IRELAND

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 19 July 1920, Page 5

IRELAND

POSITION BECOMING SERIOUS

MARTIAL LAW DISCUSSED BY

CABINET

SHOOTING AND ROBBERY

(Aus.,-N.Z. Cable Assn.) EY CA.Bi.2- i>R£4S ASSOCIATION-COPYBIGHT

LONDON, July 17. It is understood that Cabinet, during the coming week, will discuss the question of proclaiming martial law in the aifected districts of Ireland, where each day brings a fresh crop of disorders. It is reported that Sir Hamar Greenwood (Chief Secretary for Ireland) opposes martial law. He believes there is a growing disgust at the Sinn Fein extremists, and the police are receiving secret offers of assistance in several districts.

Sinn Feiners continue to warn drivers that they will be shot if trains carry troops, and consequently the train services suffer dislocation.

A hundred armed men stopped the mail train between Belfast and Londonderry. They covered the driver, the fireman, and the guard with revolvers, ■seized official correspondence, and then decamped.

Another gang stopped a passenger train on the Dundalk-Enniskillen line. They kidnapped the driver and the fireman, leaving the train stranded.

Dublin Castle has authorised, the police to invoke military aid in suppressing and arresting Irish volunteers assembling in order to undertake selfassumed police functions.

Constable Mesterson, while motoring homeward, was shot dead near Limerick. >•

Forty special jurymen attended a meeting called anonymously at Cork, and decided to boycott the Assizes.

Recent encounters with Sinn Feiners resulted in the police killing fifty and arresting thirty. Many successful raids for arms were effected.

A battle lasting an hour raged in the village of Ballylanders, in County Limerick, before dawn. Sixty police and soldiers carrying out a raid search for arms arrived in motor lorries and were greeted with shots from windows and chimneys, and from behind fences. Sinn Feiners continued the fusillade until the troops, after promptly taking cover, energetically replied to the attack and gained the upper hand, capturing eight Sinn Feiners, one badly wounded.

It was announced at the Eoscommon Assizes that » constable was shot dead on his way to the Assizes, and the Judge said: "It shows the deplorable condition of the country that a man should be assassinated for coming to do his duty."

Sinn Feiners burned the Bumcbana Courthouse, in County Donegal. A Sinn Fein court at Thurles ordered the deportation of four deserters from English regiments, who had a brief career as highwaymen. They stole bicycles, and held up and robbed several travellers. Sinn Feiners escorted the prisoners on board a steamer Txrand for Eagland. .