Belfast arms cache seized

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 15

Belfast arms cache seized

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) BELFAST, November 29. A British Army search party found eight rifles, three pistols, two machineguns, 3700 rounds of ammunition and more than 201 b of gelignite in houses in the Ballycarret area of Belfast early today.

Three people were arrested during the search and three more men on the Army’s “wanted” list were later also detained.

Army intelligence experts say that Saturday’s wave of violence, in which three people, including a British soldier, were killed, followed a regrouping of the Irish Republican Army after the arrest of some of its important leaders.

Three people, including a boy, aged nine, are recovering from wounds in hospitals today after another night of Ulster violence, most of which occurred in Londonderry, where bomb explosions damaged a Government office, a car showroom and a telephone exchange. The Rev. lan Paisley, the leader of Northern Ireland’s militant Protestants, gave a warning today that “Protestant patience is wearing thin under the onslaught of Republican violence.” “The Protestants are patient because they love their country and they don’t want to see it destroyed,” Mr Paisley said, “but they are com-

ing well nigh to breaking point,” In Boston, Massachusetts, last night, the British leader of the Opposition (Mr Harold Wilson) had to leave a press conference abruptly because of a disturbance by representatives of the I.R.A. A man who identified himself as Thomas Macgiolla, president of the Sinn Fein in Ulster, and who later said that he was on a tour of the United States to raise money for the 1.R.A., entered Mr Wilson’s suite at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, pushed his way to the front of the conference and shouted: “I want a debate with you.” With Macgiolla was Sean Kenny of Boston, an organiser for thft 1.R.A., and both began a barrage of disjointed shouting at the former Prime Minister, demanding that the internment of LR.A. members in Ulster must cease.

Mr Wilson left the suite, saying that he would try to return later when the men were removed. Macgiolla then shouted: “We will gate-crash the concentration camps in Ulster.”