"Well Dressed Hooligans": Belfast Suffragette Women's Walking Tour
- weewalksbelfast
- Jun 16
- 3 min read
I named my Belfast Suffragette women's walking tour “Well Dressed Hooligans” after this headline in the Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner in March 1914. On Friday the 13th of March there was a Suffragette meeting in the Ulster Hall. It was to have been addressed by Emmeline Pankhurst but she had been arrested in Glasgow a few days before, on a day that came to be known as The Battle of Glasgow. Four thousand people had gathered for the meeting in St Andrews Hall on the 9th of March and Emmeline had been smuggled in a laundry basket earlier that day so she was already in the venue. When she appeared at the back of the hall she walked up to the platform amidst resounding cheers and said, “I have kept my promise, and in spite of His Majesty’s Government I am here tonight”. Moments later police officers attempted to arrest her and a riot broke out with suffragettes wielding clubs, planks and poles. Mrs Pankhurst was arrested and taken to Central Police Station where she went on a hunger and thirst strike.
Two days later on the 11th of March 1914, she was put on a train to London where her train was supposed to stop at Euston but stopped at Loudon Road station instead and she was driven to Holloway. She was still in prison on the 13th of March and Flora Drummond, also known as ‘The General’ came to speak in Belfast instead. Flora had been at the meeting in Glasgow where Emmeline was arrested and she along with another women, Dorothy Evans, took to the stage in the Ulster Hall at a meeting which was described as ‘lively’. Flora Drummond was an accomplished speaker and had a reputation for being able to put down hecklers easily as did Dorothy Evans, who was the leader of the W.S.P.U in Belfast. Dorothy Evans had just returned from London where along with four other women she sat on Sir Edward Carsons doorstep because he had renegued on his promise to give Ulster women the vote as part of his provisional government (a whole other story!)
The meeting was chaired by the Belfast solicitor George McCracken and Flora Drummonds speech was generally well received until she mentioned Edward Carson. At the mention of Carsons name she was met by howls of derision from some of the men who had come to the meeting and there was a commotion at the back of the hall. “Electric snuff and evil smelling liquids” were thrown about causing some of the men to sneeze and George McCracken asks them to come to the front. They refuse, and Flora Drummond said that she had been told they were university students saying their conduct was an argument for extending the school leaving age. Referring to the militancy which was occurring here as part of the Home Rule Crisis, she mentions Edward Carson again saying that “even in Ulster they did not hesitate to take life and property”. “That’s a lie!” shouted one of the men from the balcony.
After George McCracken asks for a collection the men start singing ‘God Save the King” and shouting “three cheers for Carson!”. Dorothy Evans then addresses Carsons supporters directly saying that Carson has declared war on the suffragettes and she says, “perhaps there would be trouble, perhaps civil war but there would definitely be suffragette civil war on the powers that be”. By the time she finishes her speech the heckling has become so loud that the women can’t be heard over the noise of the crowd.
George McCracken was able to restore order and Flora Drummond finishes up by saying “the outside world thinks every Ulsterman stands with a gun”. The meeting ended with Carsons supporters singing ‘God Save the King’ again amidst cheering for Sir Edward Carson, although the Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner newspaper who created the headline said that Flora Drummond had the better of the audience in the end. The meeting marks a turning point and a few weeks later the campaign in Ulster escalates. To hear about what happened next you can book the walking tour “Well Dressed Hooligans”: The Story of the Belfast Suffragettes.
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