The Slaughter of Protestants at Altnaveigh - 17th June 1922 History the Irish Government wish to hide |
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| This is a very worthwhile chapter to read in the
annuals of the barbarous, bloody history of IRA republicanism in
the South Armagh area of Northern Ireland. I have researched and recorded the historical facts from the period of this period concerning the 'Slaughter of Innocents' at Altnaveigh in 1923. What occurred then is as relevant to today as it was in the past. One of the principle men responsible for this heinous atrocity went on to become a founder member of Fianna Fáil, later Minister for External Affairs and ultimately Tánaiste under Jack Lynch. This murders name was - Frank Aiken That Frank Aiken specialised in shooting ex-soldiers in South Armagh, part of a nationwide campaign which mysteriously has never appeared in nationalist history books about the period. Below is a short history concerning the murderous common criminal
Frank Aiken - On April 23, 1923, Frank Aiken was elected chief-of-Staff of the IRA He was politically and militarily active from a young age, joining
the Irish Volunteers at sixteen, and within a few years becoming
Chairman of the Armagh Comhairle Ceanntair of Sinn Féin and
elected onto Armagh County Council. During the War of Independence,
he commanded the Fourth Northern Division of the IRA. The split
over the Anglo-Irish Treaty left Aiken ultimately aligned with the
Anti-Treaty side in spite of personal efforts to prevent division
and civil war. He succeeded Liam Lynch as Chief of Staff of the
IRA in March 1923 and issued the cease fire and dump arms orders
on 24th May 1923 that effectively ended the Civil War. He was first
elected to the Dáil as a Sinn Féin candidate in the
Louth constituency in 1923, continuing to be re-elected for Fianna
Fáil at every election until his retirement from politics
fifty years later. Do not be mislead Sinn Fein are the IRA now as they where then. Below are the historical facts when innocent Protestants where massacred in a atrocity carried out by the IRA and their leader Frank Aiken. Left - The Protestant Gray family home burnt by Frank Aiken and his fellow republican IRA murderers
The Slaughter at Altnaveigh - Historical facts the truth shall not be denied On June 17th 1922, there took place in the town land of Altnaveigh, a blood-thirsty massacre of defenceless Protestant people,as the Roman Catholic, Irish Republican Army sought to strangle at birth the new State of Northern Ireland, by these and other acts of genocide. As it is vital that our people, especially our young folk, remember the facts of history and what fate would await us in a Roman Catholic-dominated, all-Ireland statelet. Newspapers of that time reported the massacre with the following headlines:- "RED DAWN NEAR
NEWRY" Rev. P. McKee who conducted the funeral services of the victims, had this to say:- 'From this congregation, a young lad, a man in the prime of life, and his wife have been done to death in ways that leave unmanifested no form of bestial cruelty and fiendish malice. . . the marauders have left us a bloody mile of roofless houses, and blood and fire on what was once a beautiful country road. I shall never forget the sights I saw, or the narratives told to me by the survivors. God give me strength to remember that lesson and to interpret it .... even in warfare there is a certain limit to atrocity, a certain code of honour is practiced by all but the vilest savage. In this, those who wrought Saturday's deed of shame have no share. . When the victims asked their assassins, 'What have we done?' they got the answer - "YOU ARE PROTESTANTS". Here is a full account of the slaughter in the townlands of Altnaveigh and Lisdrumilska, in which six innocent Protestants were cruelly done to death in the presence of their families, amidst circumstances of the utmost ferocity. At 2.15 a.m. on Saturday 17th June 1922, landmine's were exploded on the Dublin Road near Newry, thereby isolating Altnaveigh and Lisdrumliska from all police help. The Roman Catholic terrorists were dressed in semi-military uniform with bandoliers and rifles, some being masked, thereby indicating that they were known to, and possibly the neighbours of, their Protestant victims. Those slain by the terrorists were 1) Thomas Crozier - farmer - aged 67 The victims were all members of the local Presbyterian and Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Churches, and four of the murdered men were members of the Orange Order. None of the victims were members of the Security Forces. The Crozier family consisted of Thomas and
Elizabeth, a son-in-law and several daughters. Shortly after 2.00
a.m. there was a loud knocking at the front door of their farmhouse.
Thomas Crozier, upon opening the door, was confronted by several
armed men who pointed revolvers at him and shot him dead. When Mrs
Crozier ran to her husband lying on the doorstep, she recognised
one of the killers. Elizabeth Crozier, said to the man who had just
murdered her elderly husband, "I didn't expect that of you,
Willie," she was shot in front of her young family. Her last
words were to them were, "Keep together and look after the
little child." Two shots were fired at her and she died a half-hour
later from her injuries. The Papists then threw an incendiary bomb
into the house, and fired more bullets through the windows. Rev.
P.McKee states....'Crozier and his wife appealed for mercy from
the killers, and with oaths and obscenity it was refused'. Adjacent
to the Crozier homestead was that of James Little, whose family
escaped in their nightclothes across the fields, pursued by the
terrorists who kept firing, and who wounded Mr Little in the foot.
Their house was burned to the ground. About half a mile away were two houses occupied by Protestant families - William Lockart, his wife, son James and three daughters, and Edward Little, his wife and nine children. Without warning, a bomb was thrown into the Little house, landing in the cradle of a baby which, fortunately, was not in it at that time. The two Protestant homesteads were set ablaze whilst the families were made to stand at the roadside in night attire and watch them burn. When Edward Little tried to re-enter his burning home, believing one of his children to be missing, the Papists forced him back, saying - 'You have enough children already'. The gunmen then selected Jim Lockart for murder, and as the youth turned to his mother for the last time one of the Papist scoundrels accused him of disobeying orders, and shot him dead at her feet. The terrorists then moved on to attack the home occupied by John Gray,his wife, five daughters and four sons. Following the usual pattern, the house was set on fire and the family lined along the road as it burned. A terrorist walked along the line of defenceless Protestants, selected Joseph Gray and shot him. As he lay dying, other assassins pumped bullets into his body, although he survived some eight hours before dying in hospital. His father was wounded in the leg. Of this outrage, Rev. McKee stated:- 'At this house the little children of nine and ten prayed to Jesus to make them ready for death, as they stood in their nightclothes, holding up their hands'. It is in this same South Armagh area that Orangemen were slaughtered as they knelt in prayer in Tullyvallen Orange Hall, where 12 workers were taken from a works bus at Whitecross, and 11 shot in cold blood by the roadside simply because they were Protestants. It is in the self same area that in November 1982, members of the Catholic Reaction Force (IRA) attacked Mountain Lodge Pentecostal Church, Darkley, killing three church elders and wounding many in the congregation, which they sprayed with automatic gunfire as worshippers sang the gospel hymn 'Power in the Blood". Nothing much has changed in South Armagh and militant republicanism runs rampage to this very day. Click on "This Link" and see how Sinn Fein/IRA republicans still attack Protestants and their heritage identity in County Armagh. Why we must remember your history If you remember your history you are blind in one eye - if you forget your history you are blind in two eyes and your history will come back to haunt you.
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