REBELS ATTACK SLIGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18297, 13 January 1923, Page 9

REBELS ATTACK SLIGO.

BOMBS AND MACHINE-GUNS. DAMAGE AT LEAST £100,000. DESTRUCTION OF RAILWAY. EXPLOSION SHAKES TOWN. By Telegraph— Association—Copyright. (Received 8-5 p.m.) '-~'.■ A. and N.Z. LONDON, Jan. 11. Armed irregulars attacked the town of Sligo after having set fire to the station, which was destroyed. The Belfast correspondent of the Daily Chronicle states that eight magnificent locomotives, all driverless, swept at full speed through Sligo station in the middle of the night as a prelude to a' desperate attack by the rebels on the town. The first engine crashed into the concrete buffers and toppled over, puffing furiously. A few moments afterwards the second locomotive was heard. Flames were seen leaping from the smoke stacks. The engine .passed through the station and reached the quay, where it plunged into the sea, twenty feet below the railway quay. The .* third engine left the track before it reached the quay, and climbed the seawall, where it still hangs, threatening to topple into the sea. Five other engines were derailed near the station. One hundred rebel . raiders iol® lowed, including women, who sowed the station premises . with powerful mines, soaked the buildings with petrol, and burned"" two long passenger trains. When tho mines were detonated the platforms and warehouses were blown skyward. The whole town quaked.

Having destroyed the railway, the rebels attacked the courthouse, gaol, and other . buildings, using bombs and ma-chine-guns freely. Free State troops, using armoured cars, endeavoured to repel the attack, but were hampered by the darkness, though fighting in the street lasted for hours. At dawn the rebels disappeared, having done damage assessed at at least £100,000.

Rebels blew up the Civic Guards' Barracks at Rathearnham. a suburb of Dublin.' Six armed men held up a char-a-banc full of women returning from an artillery dance at Dunree Fort, Donegal. They fired shots over the women's heads, and forced the women to walk six miles in pouring rain to Buncrana. ,