IRELAND

Evening Star, Issue 18255, 20 April 1923, Page 8

IRELAND

MORE REBELS TRAPPED. CAVE IN KERRY CLIFF. SURRENDER OR STARVATION, Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, April 19. (Received April 20, at 9.40 a.m.) A thrilling narrative of a fifty hours’ attack on a rebel stronghold in a cliff rising sheer from the sea on the Kerry coast, near a causeway overlooking the River Shannon’s mouth, is now published. A Free State officer and three soldiers on Monday discovered a crevice in the cliff barely large enough to ad nut a man. They climbed down and came to the mouth of a cave. A few feet inside they found a barricade. They got through this, and then found another barricade. While the Free Staters were removing this second barricade a volley was fired from inside, Volunteer O’Neill being mortally wounded and Lieutenant Pierson seriously wounded. Their two unwoundod companions replied to the file until the Free State troops above lowered ropes and hauled the wounded officer and the other men to the top, under heavy lire from the cave.

O’Neill’s body meanwhile was flung tf> the beach below, where it lay throughout the fight.

Later the Free Staters made efforts to smoke out the garrison. Two mines were lowered and exploded, white machine guns opened fire on the face of the cliff; but tho rebels in the cave are still unconquercd, and at present seem safe, though their only alternative to surrender is starvation.—A. and N.Z, Cubic.