Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
i
that have to be consid.3:‘-3d.
and the other fainted.
,owing to the shock collapsed on the floor
2439 .
bought in copy of one of the Irregular
war news sheets, and I found this item
in it. That was the day the discussion
was raised upon the execution of
four men. ‘ ‘ One enemy’ officer
woundcd October 13th; October 18th
four, enemy wounded; October 21st
four enemy were killed, and three
wounded.” Where were the advocates
then who denounced the killing of
brother Irishmenewhy did they not raise
that when those men were killed by the
Irregulars? Are the lives of the National
troops less sacred than the lives of those
men who were executed by the Govern-
ment? Then, again, I see in this Irre-
gular XVar News Bulletinte“ October
24th, the party surrendered, having lost
three, killed and four wounded." But it
is not merely th-e men who die in artion
I have here
a paragraph from a paper which brings
to the notice of this Assembly something
that has not been often touched upon by
the passionate advocate of clemency. If
I can have the indulgence of the Dziil I
would like to read this, because it throws
light upon an aspect of this matter which
none of us can ignore. It is a letter to
one of the Dublin papers, and reads:-
“,I live in a suburban district where,
during the Black and Tan terror, not a
bomb was thrown or a shot fired. A week
(ago between nine and ten p.m., a lorry
of National troops was ambushed here by
two youths who hung a bomb from a
lane corner. Not waiting to see if the
lorry was hit, they quickly ran off, and
got safely away. None of the troops was
injured. The front windows were broken
and the blinds torn in a neighbouring
house by the bomb splinters. Incidents
of the kind are now so common that the
newspapers dismissed it in a line or two,
and "added:--‘Nobody was wounded for-
tunately, and the attackers escaped.’
VThat closed the chapter as far as the
public was concerned. "Some of the
tragic and grievous results of that am-
bush, which the Press did not know or
record are these:--'l'wo women in a
critical-and delicate state of health, were
so terrified by the awful explosion that
one of them had a severe haemorrhage,
A third woman
of her bedroom. The following morning
)he gave birth to a baby boy. ‘He was
a fine child (the doctor said), but the
shock, reacting on the infant, caused his
death (in agony) with twelvehours. And
he was the only child of that family.”
mu. EIREANN
2440
This is the background to this trouble-
this outbreak of frenzied idealism. We
heard a reference to a certain Hunger
Strike yesterday. HQW many P9-01119
will be hunger-striking in the slums of
Dublin because they cannot get food as
a result of this disturbance, which is
going on in the country, and ‘whichthe
National Government is trying to bring
to an end. One Deputy says the Gov-
ernment has no mandate for civil war.
I admit, I agree, but the Government
has not only a mandate, but a duty to
restore law and order in this country,
and I take it it is the one immediate
task with which the Government is con-
fronted, in so far as represented in the
estimates now before the Dail. I ven-
ture to say, that if our Irregular friends
established their Republic, and if they
consolidated it and made it to some ex-
tent stable, and that if some small sec-
tion of the country rose up in revolt and
said “ VVe will not have this Republic,
we will have external association with
the British Empire, and we will raise
the standard of revolt against the Gov-
ernment of the Irish Republic," and if
they went to the same lengths as the Ir-
regulars are doing against the present
Government, I venture to say that the
Custodians of the Republican Authority
that would then exist would have very
little compunction in going to the last
extremity in order to restore the
Sovereign Authority of the Republic
within the territory of that Republic.
I think we want to face facts. VVe are
not here I hope as an assembly of
hysterical beings, or as the Minister for
Home Affairs said, megloinaniacs. We
are here to try to‘ get Ireland on its
feot. lVe are here to brush aside all that
impedes its advance. If the Govern-
ment cannot have supreme authority to
meet the situation that arises with the
expedients that are necessary, then it
means that this Government is going to
be defeated and blockedin its advance;
it means that the forcespof reaction and
disorder are going, to get the upperhand
and in the words of Deputy. Johnson,
that is a thing which it is the duty, of
this Dziil and of this Government to pre-
vent at all costs.” Deputy O’Connell
said he wants ultimate peace. Eyeryone‘
in this Dziil wants ultimate peace, ,,but
you will have neither immediate nor
ultimate peace by making terms wit-h
anarchy, and that is the prospect we are
faced with. As the Minister,for,Educa-
tion has said, you can have peace to-
gent
ml
lailil
aside
Gurer
swept
defeat
of ll10E
than“
the su
Idol
here.
gymplt
pressed
pti-ll,ly
moment
lattha
ltslrst
dererg
Gaemn
ting in
Mr. l
rafters
axalion
rat to
an of ll
3tlTl0W
til. Docs
‘aura
an toi
as high:
ytictta
tn of de
its in
Efta. P011
ts leper
:=-‘iv’.
itclflrt
:2 Eli
maul
trier
zfzelt
at