ANGRY HIBERNIANS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 18, 13 September 1912, Page 7

ANGRY HIBERNIANS.

SCHOOL CHILDREN ATTACK ED

Tlie Balfast correspondent of Tlie Times telegraphed that a Sunday school excursion party carrying banners and a Union Jack were attacked on Saturday, Juno 29tfai, near Castledawson, Londonderry, by a body of Hibernians, who were returning from a Nationalist meeting at Maghera. The police and residents of tlie neighbourhood came to the rescue of the children, and a free light ensued, which lasted half an hour. His message is as follows: Details of an extraordinary attack upon a Sunday school excursion party on Saturday night at Castledawson, a somewhat remote district of Southeast Londonderry, have reached Belfast. About 500 children of the Sunday school attached to the Presbyterian Church of Whitehouse, near Belfast, left the city on Saturday morning on their annual excursion, and spent the day in a field about half a mile from the railway station at Castledawson. They were accompanied by a ilute band, and many banners bearing Scriptural texts and one Union Jack were carried in the procession. On the journey to the railway station in the evening they were met by a body of Hibernians returning from a Nationalist demonstration at Maghera, and an attack was at once made on the school party. The Rev. Robert Barrow, minister of the Whitdhouse Presbyterian Church, who was with the excursion party, says there were very few grown men With the children. The members of the band were all children. "The attack on the Union Jack," he says, "was tlie signal for the Hibernians to rush in amongst us. In a moment they were in the middle of our children with their pikes, striking and stabbing right and left. They also used bludgeons and threw stones. Our teachers and the young men we had behaved heroically. They tried their best to hold the banners. There were very few of the police—l don't think more than half a dozen. The\ did what thiey could to separate the Hibernians from our ranks, but there was thorough ronfusion. Tlie only tiling that saved us was that a number of Castledawson people, Protestant young men, seeing the attack and realising our desperate situation, came running down, their numbers increasing as tlie minutes went on. Their appearance on tlie scene diverted the attention of tlie Hibernians from our

procession, and tihey turned to fight the new arrivals. Before tin's, however, several of our people had been stabbed with pikes, many of their faces being cut. In the struggle for the banner one of our young men was stabbed right through the hand. The police meanwhile had gone for their rifles, and came hack at the run with bayonets fixed, but there were too few of them to be of much service in the melee. The fight lasted for quite half an hour, the Hibernians shouting meanwhile for Home Rule. They took the Union Jack and in the struggle the Sunday school banner was torn to ribbons and one of the poles smashed. We lost a great many of the flags, which, 1 suppose, were stolen. They kicked at the drums and smashed many <>!' them, while several instruments were lost." A somewhat similar occurrence is reported from Innisrush, also in South Londonderry, where a party of Sunday and day school children were attacked as they were returning from their annual fete, given them by the rector of the. parish, the Rev. John Donnelly.' Shots were fired over the heads of the procession. An attempt was also made to injure the instruments of the band which headed the party. The Protestant community lias been mucin incensed by this unprovoked conduct.