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NEWS BULLETIN
" Friends of Irish Freedom National Bureau’ of Information
_ WRIGHT McCORMICK, Acting Director «23036 1051 Munsey Building, Washington, D. C.
Release Immediately
No. 67
The English terrorism which over-
shadows the daily life of the Irish people
even in “‘a quiet part of Ireland not
dominated by extremists” is strikingly
shown by the diary of “‘a distinguished
writer and Irish landlord,’’ republished
in this country by the Friends of Irish
Freedom National Bureau of Informa-
tion. This matter-of-fact record of a
week’s events in a small Irish com-
rounity as originally published in The
Nation, of London, is as follows:
Sept. 28.—Yesterday, Monday, even-
ing I came home, driving from the sea.
I bad been told that a house in K——
had been burned in the night, the Sun-
day night, and we passed by its ruined
walls. But that is a common sight in
towns now, and ther ems to be some
doubt who burned th
A little farther, at the cross roads,
there was another ruin, M—’s, the
smith’s. Ilis house had also been
» burned down in the night, “by military
and police;”’ he and his family had found
shelter in the cart-shed. It seemed so
silent; we had always heard the ham-
mer of the smithy as we passed, and seen
the glow of the fire. And he was such a
good smith, I remember how our best
hunters used to be sent to him.
of his sons was said to be secretary to a
Sinn Fein Committee.” Today M. L.
came to ask for sand for the building up
of B—’s house at B—, burned also on
the Sunday night by military and police.
-They had come to look for one of the
sons and he was not there. Then they
told B— to take what money he had
out of the house, and had set fire to it.
There were children in the house, M—
has taken two of them to his. They say
G— would have been burned on Satur-
day by drunken sodiers arriving from
E—, but three of the old police re-
strained them.
Sept. 30.—I was quite ill, could not
eat or sleep, after that homecoming, the
desolation of that burned forge, and all
one hears. KE. M’s. beautiful little vil-
lage hall burned down.
G— coming to work at the vinery,
from G~, says that on Monday night
two lorries of military came into the
town firing and shooting, and the people
brought out their furniture from their
houses, expecting the burnings to begin.
“Black-and-Tans, and police and mili-
tary huined B—’s house, an officer with
them, Lut was there’e’er a gentleman
among them?”
Oct. 1.—b. No post today.
Old Patrick F— working for me says:
“There did two car loads of the Black-
and-Tans come into G— yesterday
evening. They were a holy fright—
shooting and firing. They broke into
houses and searched them, and they
searched the people in the street, women
and girls that were coming out from the
chapel, and that came running down our
street in dread of their life. Then they
went into S's. to drink, and got drunk
there—it is terrible to Jet them do that.
Look at I—'s, they burned all the bed-
ding in the house and every bit of money
he had, and nine acres of wheat and
oats. They would have burned the
hay, but they didn’t see it. At B—'s
they kept the boys running up and down
the road for near an hour-and-a-half,
and they all but naked while they were
“One_
chasing them up and down, and_ girls
nearly the same way. It is a holy
crime; it is worse than Belgium. What
call have they coming to G—, that is
such a quiet little town? One of your
own workmen that went into G— in the
evening with a message from his wife
that is sick was stopped near the town
and made put up his hands and was
searched.”
M— has just brought me back a
book, ‘‘Chez Swann,” that I had sent to
go back to Mudie’s. “There was a
regiment of soldiers with their bayonets
standing at the post office door, and no
one could go in, and the shuts up as on
Sundays. They were said to be search-
ing the letters inside.” .
~ Old T— is trembling, ‘‘there is no one
is safe!”
Oct. 2.—No letters yet. J— says the
military opened all the letters that came
in yesterday, that time they were at the
post office. The Black-and-Tans left
last night. ‘“‘They searched a good
many houses and found nothing, but
any pictures they saw that had any-
thing to do with Sinn Fein they tore and
broke them. Young I[— was trying to
slip away from them, but they fired and
hit him in the thigh. They went sing-
ing about the streets, ‘Irishmen come
into the parlor,’ and ‘Who fears to speak
of Easter Week?’ .There were not
three people in G— went,to bed ere last
night, but sitting up through the night-
time keeping the lights quenched. ~ V-—,
that was a policeman’s son from the
‘neighborhood, was the officer over the
Black-and-Tans, a tall young fellow.
He was weaiing a white cloth over his
face, and holes cut in it for the eyes.
The house was searched twice, where
X— lives that killed V—'s father last
year with a blow of a burl, but that was
acquitted, but for manslaughter. They
are thinking he wants his revenge.
But S— says it would have been worse
but for V— being in it, he has friends he
would not wish to harm in the town.”
“The reason for B—'s house being
burned was that he had driven cattle on
Lord —’s property at D—, and the
police say they heard shots there one
night. There are others living near
that say there were no shots fired. It
was one o'clock in the night-time they
bu.ned the house and the wheat and the
oats—a slated house and as well fur-
nished as any house you could see... The
boy they were looking for was in it, and
they covered him with their revolvers,
eight of them, holding them to his head
and his body, but the officer said ‘We
can do enough harm without killing
him,’ and they began the burning.” .
J. M—says the Black-and-Tans fired
thirty shots at II—, but only one bit, in
the shoulder; and that they broke all the
pictures and furniture in B—'s shop.
Old P— says: “They stole a piece of
tweed from J—’s shop, and a gold neck-
lace and watch from a house on Church
street. W—, their officer, made them
put back the tweed, but the watch and
the necklace they brought away. They
drank in every bar, and went about
drunk in the evening, shouting and sing-
ing. Savaged they were—a holy ter-
ror.” :
Oct. 5.—Our censored letters have
come, one torn across, one marked, words
obliterated with blue pencil.