BATTLE WITH POLICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13307, 13 October 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

BATTLE WITH POLICE.

PEASANTS FIGHT WITH REAPING* HOOKS AND SPADES. ; fj A vigorous battle was fought in the.early hours of the morning 'on the hills round Ballingearv, near Macroom, Co.- Cork. •/•?« Before the dawn a large force of Irish Constabulary marched into the town to'arrest the ringleaders: of the men who resisted the sheriff at a recent eviction. They found ; that the Ballingearyites had heard of their determination, and with the exception of a few old women and decrepit men the town o-J was deserted. The police sent out scouts, ;|| mid they found the villagers entrenched in, : ; force on the hills. A council of war was held, and theu the police, splitting up into j two portions, moved to- the attack. - One body made a. frontal attack, while the other, and stronger, crept round the hill to the back with the object of taking the enemy in the rear. Ten minutes afterwards the . police fled down the hill. They had been .ambuscaded by the young men of the village. who. armed with spades, reaping- ; hooks, and furze cutters, had' taken up a position half-way up the hill and lain there in the- darkness! A second council of war was just Ik.hu formed when with loud and triumphant cries the villagers, concentrating on the hilltop, prepared to attack in turn. It was a. tectical error. The' polka j: rushed the hill. and. after a. short fight, I captured the leaders of the rebellion. They / were taken to the ga.ol. and there for hours the people of the countryside, listened with delight to the stiains"of "The Boys of Wexford'' and other National airs. The. "rebels," Mill singing, were afterwards placed under strong guard in a large brake and taken to Macroom before a. special bench of magistrates. ' They Rang at intervals during the hearing of the case, and when they learned that they were to be tried at the Cork Assizesthe ambition of such patriots— delight was unbouuded