"RALE TIPPERARY."

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7347, 27 January 1911, Page 8

"RALE TIPPERARY."

FROM ODE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, December 16. It has boon said that nowadays the Irish people do not conduct their elections with the same fervour as in the good old days, and that the fighting instinct which used to bo so much in evidence at election times is fast dying out. It may bo bo, bat the "old Adam has peeped out ; more than once during the present ©lection, and at Thurles, County Tipperary, last Friday, there were motions that must have rejoiced the heart of the “fighting Ryans,” whoso county Tipperary was and is. A meeting was held in support of the Rcdmondit© candidate, whom Sir John Dillon, the principal speaker, waa pleased to term the chosen of “the free and open convention of delegates." This description offended Mr Martin O'Dwyer, tho O’Brienite candidate, who promptly, loudly, and in the fewest and most ©mphatio words possible described Mr Dillon as a lineal descendant of Ananias. In less than ten seconds the Redmonditea were playing football with Mr O’Dwyer, and it was a badly battered and utterly disreputable-locking object that the polics rescued from the mob after a very liberal and vigorous display of baton exercise. But tho fiery spirit of th© O'Dwyer was not quelled, and in a few minutes he was hack again in the crowd hurling hot words and biting sarcasms at Mr .Dillon. This time tho Redmonditcs—every man armed with a stick or a brick—set about Mr O'Dwyer in real earnest, but fighting like fury he contrived to extricate himself, ’and took shelter from the howling mob in a house near by. Tho meeting proceeded, and when it was over Air O’Dwyer started to go back to hi a hotel. He was nearly there when he was seen by a Redmondite, who, acting on tho celebrated Tipperary principle of hitting a head when you see it, promptly felled him. Tho police rushed at the assailant, and held him while the Redraondites and O’Brienites rushed up. In a few minutes Mr O’Dwyer appeared on th© balcony of the hotel bleeding freely from a wound on tho head, bis face and clothes smothered with blood and dirt, and plnckily began to address the crowd. As bo concluded a party of Redmonditcs, headed by a brass band, marched up to the police cordon which surrounded Mr O’Dwyer’s hotel. They refused to obey tho order to halt, where-, upon tho police made a determined charge with their batons. Some of Mr O’Dwyer'e sympathisers followed in tho wake of the police, and proceeded to put the finishing touches to the Redmonditcs who had been placed hors do combat by tho police charge. One O’Brienitc picked up the bassoon which bad been, dropped by a musician, and did groat execution among the Rcdmondites. Happily no one was killed or seriously injured during these “most illigant ructions,’’ though a good many bad to bo picked up and carried home, and there were more sore heads and aching bodies in Thurles that night than there haT been for many a weary day.