IRISH AFFAIRS

Hokitika Guardian, 24 March 1924, Page 2

IRISH AFFAIRS

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. ARAIY OFFICERS RELEASED. DUBLIN. A!arch $2. The eighty army officers arrested on Tuesday were released on parole. At Queenstown, Free State patrols ale scouring the district for the perpetrators of a machine gun outrage. President Cosgravc telegraphed Air AlacDonabl expressing the Government's horror and detestation of it as a cowardly crime, mid a,smiling him that no efforts would he spared to bring the ciiminals to account.

A COWARDLY ATTACK. LONDON, March 22. A high-powered motor car containing four men dressed as Free State officers, drove to the Pierhead at Queenstown. uL 7 o’clock in the evening. Without warning they opened lire with machine guns on a party of about fifty people. The latter were mostly British soldiets who had just landed at Queenstown from Spike Island ilia military launch. The fire centred on the British soldiers. The motor car then raced out of the town, firing as it went, at the British destroyer •‘Scythe”, which was in the harbour, but the shots failed to hit it. One British soldier was wounded at Queenstown and succumbed. The War Office announced one officer was seriously wounded and seven men were dangerously, six seriously, and three slightly wounded. Five civilians were wounded, two being women. Afajor-General Liam Tobin has written to the Dublin papers disclaiming any responsibility from what he terms the cowardly act at Queenstown. The Irish Free State Government lias offered a reward of £IO.OOO sterling for j tile capture of the men concerned in ' the Queenstown outrage. !

IRISH HAPPENINGS. LONDON, At arch 23. Eleven Irish officers, cabled on the 19th. were released because the arrests were unauthorised. Jim Larkin was expelled last week from the Irish Workers Union and has decided to form a new Labour Party in Ireland.