AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3769, 31 August 1907, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

Mr Farrel Committed for Trial. Firey Utterancos. London, August 28. Mr J. P. Farrel, Nationalist member of the House of Commons for North Longford, has been committed for trial, with fifteen other persons, on charges of participating in a riot and cattle-driving in the Newtown Forbes district, and assaulting the police. During the disturbance the constabulary drew their batons and charged the rioters, but failed to disperse them. Mr Farrell objected to the Court’s jurisdiction, urging that the case should be taken at Newtown Forbes, and not at Longford. The present Court, he said, was a “star chamber” one and if time permitted a writ of prohibition would be obtained from the High Court.

An application for admission to bail was granted. Fifteen more persons have been committed for trial at Longford in connection with the cattle-driving cases.

Included in the number is Mr McKeux, a candidate for the Southern Division for Longford, who delivered an inflammatory speech. The Milltown, Galway, branch of the Irish National League, has resolved to send a deputation to wait upon the graziers and ask them to surrender their lands in November, before the people are obliged to take stronger measures to bring an odious class to its senses.

Newtown Forbes is a village three miles northwest of Longford, in Leinster. .Tames Patrick Farrell has represented > his present constituency since 1900, and from 1893 to 1900 sat for West Cavan. He became a journalist early on the Roscommon Herald, and was always actively engaged m politics in Land League and National League periods. In 1889 he was imprisoned for two months for an inflammatory speech. He is at present proprietor and editor of two local newspapers, and lias published Fireside Talks about Comity Longford, Historical Notes and Stories of County Longford, and a large illustrated history of the same country.