IRISH ELECTION RIOTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14585, 23 January 1911, Page 6

IRISH ELECTION RIOTS.

BOMB THROWN IN BELFAST.

[from our own correspondent.]

London, December 16. In England and Scotland the election has been a fairly quiet one. In Ireland . it» has been thoroughly and typically Irish.; It began with the threat of-an armed insurrection of the Unionist North. It pro ceeded to the bomb-throwing at theOrange Hall, in Belfast, and it wound up with such trouble in North Louth that; Mr. Tim Healy, the best-dressei man in the Nationalist party, and the; right* hand of Mr. William O'Brien, escaped, de* feated and dishevelled, to poor sorrowful invective on the heads of the Redmondite Irish. . ■"■■-'■" .;. .

-.; The most violent incident of the election, so far. was the bomb outrage afe Belfast. There was bad feeling over the action of a seceded branch of the Orange Order, who supported the Nationalist member, Mr. T. H«- Sloan. This time, Mr. Sloan was defeated, and a procession I of the orthodox Orangemen paraded the fact by marching to and-fro before the hall of the Independent Branch. Th« second time they passed, just as the band had reached, the front of the hall, the bomb was thrown from the opposite side of the street, and over the heads of the bandsmen. The infernal machine struck the wall near the porch. There was - a loud report, which was heard three-quar-ters of a mile off, and the shattered fragments of the bomb fell at -the feet of two young men who were standing at the door of the hall, John Watson and Thomas Irwin. Both were hurled into the air. ■ Irwin alighted on his feet, and escaped injury, but ,Watson had the i big toe of his right foot blown away, and the ankle of the same foot fractured in two* places* In the excitement following the outrage, the man who threw the bomb escaped. In other parts of the city, boys and girls wrought havoc on the quarters of the Orangemen. Armed with heavy sticks, pieces of iron, and paving stones, they attacked the ice cream shops of the Italians, smashed windows and doors, and looted right and left. .In North-street a crowd of mill-girls was passing an ice cream shop singing Loyalist songs, when a stone was thrown through the window, and a few moments later a revolver shot was fired, the bullet passing over the heads of the crowd. Later there was. danger of a collision between rival factions in North-street, but a -few revolver shots, fired, by' unknown persons, effected a dispersal, and the crowds sim«ply passed along: breaking windows." Mr. Tim, Healy *s defeat in North LoutH was a triumph for something or otherhe says, for the intimidations practised by the Redmonites. The gentleman who drove Mr. Healy in a motorcar was set upon by a crowd and pelted with mud, while the car was smashed. Mr. Healy himself was prevented by the police from leaving the polling booth owing to the threatening character of the crowd: "Give us four of your men to stand at my back," lie said to the head constable, "and I will fight my waythrough." But the head constable said the attempt might cost him his life, and he refused. Mr. Healy then had a telegram sent;, to Dundalk for another motor car, and after some delay, picking up a bar bell which lay on the floor of the schoolroom in which the polling took place, he pushed his v" A ? through the police, saying. "On the heads of the Chief Secretary- and my opponents may lie the responsibility. I am going to leave this place now." Ami he did so, fortunately unobserved, and reached a motor car. In Dundalk his hotel wait under police protection owing to the violence of a crowd. who threw missiles and had to be charged with batons.