IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 29, 20 July 1922, Page 35

IRISH NEWS

THE WAR UPON BELFAST CHILDREN. Of all the outrages that take place in the Belfast attacks on Catholics the most shameful and most inhuman is the murder campaign against young Catholic children (says the London Catholic Times). The Irish Times, a journal of a distinctively Protestant type, publishes a striking picture of a group of Belfast Catholic children - standing near the wooden huts in which they are now housed, “their own homes in many instances having been destroyed. The ages of the little ones, of whom there is a large number, ranges from about two years to ten or twelve. The scene is one to make the heart sad. The same paper reports a case in which two little girls named Florence and Margaret Sheridan, aged respectively two c years and seven, sought compensation from the Belfast Claims Court through their father for injuries inflicted on them. They were playing in the street w-hen a bomb was thrown at them, wounding Florence in the neck and Margaret on the left arm. The wounds had not proved dangerous, and the compensation awarded was- but £5 in one case and £lO in the other, but the presiding judge with reason characterised the outrage as dastardly. A SETTLED ORANGE POLICY. The Irish Rosary for May, says:—Murder has kept up its steady pace in Belfast. Its character has remained unchanged—cold-blooded butchery carried out preferably during the night, every circumstance being calculated and every official convenience afforded. The “crime of impulse” has no place in the picture. It is a plain spectacle of highly organised atrocity for a definite purpose. The purpose, evident to every eye, is the coercion of the Catholic population of the six counties into accepting the Orange Government of “Northern Ireland.” The procedure is the “Black-and-Tan” method that was tried so ruthlessly and fruitlessly in the other provinces. A blood-curfew ensures that Catholics will be in their homes at a certain hour to await the assassins. The right of free movement is then forbidden to all, except the murderers who go by the name of “police.” Thousands of those “police” have had no police duties and no police uniform. The authorities have allowed them firearms and the right to kill. Their crimes are the subject of no real inquiry and lead to no arrests. The reason is perfectly apparent. They are the instruments of a policy—the policy of cowing the Catholic inhabitants into docile recognition of the Orangeman’s complete ascendancy. EXODUS OF CATHOLICS: BIG SWOOP IN THE SIX COUNTIES. The Belfast Parliament have issued a Proclamation declaring illegal the following organisations in the Sixcounty area (says a Home paper of recent date):—The 1.R.A., the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Volunteers, Cumann na 1 mßan, and the Fianna. “And,” the Proclamation adds, “any person joining these organisations, or remaining members of them, are liable to arrest and prosecution.” Over 50,000 armed men— Special constables and British troops—were engaged lately in a sweeping combing out of young men believed to be connected with the I.R.A. in the Six Counties. The scheme was decided upon late on the previous night by the Belfast v Cabinet. That such a course was about being taken was known, but before the document was issued the armed forces were mobilised and the sweep had begun in almost every town and village. During the proceedings one . man -was killed, and two, 1 one of whom is a teacher, wounded. The Belfast Home Secretary gives the number arrested as 348, but the Dail Publicity Department computes it at I’, about 1,500. Dismayed by the relentless fury of their ;;■/ oppressors, an exodus of Catholics has begun, and crowds £:;• are pouring across the border with tales of savagery and i'{ Persecution. „ Lifford is full' up with refugees. On the

Tirconaill-Derry frontier, across which most are fleeing, armed , Specials are maintaining a close watch, and in the course of the wholesale searches 'even the Mayor of Derry and Most Rev. Dr. McHugh were submitted to this indignity. The latter, who was recognised by the Specials, was compelled to get out of his motor car, and was searched on the roadside, whilst the former was taken out of a train to be Searched. / While Rev. Father Hackett, 0.C., Pettigo, Co. Donegal, was proceeding in a motor to hear Confessions at a station in the parish of Ederney, Co. Fermanagh, he was held up by Special police, because he had a dummy Mills bomb on the bonnet of the car as a mascot. He- was brought to the barrack and detained. After some hours, fearing that he would be kept overnight, Father Hackett explained that Thursday being a Catholic Holyday of obligation, when he had duties to discharge, he proposed to go with the police to the Enniskillen headquarters in order to have an immediate investigation. His suggestion was accepted, and he was conveyed in a Crossley car, which also contained two prisoners. The matter having been inquired into by .an officer, Father Hackett was immediately released. The officer pointed out that it was now an indictable offence in the Six Counties to bo in possession of anything in the nature of arms, even the ramrod of a gun.

PRIEST ASSAULTED BY EX-SOLDIER. The terror under which certain parts of the country is suffering had extraordinary manifestation in the Co. Limerick, whence a shocking assault on a delicate priest is reported. The scene of this revolting occurrence is Cappinihane, near Bruree. About 12 o’clock on a recent night the house of a farmer named John Noonan was surrounded by a party of men, estimated at about six, who were armed with rifles and shot-guns. The party knocked and demanded that the door be opened, and a gun which they said was in the house should be handed over, saying “We are I.R.A. men.” The members of the household became alarmed and the owner’s brother, Rev. T. Noonan, C.C., who is home from the English mission through ill-health, got up and went to the window, saying “You are not I.R.A. men; you are ” addressing one of the raiders by name. The next question the priest was asked was, “What about the cattle?” He replied that the cattle were still grazing, and that they were housed in by night. The raider whom the priest addressed then said: “If you were a priest a hundred times over I will shoot you where you stand at the same time raising the gun to fire. Two of the other raiders then rushed and took the gun from the man who threatened to shoot.

The priest had his stole on at the time and a crucifix and breviary in his hands. The raider struck the priest a blow on the cheek, smashed the crucifix and pulled the stole off him. The raider knocked down the priest in the yard and cut him on the cheek-bone, his face being covered with blood. He was also wounded in the ear. When the priest came in from the yard to the kitchen and shut the door he entered a room on his left. As he did so a rifle shot was discharged through the door from outside. Had Father Noonan turned to the right in all Probability he would have been shot dead. The bullet struck a lamp and completely smashed it. . Further volleys followed, and in all over 20. shots were discharged into the house. Father Noonan, who is in delicate health, received medical and spiritual assistance the following morning. He identified the : leader of the party. The matter has been reported to -the 1.R.A., and it is understood steps are being taken to arrest the perpetrators of this wanton outrage, which forms the sole topic of conversation in the surrounding districts. . A special Republican Court, at Limerick, remanded, without bail, an ex-soldier named Jas. Fenton, a native of Kildare, who was charged with having committed a savage assault upon Rev. Timothy Noonan during the armed raid on the house of the priest’s brother on the occasion above-mentioned. Father Noonan and his brother gave evidence of the assault. . •' * Subsequently the accused’s brother (William Fenton) was also arrested' and remanded in custody on the same charge. , ’ , V 1 - >■ .