1922 The Irish Catholic McMahon Murders Belfast Northern Ireland - What Happened?

The McMahon killings or the McMahon murders occurred on 24 March 1922 when six Catholic civilians were shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A group of police officers broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside, in an apparent sectarian attack. The victims were businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others were shot but survived, and a female family member was assaulted. The survivors said most of the gunmen wore police uniform and it is suspected they were members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It is believed to have been a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) killing of two policemen the day before.
Northern Ireland had been created ten months before, in the midst of the Irish War of Independence. A truce ended the war in most of Ireland; but sectarian conflict in Belfast, and fighting in border areas, continued. Northern Ireland's police - especially the USC, which was almost wholly Protestant and unionist - were implicated in a number of attacks on Catholic and Irish nationalist civilians as reprisal for IRA actions. A week later, six more Catholics were killed in another reprisal attack.
The McMahon killings are believed to have been a reprisal for the IRA's killing of two USC men in Belfast. On 23 March 1922, constables Thomas Cunningham and William Cairnside were patrolling Great Victoria Street in the city centre when they were approached by a group of IRA members and shot dead. Two Catholics, Peter Murphy (61) and Sarah McShane (15), were shot dead in a suspected reprisal attack several hours later in the Catholic Short Strand area by unidentified gunmen.
The McMahon family had no links to any paramilitary violence. Owen McMahon was a supporter and personal friend of Joe Devlin, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) Member of Parliament (MP), an Irish nationalist who rejected republican violence. McMahon was a prosperous businessman, who owned several pubs in Belfast (one of which was The Capstan Bar on Ann Street) and had at one time been chairman of the Northern Vintners' Association. His home at Kinnaird Terrace, off the Antrim Road in north-central Belfast, near the New Lodge area, was described as a "sprawling Victorian mansion". However, one of the men killed at Kinnaird Terrace, Edward McKinney, an employee of the McMahon family, was subsequently and posthumously acknowledged to have been an IRA volunteer by IRA GHQ (General Headquarters). In his book, Donegal and The Civil War, Liam Ó Duibhir wrote that "His [McKinney's IRA] ... membership was concealed after the killings as it would have given the police and the loyalist mob an opportunity to justify their actions."
Aftermath
The killings caused outrage among Belfast's Catholic population and over 10,000 people attended the funerals of those killed. The funerals of Owen, Gerard, Frank and Patrick were held on Sunday 26 March. The British Army lined the route of the funeral procession - from north Belfast to Milltown Cemetery - anticipating it would be attacked. Edward McKinney was buried on the same day, Sunday, 26 March, in Cockhill Cemetery just outside Buncrana in his native Inishowen.
At the funeral Mass for the victims at St Patrick's Church, Rev Father Bernard Laverty told the congregation that even the Black and Tans "had not been guilty of anything approaching this [crime] in its unspeakable barbarity". The McMahons had been "done to death merely because they were Catholics", but he told the mourners to practise "patience and forbearance" and not to seek revenge. Irish Nationalist Party MP Joe Devlin told the British Parliament, "If Catholics have no revolvers to protect themselves they are murdered. If they have revolvers they are flogged and sentenced to death".
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‪@McCabesMemorials‬ is a Belfast-based tour guide, with an Open College Network Level 2 Tour Guiding qualification, and is an associate member of History Hub Ulster. Peter possesses experience of leading a variety of walking tours, especially around East Belfast and a in range of local cemeteries, as well as on the city sightseeing tourist buses. To date, Peter has also written four books, detailing people buried in a myriad of cemeteries in Belfast and beyond. Peter also looks after the childhood home of George Best - which is available as a short-term holiday let, and for house tours - and is also a guide at Belfast Harbour Office, his favourite municipal building in Belfast.

[@kamistormcelestekennedy]

It's just horrible.. 💋😭🙌🌠🙏

[@franzherflek4116]

I love round the corner from this.... Heartbreaking, poor souls

[@TomMcClean]

Absolutely shocking taking of life!

[@kamistormcelestekennedy]

GRMA 4 this vid.. So necessary to name what happened..

[@McCabesMemorials]

Tit for tat murders all across ireland at that time.