IRISH TRAGEDY.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17107, 31 March 1921, Page 7

IRISH TRAGEDY.

SINN FEIN CAMPAIGN.

THE MALLOW SHOOTINGS,

(By Cab]©— Press Association—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON. March 29.

The authorities are aware that a. special gang of Sinn Feiners has arrived in England to carry out an intensified arson campaign. It is understood that the gang is using motor-cars and raotor-vans, and is employing many disguises. Stringent precautions have been taken to rjuard public buildings. Captain Lees, who was employed at Dublin Castle, was shot dead in Drury street. Ho was in mufti, and was walking to the Castle. Three or four men surrounded him and fired several shots at point-blank range. The assassins escaped.

Armed men removed Good, an exArmy man, who won the Military Cross during the war, from his trap at Barrvshall, Cork, and shot him 'dead. A note was attached to the clothing, reading: "Convicted spies and informers, beware!'' Good's father was shot dead on March 10th.

The Court of Enquiry into the Mallow shooting found tnat the railwaymen were not inhumanely treated or fired on as alleged.

The remainder of the allegations made in the House of Commons wero not borne out bv the evidence.

[The Mallow affair was an outcome of a Sinn Fein attack on Captain King, a county inspector of Constabulary. Captain King was critically wounded, and his wife shot dead, at Mallow railway station on the night of January 31st, while awaitinn; the mail train from Cork. The police raided the railway station, killed two of the assailants, and wounded eight railway employees. The Irish railwaymen's version of the affair declared tnat the Black and Tans rounded up the station staff, marched them into the road, told them to run for their livcra, and fired as they ran, killing two. Sixteen others escaped on a locomotivo. In the House of Commons Mr J. H. Thomas raised the question of the Mallow shootings, and detailed the results of enquiries bv a trade union delegate, showing that the Crown forces wero highly blameworthy. _ The recital was punctuated with cries of "Shame!" from the Labourites. Mr Thomas said that after Mrs King was shot the police camo to the station and said that if the woman died 15, railwaymen would be shot. Four railwaymen who were captured were marched to barracks, where they [ were beaten with fists and revolvers, [ and told to carry tho body of ,the woman from a ifiilitary motor to a cell. When they were released next morning, the railwaymen were told to run. They did so, and throe out of the four were shot dead.]

SINN PEIN ENVOIS.

OTTAWA, March 29. Instructions have been given not to allow Edmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde (the Sinn Fein envoy, who was prohibited from landing in Australia) to enter the countrv when the Makura arrives on Wednesday, except for the purpose of boarding a ship at Victoria for the United States.-

(Received March 30th, 9.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Mnrcji 29. It is understood that the State Department will contest the plea of Mr O'Callaghan, Lord Mayor of Qork, that he is entitled to remain in the United States as a political refugee, on the ground that Great Britain has not demanded his surrender, and he promised the immigration officials, when he arrived, that he intended to stay Only sixty days. . . , The State Department and the Labour Department in the meantime will rfnt hinder O'Callaghan from visiting different cities with lafge Trish'Americart populations, and delivering speeches On the Irish situation.