Prisoners of the City: Joseph Devlin, the Catholics of Belfast and the Partition of Ireland

Between 1918 and 1983 West Belfast went from being the weakest Sinn Fein constituency in Catholic Ireland to the strongest. How this happened is explained through the first biography of the Parliamentary Nationalist leader Joe Devlin (1871-1934), set in the context of his local Catholic community. In the 1921 partition Belfast's Nationalist were double-losers, to Sinn Fein and to Ulster Unionism. In the communal memory of republicans and southerners Devlin's moderation and his sectarian jobbery were to blame. This research presents Devlin in a more favourable light, and suggests a more critical approach to the policies of revolutionary Sinn Fein.