Six Protestants murdered in farmhouse raids near Newry
Newry, 22 June 1922 – With violence continuing across Northern Ireland, an inquest has opened into the murder of seven Protestants – six men and a woman – near Newry.
Early in the morning of 17 June a number of farmhouses owned by Unionists in Lisdrumliska and Altnaveigh in south Armagh were attacked with rifles and bombs.
These attacks left six people dead: John Heaslip, a farmer from Lisdrumliska and his 17 year-old son, Robert; Thomas Crozier, a farmer from Altnaveigh, and his wife Elizabeth; James Lockhart, a single farmer from Lisdrumliska; and Joseph Gray, also from Lisdrumliska, who died later. The victims’ houses were also set on fire, with some being burned to the ground and some badly damaged.
James Lockhart, the inquest heard, had been found dead at his mother’s feet. The young man had turned around to talk to her after the raiders demanded that he accompany them down the road. One of the raiders went up to him and shot him dead, declaring: ‘You disobeyed orders.’
One witness to the inquest was the sister of Joseph Gray, who stated that when her mother asked the raiders why they were being targeted, the response given was: ‘It is being done for the Roman Catholics of Belfast.’
On the same night a patrol of the Special Constabulary was ambushed in Drumintee, also close to Newry. One constable, T. Russell of Arkwright Street in Belfast, was killed and another, Constable Hughes of Dundallo Street in Belfast, was wounded.
This recent spate of killings is thought to have been ignited by the shooting of Resident Magistrate, Woulfe Flanagan, on the streets of Newry three weeks ago.
British Pathé newsreel footage of the Ulster Border (1922)
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
