YEARS OF DANGER.

Shannon News, 9 January 1925, Page 3

YEARS OF DANGER.

* DUBLIN JOURNAL'S CAREER ENDS. LONDON, Dec. 19. Despite tlie hopes "that the Official Receiver would hnd a. purchaser, Freeman's Journal, the Dublin organ of the Irish National Party, announces that it is clcsing down to-day, after 161 tempestuous years. Tlie final issue records the military suppression of the newspaper in 1919. It gives an amazing diary of the imprisonment of the proprietors and editors, the burning and bombing of the offices, Black and Tan raids, at tacks by Irregulars, and the holding up of the Staff, Who were handcuffed at revolver point while the raiders destroyed the plant with sledge hammers. During these troublous, times it was a commonplace for the' suh-editorial staff to crawl out of the room on hands ami knees to escape the bullets. Letters to tlie personnel threatening death and banishment were Jrequeut. Newsvenders and customers were terrified, vans were destroyed, 'bundles ,of papers were burnt, and pot shots were taken at. the employees. ! An editorial rather naively attn- | butes the paper's declining fortunes to I these events.

The premises and machinery may yet find a purchaser, and the journalistic stormy petrel may become a Phoenix, even though, to use an Hibernianism, it has just sung its swansong.