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Ghosts of a Family: Ireland’s Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles
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.
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.
304 pages, Paperback
Published November 8, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 9, 2025
This is a superb piece of scholarship. It tells of what happened to policing in what was become Northern Ireland in the build-up and immediate aftermath of partition in 1922.
Much of what happened in those days was to form a brutal template for the Troubles which broke out at the end of the 1960s as an increasingly unstable and sectarian state lost control.
It tells of how loyalist paramilitaries were drafted en masse into the police, retaining commanders and structures. And it describes the campaign of murder and intimidation they unleased on the minority population with the seeming support and encouragement of the new state. All this to cow the IRA, a major and growing menace at that time.
More specifically it examines the murder of Catholic publican Owen McMahon, four of his sons and an employee who were dragged from their beds and shot by men in police uniforms.
Burke goes onto sift the evidence for this unsolved atrocity and identifies the likely perpetrator who died a few years later in a Toronto lunatic asylum.
This is a shocking story, brilliantly told and it explains just how brutal those times were when ex-servicemen in turn brutalised by the savagery of World War 1 were unleashed on a civilian population at a time of crisis.
Outstanding.
Much of what happened in those days was to form a brutal template for the Troubles which broke out at the end of the 1960s as an increasingly unstable and sectarian state lost control.
It tells of how loyalist paramilitaries were drafted en masse into the police, retaining commanders and structures. And it describes the campaign of murder and intimidation they unleased on the minority population with the seeming support and encouragement of the new state. All this to cow the IRA, a major and growing menace at that time.
More specifically it examines the murder of Catholic publican Owen McMahon, four of his sons and an employee who were dragged from their beds and shot by men in police uniforms.
Burke goes onto sift the evidence for this unsolved atrocity and identifies the likely perpetrator who died a few years later in a Toronto lunatic asylum.
This is a shocking story, brilliantly told and it explains just how brutal those times were when ex-servicemen in turn brutalised by the savagery of World War 1 were unleashed on a civilian population at a time of crisis.
Outstanding.
January 8, 2026
Ghosts of a Family reads less like a narrative history and more like a disjointed database. Much like the Sutton Index of Deaths, it provides a litany of names, statuses, and responsibilities, but it utterly fails to "unravel" the complex motivations behind the McMahon murders.
The timeline is severely muddled by the interchangeable use of the RIC and RUC, and the prose lacks the coherence required to navigate the inter-communal violence of the 1920s. When Burke finally proffers a suspect, the delivery is clumsy and rushed, leaping across time and space in a way that feels unearned. It’s a semi-reliable resource for charting casualties, but as a serious historical examination, it misses the mark.
The timeline is severely muddled by the interchangeable use of the RIC and RUC, and the prose lacks the coherence required to navigate the inter-communal violence of the 1920s. When Burke finally proffers a suspect, the delivery is clumsy and rushed, leaping across time and space in a way that feels unearned. It’s a semi-reliable resource for charting casualties, but as a serious historical examination, it misses the mark.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews