FATAL RIOTS

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1935, Page 5

FATAL RIOTS

MOB AT BELFAST FOUR PEOPLE KILLED WRECKED HOUSES FIRED DAY AND NIGHT CLASHES TROOPS FINALLY CALLED By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 11.30 p.m. Belfast, July 14. Four people were killed and twenty others were sent to hospital injured as a result of fierce rioting and shooting in the dockland area of Belfast throughout yesterday. Several houses were burned and wrecked by a frenzied mob. Hardly had Viscount Craigavon, the Prime Minister, told Orangemen at Gilford that the prospects of Northern Ireland were bright and hopeful when the riot broke out yesterday afternoon, necessitating a proclamation of martial law.

The first disturbance was precipitated in the dockland quarter, where stones were thrown, and revolvers were fired from upper windows at a Scottish band returning from a procession in celebration of the Battle of the Boyne.

The pipers. and drummers scornfully continued to march to the music. Police reinforcements rushed to the scene and an armoured car fired over the heads of the mob, thousands of which stampeded for refuge in the nearest buildings. Mrs., Margate Rodgers was killed and Miss Margaret Lang was shot in the stomach and is not expected to recover. A constable, a detective and nearly 40 others were wounded by revolver shots. ■The firing was believed to be more widely spread than was really the case, owing to the volley-like sound of Lambeg drums, which are deafeningly beaten with the hands as part of the ceremonies until the blood streams from the performers’ thumbs, discolouring the drumheads. RECRUDESCENCE OF SHOOTING. A recrudescence of the shooting occurred at night, when Mrs. Ellen Connor, a woman 70 years of age, was found dying in the street with wounds in the head. A volley of shots was fired into a public house and injured a customer. Occasional shots fired in the daytime wounded a watchman and a boy. Armoured cars patrolled the dockland area and a curfew was introduced. The fighting continued until after midnight. A frenzied crowd wrecked and burned a number of houses in the York Street area. The police used batons, rifles and armoured cars. In the end the troops were called out and numbers of the Border Regiment, steel-helifieted, arrived in lorries. ' Those sent to hospital included a policeman who was shot in the shoulder. Between 30 and 40 persons were treated for minor injuries. The police state the trouble began in a rush from the market area at an Orangemen’s procession. • Viscount Craigavon in his speech at Gilford said .that recent conversations with the Dominion Prime Ministers made him realise the importance of Ulster as a factor in Imperial affairs in which Orangemen were destined to play ■an important part. Parades in seventeen other centres passed off quietly.