Merrion Press 🔖has just published a new book by Edward Burke.
OUT NOW
GHOSTS of a FAMILY Ireland’s Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the
Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles Edward Burke
At 1.20 a.m. on 24 March
1922, five men, four dressed in British police uniforms, broke into the
North Belfast house of Owen McMahon, a well-known Catholic publican. They
fatally shot McMahon, four of his sons and Eddie McKinney, an employee of
the family. Nobody was ever charged for these ruthless and cold-blooded
murders.
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.
Over 100 years later, Edward Burke has expertly uncovered
the identity of the McMahons’ likely murderer. This is a riveting
cold-case investigation that invokes the smoke-filled streets of Belfast
during the cataclysmic violence of 1920–22, and explores how the
ramifications of the McMahon killings are still being felt to this day.
Paperback • €19.99 |
£18.99 • 304 pages • 226 mm x 153 mm • 9781785375224
"There they were
lined up by the fireplace and addressed by a man with ‘a round soft
looking face and very black eyes’ wearing a light brown trench coat,
and who appeared to be the leader of the group. He told his captives
to say their prayers. Seconds later, he raised his revolver and shot
Owen in the head. Owen’s sons – with the exception of Michael – were
then shot in turn. (John survived his wounds; the rest perished.)
Hearing the shot, his wife Eliza pulled up a window at the back of
the house and screamed ‘Murder!’ into the night sky..."
Merrion Press 🔖has just published a new book by Edward Burke.
OUT NOW
GHOSTS of a FAMILY Ireland’s Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the
Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles Edward Burke
At 1.20 a.m. on 24 March
1922, five men, four dressed in British police uniforms, broke into the
North Belfast house of Owen McMahon, a well-known Catholic publican. They
fatally shot McMahon, four of his sons and Eddie McKinney, an employee of
the family. Nobody was ever charged for these ruthless and cold-blooded
murders.
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.
Over 100 years later, Edward Burke has expertly uncovered
the identity of the McMahons’ likely murderer. This is a riveting
cold-case investigation that invokes the smoke-filled streets of Belfast
during the cataclysmic violence of 1920–22, and explores how the
ramifications of the McMahon killings are still being felt to this day.
Paperback • €19.99 |
£18.99 • 304 pages • 226 mm x 153 mm • 9781785375224
"There they were
lined up by the fireplace and addressed by a man with ‘a round soft
looking face and very black eyes’ wearing a light brown trench coat,
and who appeared to be the leader of the group. He told his captives
to say their prayers. Seconds later, he raised his revolver and shot
Owen in the head. Owen’s sons – with the exception of Michael – were
then shot in turn. (John survived his wounds; the rest perished.)
Hearing the shot, his wife Eliza pulled up a window at the back of
the house and screamed ‘Murder!’ into the night sky..."
Former IRA volunteer and ex-prisoner, spent 18 years in Long Kesh, 4 years on the blanket and no-wash/no work protests which led to the hunger strikes of the 80s. Completed PhD at Queens upon release from prison. Left the Republican Movement at the endorsement of the Good Friday Agreement, and went on to become a journalist. Co-founder of The Blanket, an online magazine that critically analyzed the Irish peace process. Lead researcher for the Belfast Project, an oral history of the Troubles.
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