RAID ON ARMS STORE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20276, 10 April 1934, Page 1

RAID ON ARMS STORE.

Railway Lines Torn Up in Ireland. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, April 8. Half a dozen men, with blackened faces, pounced on Robert Russell, nightwatchman of the Braidw r ater Spinning Mills, Ballymena, while he was stoking the fire after midnight. They bound and gagged him and then smashed the door of the local constabulary’s arms store. They took seventeen rifles, 1000 rounds of rifle -and 3000 rounds of revolver ammunition, and many revolvers, and decamped in a motor-car. Russell rolled round the yard for an hour endeavouring to loosen his bonds. Eventually he drew a knife from ■ his pocket and cut them. He rushed to the engineroom and blew the alarm siren, turning out the populace and the police. The raiders have not been traced. Opponents of the United Ireland Party tore up the rails at two stations on the Tullamore line this morning in order to prevent supporters of General O’Duffy attending his meeting. They also cut the telephone wires. General O’Duffy declared that Mr De Valera had become the toreador of Irish politics. He wanted to bait John Bull in order to appeal to the people with the cry “Don’t fling me to the British.”