DEXWHISKERING FIGGIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 167, 17 July 1922, Page 6

DEXWHISKERING FIGGIS.

IRISH NOVELIST AND SOLDIEI

VICTIM OF THE REPUBLICANS.

LGXDOX, June 14. The Dublin correspondent of tie "Evening News" gives the following account of the outrages inflicted on Darrel Figgis, chairman of the Drawing Committee of the Irish Constitution, and one of the independent candidates for the County of Dublin, when three young members of the I.R.A. broke into his Kildnre Ptr?et flat at night and shaved off part of hie luxuriant beard.

Afraid that her husband was about to be assassinated, Mrs. Figgis forced her way into the room and attempted to lock the door. She was overpowered by the iren, vrho announced that they had orders to mutilate Figgis by cutting off his beard. At this stage Figgis asked them not to be guilty of ono of the acts which ■were disgracing Ireland in the eyes of the civilised world. '"Who gn% - e you such orders?" askel the intended victim. '"The army," replied the spokesman. They removed a portion of Mr. Figzirf beard and moustache, and when he resisted they slid th?y would c-.it off hil hair if he did not cease struggling. 0» man was abo-.it to carry out this threat when Mrs. Fisrgis said: "You have done what you were ordered to do."

The trio then left. Figgis says thai he can easily identify his assailants.

The reison why he has been attacked is probably because of the outspoke! manner in which he has protested against panel candidates being forced 01 the electorate.

Darr?l Figgis' beir.l, the "News" adds, has always taken a prominent part ill Trish politics. Tt has clung to him through years of tumult and even -when he was a po'itical fusritive he and tt were inseparable. Thrre were time! when if he had consented t > be parted from the tell-tale beard he would ha« been safer. Rut he consistently r-sarded it as an indispensable Irish institution. One con=olation re-rains to Mr. Fiwil The mutilation may hive dis-T'ced Ireland before the civilised world, but it has made his beard one of the serious beards of history and has won f:'r it publicity that it never attained before.

Fin-sis i* one of tlip romantic fiOTrB of Sinn Fein. One of the most primisfog of Ireland's youngest mvolists and poets, lie suddenly leapt into fame as a military leader by Bncm>*sfn]ly cnnd"cting the famn'ig Kationalist gim-runnina exploit at nowth in 1014. He bought rite several weeks lefore in in BelSlum. a"d was resron=ible for tranlport nnd lmline. raised the ?e«mi eonipinv of voltmt-ers win were formed shortly after the Ulster \ nlniiteers.

F,<rHs vas arrested soon aftT the mm rriM-nion «ml w., Tn May 191P, he „--, a?3in arrP=ted \alera, Griffith and Countess Haf kievicz.