ATTACKS ON BLUE SHIRTS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21088, 13 February 1934, Page 9

ATTACKS ON BLUE SHIRTS

Violent Disturbances in Free State TROOPS CALLED OUT (UXITJD TRKS.I ASSOUUTIOK—BT IMICTKIO TBLEGRAPH—COPT*IQHI.) (Received February 12, 9.20 p.m.); LONDON, February 11. A crowd attacked the mayoral rooms at Drogheda, in which Blue Shirts were dancing, smashed all the windows, and hurled volleys of missiles after the shutters had been closed. Civic Guards were unable to quell the disturbance, and troops from Dublin were summoned. They stood by in the barracks while the police made baton charges and detectives fired their revolvers in the air to disperse the mob. There was more rioting when a party of Blue Shirts was marching to the station to entrain for Dun-I dalk. where Mr Cosgravc was addressing a meeting. The crowd suddenly attacked the Blue Shirts, making it necessary to rush more soldiers from Dublin in lorries, the mob thcYi stoned the soldiers, who retaliated with tear-gas bombs and fired blank shots over the heads of the crowd. There were similar scenes wne'i the Blue Shirts returned from Dundalk, and 20 were injured. Drogheda was shaken by an explosion which wrecked a house occupied by an old woman, Mrs McCrory, who was a witness at a recent hearing by the military tribunal of a charge of robbery of a m-mber of the United Ireland party. Mrs McCrory was found unconscious. The crowd tried to break up Mr Cosgrave's meeting, but soldiers arrived in time. Blue Shirt meetings at Kerry were also violently interrupted. THREAT OF FARM STRIKE BURDEN OK ECONOMIC WAR (Received February 12, 11.10 p.m.) LONDON, February 12. The Cork correspondent of "The Times" states that a meeting of farmers passed a resolution demanding, to enable them to discharge their normal obligations, a more even distribution of the cost of the economic war, and relief from rates and annuities. Otherwise, they said, they would call a national strike of farmers.