THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Military deployed as Belfast rioting leaves two dead and many injured

Belfast had erupted into violence in “various districts” the previous evening reported the News Letter on this day in 1920.

In disturbances at Cromac Street a woman named Maggie Noade from Anderson Street received a fatal gunshot. After being hit, reported the News Letter, Mrs Noade had been taken to the Mater Infirmorum Hospital but “on arrival doctors could only pronounce the woman dead”.

The paper reported that Mrs Noade was aged 27. Meanwhile, Bernard Devlin who had been shot in the abdomen during trouble in the Falls district of the city had “succumbed” to his injuries also in the Mater Infirmorum Hospital after he had been brought there.

He was reported to have been a resident of Alexander Street West.

Then there was William Watson of Cawnpore Street in the city who had gone to hospital with a bayonet wound.

The News Letter noted: “The wound was received about seven o’clock last night, but it was not until after midnight that the patient went to hospital.”

It was not only civilians who were killed or injured in the disturbances.

According to the News Letter report Head Constable William Baird had been taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital suffering from a scalp wound.

The paper remarked: “Happily the injury was largely of a superficial character, and the head-constable was able to leave after it had been dressed.”

Troops were drafted into Belfast from Holywood, Newtownards, “and other centres”, at about 9pm 150 troops arrived in the city from Palace Barracks.

The reported observed: “They all wore trench helmets, and as they marched to Victoria Barracks, with fixed bayonets, they attracted considerable attention.”