Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [112]
* * *
MESOPOTAMIA
Serious Agitation on the Lower Euphrates
The situation in Mesopotamia shows some improvement in the disturbed areas, but is becoming more tense in the districts not yet in open rebellion. The Lower Euphrates and Hammar Lake neighbourhood are being seriously affected by the agitation now breaking out among the Muntafik Arabs. The besieging forces are said to be increasing in numbers.
* * *
TERRIBLE OUTBREAK IN BALBRIGGAN
Town Partially Destroyed by Fire
During Monday night and Tuesday morning there was a violent outbreak in Balbriggan, following the murder of Head Constable Burke in that town. Head Constable Burke, with other police in plain clothes, had motored from Dublin on their way to Gormanstown. At Balbriggan they stopped for refreshments, which were refused by the publican. In the disturbance which appears to have ensued, revolver shots were discharged, and the Head Constable was shot dead, and his brother, Sergeant Burke, was wounded. Subsequently, it is stated, a number of auxiliary police stationed at Gormanstown came into Balbriggan. Many houses were burned and shots fired in the streets. Two civilians were killed during the night. In the morning large numbers of the panic-stricken population left the town by road and railway and apparently only those who were unable to get away remained.
* * *
EYE-WITNESS STORY
An old gentleman resident, describing what followed the shooting, said: “Myself and my wife went to bed, and some time later we were awakened by a tremendous knocking at the door which greatly alarmed my wife. We thought it was some persons intruding. On going down to the door, I found there two ‘black and tan’ policemen, with two children of the barber, James Lawless. One of the children was suffering from pneumonia and the other was an infant of not more than two years old. I took the two children upstairs and put them into my own bed as they were. I was told that the house of Lawless, the barber, had been wrecked, and this morning I learnt that Lawless was dead—that he had been taken from his house and shot, and also that a young man named Joe Gibbons, a dairy farmer, had been killed.”
* * *
GOVERNMENT TO PREVENT REPRISALS
The Pall Mall Gazette last evening published the following telegram from Sir Hamar Greenwood, Chief Secretary for Ireland.
Monday
Dublin
There is no truth in the allegations that the Government connive in or support reprisals. The Government condemn reprisals, have issued orders condemning them, and have taken steps to prevent them. Nearly one hundred policemen have been brutally murdered, five recently in Clare on one day, by expanding bullets, resulting in horrible mutilation. In spite of intolerable provocation the police forces maintain their discipline, are increasing in number and efficiency, and command the support of every law-abiding citizen. The number of alleged reprisals is few and the damage done exaggerated.
(Signed) HAMAR GREENWOOD
* * *
If the ladies at the Majestic had needed something to improve their morale before, now, with the country “put to the fire and the sword,” as Miss Johnston expressed it not without satisfaction, with “the troubles” yesterday at Balbriggan, tomorrow perhaps in Kilnalough itself, how much more they needed this something! Once again whist proved to be the answer. A couple of tables were started in the residents’ lounge, although without the circumstance and the finery of the occasion in the writing-room. These tables rapidly became the centre of social life in the hotel; each player found a retinue of advisers and confidantes at her elbow providing a constant stream of conflicting advice and encouragement and when she became weary her place would promptly be filled by someone else. Within a day or two this epidemic of whist had taken such a grip that play began immediately after break-fast on the green baize tables (opportunely salvaged from the writing-room but dispensing, nevertheless,