THE IRISH PROBLEM.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 December 1921, Page 2

THE IRISH PROBLEM.

AUSTRALIAN ANll N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION ATTACK. ON PRIEST* LONDON, Dee. 24.

.V Special Court at Charlestown, County Mayo, committed for trial Herbert Craig and Hugh Leonard, both butchers, on a charge of attempted murder of Father Gallagher, a local Unman Catholic priest, being the first ease of attack on a priest recorded in Western Ireland. According to the evidence Craig bad been nursing a grudge for eight years, owing to Father Gallagher's public reference to Craig’s conduct with a girl. Craig and Leonard while intoxicated, waylaid Father Gallagher during the night, the former stabbing him in the ribs. Father Gallagher’s cries brought assistance, and his assailants decamped.

FERMANAGH COUNTY. LONDON, December 24. The Ulster Government has dissolved the Fermanagh County Council and appointed Mr Robert McNeill, a barrister, Administrator of the County.

MOIIC LAWI.ESSNW3S. LONDON, December 24

Alt*n concealed by a garden hedge shot dead Air Armstrong, a well-known Belfast Freemason and Orangeman, who had been threatened and fired at earlier in the week.

A party of wind men held up the mail train at Waterfall Station on the Cork-Bandon railway, and extracted all the registered letters and packets from the mail bags.

The police made a dramatic raid on the parochial hall in Tollcross, a coalmining town near Glasgow, and arrested thirteen members of a Sinn Fein organisation, and captured large quantities of arms and ammunition. 'I he police, fully armed, surrounded building and overcame the two outer guards. The inner room was found to in* a veritable arsenal, containing rifles, bayonets, bombs, detonators, (fuses, and sticks of gelignite. Nine armed men in the room were completely surprised. Some were packing cases and could not offer much resistance so they were quickly overcome.

I’F.OPLE AND the treaty

NEW YORK, December 24

The Dublin correspondent of tin* "Chicago Tribune” says that unofficial canvasses show that twenty-six South Ireland Counties are unanimous for ratification of the Irish Treaty, and it j , believed that a national referendum would show that DO per cent of tho people favour ratification. NEW YORK, December 26.

The “New Y’ork World’s” Dublin correspondent says there were few churches in Ireland yesterday where the clergy failed to ask their congregations to pray for early peace. The Bishop of Down, lit. Rev. J. P. Brown, said; —“Are we going back To the hideous conditions of the past two or three years, and the tyranny, bondage, and slavery which our forefathers suffered. or become a Free State with our own Parliament invested with full powers to rule Ireland?” He added that 95 per cent of the people favoured ratification of the Treaty.

COLLINS HOPEFUL. LONDON, Dec. 26.

Mr Michael Collins, in a Xmas message to tiie American people, says:— “The rights established by the treaty will give Ireland a starting point, and put the future largely in -Her own hands. If we are strong and bold enough, we shall go through triumphantly. 1 am facing the future in high hopes and the greatest confidence.”