IRELAND MOURNS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 97, 15 July 1927, Page 9

IRELAND MOURNS

MR. Q’HIGGINS’S DEATH

IMPRESSIVE FUNERAL P By Cable.—Press Association Copyright DUBLIN, Wednesday. Half a million mourners, including men and women weeping openly, bowed their heads as they watched the gun carriage, draped with the Free State flag, bear the body of Mr. Kevin O’Higgins, the murdered VijSfi: President, to its grave through two miles of houses with drawn blinds. Ten army lorries draped in black carried wreaths. Fashionable women knelt in the muddy streets, praying beside the poorest folk as the mile-long cortege passed. Scores of people fainted. Three hundred priests in black cassocks chanted a requiem at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, where Archbishop Byrne was the celebrant. A crowded congregation included the majority of the Irish bishops, members of the Dail, the GovernorGeneral, Mr. T. Healy, and the President of the Free State, Mr. W. T. Cosgrave. The grave of Mr. O’Higgins is near that of Parnell, which is still without a stone. The graves of Mr. Michael Collins and Mr. Arthur Griffiths are a quarter of a mile distant. Requiem Mass was celebrated at Westminster Cathedral. Those present included Mr. Winston Churchill, Sir Austen Chamberlain, the Earl of Balfour and Mr. L. C. Amery.—A. and N.Z.