THE ENGLISH MAIL. [VIA SAN FRANCISCO.] RIOTING IN ULSTER. FIERCE FIGHTING in STREETS. FIENDISH BEHAVIOUR OF FEMALE RIOTERS.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 163, 31 July 1886, Page 8

THE ENGLISH MAIL. [VIA SAN FRANCISCO.] RIOTING IN ULSTER.

FIERCE FIGHTING in STREETS. FIENDISH BEHAVIOUR OF FEMALE RIOTERS.

The papers are full of accounts of destructive riots in Belfast, lasting, with more or lose violence, from June 6th to the 11th, On the Bth, a mob of Orangemen wrecked a number of houses of Catholic?, severely in $uring some of the occupants. There was Also trouble in the Orange districts of Monaghan on the same day. At Lurgan, several militia men Were wounded, houses wrecked, several persons shot, some dangerously wounded, one (Thomas Gallagher) shot dead. Almost all the constables wero injured by stones or bricks. In Belfast, on the 9th, the Orangemen resumed active hostilities. They wrecked 100 houses in the city, two of which they burned, broke into whiskey stores and drank themselves into a state of desperation. Borne ran about the streets crying out "To with the Pope." The police need buckshot freely, and many of the riotcars were severely wounded. At night, the mob made an attack upon a tavern kept by a Catholic named Duffy, which they wrecked after overpowsring the police. In this affair Chief of Police Carr was wounded. The remarkable feature during all the days of rioting was the manner in which the women and girls goaded on the men to fight, offering them apronsful of fresh stones, and, when entreaty failed, using savage threats. The females actively engaged in looting, too, and when Duffy's place, as well as McKenna's and McCloskey's wine stores in Yorketreet, were wrecked, scores of women and children were employed all the time the riot was going on in carrying off wines and liquors in jugs and buckets Men, youths, and girls drank until they fell helpless in the gutters, the girls acting frith greater fury during the orgie than the men. After sacking the various taverns, they fired tnem. . A reporter on one of the daily papers gives it as his opinion that the mob was composed of the very ecurn of Belfast. " I saw the fiends," he writes, "hurling rocks at the gallant firemen who were imperilling their lives in the attempt to save dwellings from destruction. I saw dozens of ruffians, during the night of the 10th, sneaking away from the wrecked and burning buildings, laden with loot." During the rows on the 9th, Gladstone and Parnell were both burned in effigy, and a dummy labelled "Home Rule' was also cremated. At one time the situation became co desperate that Mr Mathers, the local Orange leader, publicly declared that unless the authorities did their duty, he and thoueands of Orangemen would take charge of the town. Mathers was on the point of carrying out his threat when the military appeared. Before this the mob drove a force of 150 policemen into the barracks, and then attacked the building. The police fired, killing five persons, one a barmaid, who was looking out of a tavern window at the fighting, and another a widow with two children. Several Protestant clergymen tried to disperse the mob, but their efforts were unavailing. The mob continued firing stones, while they were speaking, and one divine was hit by a rock equarely in the face. At midnight on the 10th, a mob of Orangemen visited a public house kept by a Catholic amed O*Hara, and after sacking it, reduced it to ashes. The police were beaten back in this fight, and forced to take refuge in the barracks. Scores of rioters were grounded. It is known positively that six men and two women were killed. " Twenty rioters who received bullet wounds were lying in one infirmary. Old officers say they never knew a mob to Bhow greater, viciousnese, violence, pluck, and determination. De3pite their desperation, the riotera hurled missiles with regularity and precision, as if they had been drilled in stone-throwing. When the men in front had exhausted their ammunition, they would retire to receive fresh armsful from the women, and thus make way for their comrades with new supplies. Some of the stone throwing was quite extraordinary. The better-armed of the rioters carried what are called "Belfast kidneys " — stones about 5J incheß long, 3i inches broad, and weighing on an average a pound and a half. There were many boys among the rioters, and they were as desperate and as plucky as the men. The fighting with the police continued till 10 o'clock a.m. on the 10th, when two troops of dragoons galloped up to the vicinity of the Bower Hill police station, followed by about 300 infantry. They had been under anne eleven hours. The mob then dispersed, and when they rallied again, found the troops had cordoned all the street* around the barracks. Realising the impregnability Of the police's position, the rioters departed in sections, cursing the Pope, denouncing •' Home Rule," and sinking " The Orange Lily" and "Rule Britannia." The city was comparatively quiet on the afternoon of the 10th ; and on the 11th the Government put the districts terrorised by mobs in tbe province of Ulster under martial law. People living in the neighbourhood where the rioting Twgan say that it was caused by the police, under a mistaken impression, molesting and cudgelling some orderly workmen while they were leaving the foundry. According to thia story, the populace got angry at the police for their cruel ana unjustifiable conduct and attempted to make them desist. When a conflict was imminent, so the story goes, the mob offered to behave if the police were withdrawn, but not otherwise. Childers was asked by Dr. Cobain, M.P, for Belfast, in the House on the 11th, if the Government would take steps to prosecute the police who shot down the people of Belfast, and the reply was that the Government had the fullest confidence in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and was not informed that there had been any misconduct on their part. Gallagher, who was shot at Lurgan, was a well-known local simpleton. Two men, Hart and Mason, were arrested in Belfast for his murder. His funeral took place on the 10th, protected by 200 soldiers. The procession was jeered by a mob of Catholics, Andrew and Arthur Donnelly, leading Catholic merchants of Lurgan, were arrested on June 9th on a charge of firing from their windows. The mob wanted to lynch them. Several riots occurred in Sligo on the evening of June 12, and quite a number of Protestants' houses were wrecked. The trouble was originated by residents who were angry becauee somebody had destroyed the Tails surrounding the Archbishop's palace. They gathered in thousands, and attacked the houses of Protestants, and hooted and molested many persons. The windows of every house in which it was known that a Protestant dwelt were smashed. The County Clubhouse, the Constitutional Club, the Methodist manse, the residence of a Congregational minister.and several chapels were attacked and wrecked. The Orangemen made no attempt to retaliate, The

Mayor*- a Nationalist, and several of- the magistrates, penetrated to the front of the throng, and' tried to appease them, but without avail. The Riot Aot war then read, and the soldiers were ordered to clear the streets, which they" did at the point of > the bayonet. Sixteen rioters were arrested. Rev. Hugh Harna, D.D., the Presbyterian minister of St. Enoch's Church, in Belfast, preached a sermon on the evening of the 13th, relating to the recent riots. He said, " Tf the Government thinktf Ulster will be easily subjugated by a seditious Parliament, it has signally failed in the estimate of us. The people of the North have effective means of resistance, but the time has not yet come to employ them. The humblest of the seven victims who succumbed laat Wednesday, under the murderous fire of Morley's militia, presented a higher and nobler type of character than does Morley." • The Catholic clergy of Belfatt, on the 13th, congratulated their people on their " patience and forbearance under provoking circumstances," and urged them to continue to keep the peace.