MURDERS IN IRELAND.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5154, 20 July 1927, Page 2

MURDERS IN IRELAND.

REMOVING PROMINENT MEN. SOME RECENT INSTANCES. The news of the tragedy in Ireland (states a writer in the “Dominion”), is a further reminder that in whatever other direction the Irish Republicans have failed they have succeeded prettty well in filling up Glasnevin cemetery with Hie mortal remains of prominent Irishmen. One practice of very old-standing in Ireland, dating back to long before Sinn Fein was invented, has been to put out of the way the harmless and inoffensive relatives of people whose politics: or behaviour you don’t like. This was what used to hang over the heads of the Irish constabulary in the days before the Free State. After the Free State came into existence its opponents marked their displeasure with President Cosgrove by murdering his uncle, a totally inoffensive and highly esteemed proprietor of a public, house. It was similarly felt necessary to sacrifice the existence of members of other inconspicuous relations of public men to the grand cause.

It was in February, 1923, that the political situation was felt to demand the removal of Mr Kevin O’Higgins’s aged father. Now the Opposition has removed Mr O’Higgins himself. The assassination of his father was a blow at two Treaty families, for Dr. Thomas, O’Higgins, besides being the father of the Attorney-General, was married to a sister of Mr Tim Healey, Governor-General of the Free State. At IO o’clock on the night of February 11, 1923, a lorry load of armed men drove up to the residence of Dr. O’Higgins at Stradbally. Three of the men went to the door and demanded admission on the pretext that they wished to examine sjome documents. Their leader was allowed inside, but it seems that Dr O’Higgins although seventy years of age, succeeded in disarming him, for the man presently ran out of the house, shouting “Fire, fire I” His companions thereupon ran inside and shot Dr. O’Higgins dead. Mrs O’Higgins and one of her daughters ran into the hall, and shots were fired over their heads, and Mrs O’Higgins was compelled to take the gang leader’s revolver out of her dead husband’s hand and present it to its owner. After burning a. hayrick, the gang departed .leaving behind several tins of petrol, and it was supposed their original plan had been to burn down the house—and no doubt everybody in it. Dr. O’Higgins, who was Coroner for King’s County, had been a. supporter of Sinn Fein in the days before the Treaty, and was at one time interned at the Curragh. One of his sons served as,, an officer with a British during the war, and was killed in action in France, and in pre-Treaty days the two remaining sons, Messrs Kevin and Thomas O’Higgins, had been “on the run” as Sinn Feiners. To-day Mr Thomas O’Higgins is the sole surviving male member of the O’Higgins family. It was on August 12, 1922, that the fii st Free State head, Mr . Arthur Griffith, dropped down dead in the street on his way to his office. Mr Griffith practically died from overwork. Mr Michael Collins succeeded him as head of the State and the Army, and ten days later he was shot dead in an ambush near Skibbereen. When the Dail Eirean assembled afteT the first elections in December following, the Republicans shot one member, General Hales, dead, and wounded another, on their way to the opening of Parliament. The new Government had the whip-hand,, however, for the gaols by this time were full of Republican prisoners, and it •seized four of these and shot them,, without trial, by way of reprisal. Among the four was General Roy O’Connor. There was some criticism of this action as unduly high-handed but several months later General Mulcahy pointed out that it had been effective, as> no more members of Parliament had been murdered. Now, however, the murder thrill is getting back in Irish politics.