AGRARIAN MURDER IN IRELAND.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 797, 11 January 1877, Page 3

AGRARIAN MURDER IN IRELAND.

[From the Home Neivs.\ On October 10th a farmer named John Feehan was shot dead outside his own door at Kilpatrick, near Ballycumber, King's County, The murdered man was engaged in a lawsuit with a neighbour, and summoned ten persons at the last Clare Petty Sessions for using threatening language, but as he refused to swear that he was in bodily fear the cases were dismissed. The following are the details of the above sad event:—lt appears that he purchased for the season som« meadowing land from which a family had been evicted. The unfortunate man entered his field for the purpose of preparing some loads of hay to bring to the maket, and while so doing a man stepped up to him and shot him through the breast. He fell dead, and while on the ground another shot was fired into his right jaw. The bullet pierced his skull, and when the police arrived it was found embedded in the earth. The shot was heard by a boy, a relative of the deceased, who ran down the field and «aw the body. The gun was so close to the man's body that when discovered by the boy his clothes were o~>. fire. When the police got information of the murder they arrested two men named Brien and Galvan, the Kilbcggan police arrested four others, and the man veicted from the farm was also arrested in Tullamore. The deceased leaves a wife and ton children unprovided for. He was a man universally liked in the district, and his brutal murder has given rise to a feeling of intense iudignation. The police have succeeded in finding a gun -which, it is hoped, may serve as a link in the chain of evidence by which the perpetrators of the crime may be brought to justice. It is believed that at least two persons were concerned in the actual murder, and that each carried a gun and fired a Bhot. A party of police searched the premises lately occupied by the man who had been evicted from the land taken by BYehan, and in the barn near which the two caretakers of the house resided they found a single-barrelled gun. The gun, which appeared to have been recently used, and was stained with blood, was discovered embedded in the thatch. In consequence of this discovery, two brothers named Connolly have been arrested. There are now eleven men in custody. On a second post mortem nl the body of the murdered man there was found embedded in rhe he.irt the half of a common marble, of the kind generally used i»y children in play. The constabulary, accordingly, finding a bag of marbles of die same size and kind in the house of one of the prisoners, have taken possession of them.