Fire at Sea Attributed To Irish Terrorists

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 80, 5 April 1939, Page 6

Fire at Sea Attributed To Irish Terrorists

POLICE BOARD SHIP LONDON, April 3. Police and detectives boarded the passenger steamer Duke of Lancae* ter and the freighter Slievebernagh, both from Heysham, when they berthed at Belfast early to-'day. It is revealed that a mysterious fire broke out on the freighter near the Isle of Man. The fire is attributed to the Irish Republican Army.

The freighter radioed the police asking them to meet the ship at Belfast The Duke of Lancaster picked up the message and relayed it to Belfast. Meanwhile, participants in the Irish Republican Army terrorist plot were sentenced in London. Gerald Francis Wharton was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude, Daniel Fitzpatrick to eight years, John Mitchell to five years, and Daniel McCarthy to four years; Jack Logue and Francis John Burns to three years’ apiece in Borstal; and John Ryan to 18 months’ imprisonment. The judge said that Wharton was a member of a gang who murdered British officers and others up to 1922. He was the worst and the most dangerous of the accused. He had fought against two Irish Governments. He had vainly tried to tunnel his way from prison. He was finally released in 1924 with a pension from the Irish Government.

At Belfast, Michael Walsh and Arthur Joseph McGovern were each sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for being in possession of potassium chlorate and rounds of ammuntion.