SINN FEIN HORROS IN IRELAND.

Southland Times, Issue 18984, 19 November 1920, Page 2

SINN FEIN HORROS IN IRELAND.

To the Editor; Sir.—The enclosed cutting is from the Belfast Weekly Telegraph of September 11. The out and out and unqualified condemnation of the Sinn Fein horrors in Ireland in Father Lawless’s letter is the first of its kind I have met with in published letters and records of utterances by members of the Roman Catholic priesthood, high or low in office. It is to be hoped that the sanity of the sentiments of this priest of Faugh art is shared in by not a few of his confreres in Ireland. I would commend a study of the letter to two correspondents who write voluminously in the Southland Times on the subject of the Irish trouble.—l am, etc., I.K.W. Stewart Island, November 17. Following is (he extract enclosed by our correspondent:— The Rev. Nicholas Lawless?, P.P., Faughart addressed the following letter to the promoters of a meeting to be held in Dundalk yesterday in aid of the expelled Belfast workers;— Sir,-—I do not see my way to attend your meeting on Friday. It seems to me you are beginning at the wrong end. Tile direct way to save our people in the North is to end at once the crimes that are disgracing Catholic Ireland North and South. It is those crimes that enraged—and no wonder—the workers of Belfast, who have said they will let Catholic workers back when the shooting of R.I.C. men and others stops. It is all very well to denounce “reprisals,'’ but -who will say that reprisals are as wicked as the crimes that provoke them ? Instead, then, of boycotting Belfast, let us all join in boycotting murders, and burnings—murderers and burners—in the rest of Ireland. There is no other way to cure the ills of North and South. It is worse than inconsistent to stand in the glare of the flames devouring Mr Crete's and Mr Pike’s homes, and anathematise Belfast. Alas! we cannot put. breath into the burnt bones, and make them stand up on their feet aJ’ve. But we can add to the victim-.’ joy in Heaven by saving many others from a like fate that threatens them from secret murder societies which hold Catholic Ireland in their iron grip. When Catholics—clergy and laity—pluck up courage to grapple with the secret societies, and prevent their sending out murderous commands and compel (hem to give a dispensation to the unhappy youths they even have condemned to suicide, then let us stand in sackcloth and ashes, with bread and water in our hands, and tell the Belfast workmen to sit on the stool of repentance. That will have more effect on them than the cries of “Republicans” for more and mo.e English troops to shoot them down.