rapidly during the late 1960s and 1970s. The church trustees sold the adjacent Church Halls in the late 1970s and finally closed the church in the 1980s.
Since then, Carlisle Memorial has been subject to both renovation and rejuvenation from Belfast Buildings Trust and I was delighted when they reached out to me with the idea of creating an episode together for the Historical Belfast Podcast. The Trust introduced me to Emily Brando from Germany who has been carrying out extensive research on the history of the church, and I began by asking her to explain how exactly she came to be involved in researching a church building in Belfast…

So, having heard from Emily about the remarkable backstory of Carlisle Memorial Church I decided to pay the building a visit for myself to find out what’s going on there at present, but also what the future holds for the site. I was met there by Cara Jones who is the Project and Engagement Officer for the Belfast Buildings Trust and I began by asking her to give me sense of the baron years at Carlisle Memorial since the 1980s… 

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On the outskirts of East Belfast is a house that might be considered as one of the most important houses in modern Irish history; Craigavon House. 
Built for James Craig senior in 1870 to the designs of the Waterford-born architect Thomas Jackson it was once a glorious mansion but now sits in a state of semi-dereliction off the Holywood Road.

For me, Craigavon House evokes the imagery of the Home Rule crisis in Ulster, whether that be the unveiling of Edward Carson as the leader of Unionism in September 1911 on the lawns outside, or whether that be the footage of Carson reading the text of the Ulster Solemn League & Covenant from the steps outside to assembled journalists in September 1912, or indeed the audacious gunrunning operation by the Ulster Volunteers in April 1914 which was planned and executed from the Billiard Room of this house. This place acted as a nerve-centre for Unionist’s resistance to home rule in Ireland.

However, its history goes back much further than 1911 and I’m very grateful to have been shown around this wonderful house by Carol Walker – Director of the Somme Association – and I began by asking her about the origins of the house…

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On the evening of 23 March 1922, in the context of a bloody sectarian conflict that had been raging for almost two years, Owen McMahon locked up his pub on Ann Street with the assistance of his bar manager Edward McKinney. The Capstan was one of several pubs owned by Owen McMahan in Belfast, the others included the International at the corner of Donegall Street, the Century on Garfield Street, and the Great Eastern on the Newtownards Road in the east of the city.

McMahon and McKinney made their way towards the Antrim Road and to Kinnaird Terrace where McKinney was living with the McMahon family who had tea together before retiring to bed for the night. As they slept, loyalist gunmen posing as police officers sledgehammered their way into the house before gathering together the eight male occupants in the parlour room where they were chillingly advised “you boys say your prayers”. The gunmen opened fire murdering Owen McMahon, his three sons Thomas, Frank and Patrick, as well as Edward McKinney the bar manager. His other son, Bernard, survived the initial shooting but later died of his injuries on 2 April. Such was the horrific scene at Kinnaird Terrace that an ambulance man collapsed with shock on his arrival at the house. ‘The McMahon Murders’, as the incident became known, had ‘shocked almost the entire world’ according to Joe Devlin MP in the House of Commons who went on to quote from the pages of the Belfast Telegraph which reported the incident as ‘the most terrible assassination that has yet stained the name of Belfast’.

In retaliation for these and other Belfast murders, the IRA assassinated the former head of the British Army, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, and a subsequent British ultimatum to the Irish government sparked the first salvos of the Irish Civil War days later. The reluctance of the unionist Belfast government to pursue loyalist killers drove the rift between Northern Ireland’s two main communities even deeper, laying the foundations for the Troubles at the end of the twentieth century.

For this edition of the Historical Belfast I’ve been speaking to Ed Burke, Assistant Professor at University College Dublin about his latest book Ghosts of a Family where he has expertly uncovered the likely murderer of the McMahons in a case that has remained unsolved for over 100 years.

I began by asking him what it was that attracted him to this topic as a subject for his new book…

Buy Ghosts of a Family here.

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