IRISH EXTREMISTS HANGED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21574, 9 February 1940, Page 7

IRISH EXTREMISTS HANGED

Police Prepared For Reprisals

Eire Mourning Dead

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, February 7. Peter Barnes and James .Richards, the Irish Republican Army members who were sentenced to death for complicity in the Coventry bomb explosion last August in which several persons were killed, were hanged this morning at Birmingham gaol.

The Home Secretary (Sir John Anderson) had refused to grant a reprieve, The executions were carried out at 9 a.m.

The condemned men walked together to the scaffold and died simultaneously on gallows erected side by side. Armed Police Guard Gaol

Special squads of armed police guarded the gaol. The police guard was doubled and the streets were patrolled. Pedestrians were not allowed to congregate outside the prison. The Birmingham authorities received threats of trouble if the executions were carried out.

A special guard is being maintained in Dublin. The police will watch protest meetings to-night. Vigilance is not being relaxed by the Birmingham police, who are patrolling all points where members of the I.R.A. might endeavour to strike. The London precautions include a close watch on all Government buildings, and an extra guard at Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

Mourning In Eire

Eire is mourning the execution of Barnes and Richards.. Sports fixtures have been cancelled and cinemas and theatre are. closed.

The Cork Harbour Board flew flags at half-mast and observed a minute’s silence.

The Dublin Reprieve Committee in a statement said: “England rejected the pleas for mercy and has shown that she cares nothing for the goodwill of Ireland. She is equally contemptuous of the opinion of all sections of the Irish people.” Brendan Beham, of Dublin, aged sixteen, charged at Liverpool with being in possession of explosives, said: “I have no interest in the proceedings.” The remark was construed as a plea ol not guilty. He grinned during the hearing, once shouting: “That’s a lot of damned lies!”

The police evidence showed that the boy, in a statement, revealed that he was sent over to replace arrested men and reorganise further operations in Liverpool. He intended to put bombs in big stores.

Beham added that he had been recruited by the I.R.A. and trained to use explosives. He was sentenced to three years’ detention in the borstal.

The outrage in which Barnes and Richards were involved took place on August 24.

A terrific explosion reduced the centre of Coventry to a shambles. Three men and one woman were arrested immediately after the explosion.

Five were killed, 12 were detained in hospital, and 50 were slightly injured. The police believed that a member of the I.R.A. placed a time-bomb on a * desman’s tricycle, which was left standing in the street. Damage amounting to thousands of p-’nds was caused to shop fronts and windows in the chief thoroughfare of Droadrate, which was ankle deep in shattered glass. Buses and trams were damaged.

POPE DECLINES TO INTERVENE

United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received February 8, 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 8. The Vatican City correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph” says it is understood that the Pope’s intervention was sought on behalf of Barnes and Richards but his Holiness refused on the ground that they had had a fair trial while their crime could not be justified or extenuated even by the excuse of patriotic motives. WREATH LAID AT WORLD FAIR United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received February 8, 8.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, February 7. I.R.A. sympathisers invaded the closed World’s Fair grounds, lowered to half mast the Eire flag and laid a wreath in the Irish pavilion in sympathy with Barnes and Richards, who were hanged for bomb outrages.