GALLANT IRISHMEN

Northern Advocate, 3 May 1916, Page 3

GALLANT IRISHMEN

SUSTAIN FIERCE ATTACKS.

EXAMPLE TO DUBLIN RIOTS,

LONDON, May 1

The war correspondent, Mr Philip Gibbs, details the incident in the neighbourhood of Loos, where the 16th Irish Division repulsed a German gas attack. While the Sinn Fein were besmirching the honour of Ireland the Irish division in France was proving that there are no politics in the Army. The' Dublin revolt was -hateful to the men in the trenches The Irish holding a chalk pit at Hulluch experienced a furious bombardment on the 27th. For a day and a night the whole Looa salient was throbbing with high explosives. The officers rallied the men with the cry, "Steady boys."

At five in the morning there was a sudden shout of warning. The gas division donned their helmets amid remarks such-as "We wish Casement could get a taste of this." The men fearlessly awaited the oncoming cloud, behind which was the German infantry. The Dublin Fusiliers fiercely replied to the attack. A German officer and 47 men were left dead entangled in the "barb wire at one point.

In the second attack, the Germans, after more gas, reached a portion of the'<*trenches occupied by the Inniskillings and Dublins, but a counter-attack ejected them in half-an-hour. This was th e first time this Irish division had been in action, but the young soldiers were magnificently cool.