IRISH VILLAGE BATTLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 80, 30 April 1909, Page 4

IRISH VILLAGE BATTLE.

DISTRICTS WHERE EVERY MAN IS ARMED. London, March 7. Some strong comments on the state of anarchy into which parts of Ireland have been allowed to fall by the lax administration of I lie Liberal Government were made by Mr dustiee Wright at the - Clare Assizes. >lSartholoinciv Miicnaniara, n young labourer, was charged with an oll'enee under the Whiteboy Acts, passed in the | Eighteenth century for the suppression , of outrages. Evidence was given by Mrs | Doyle, whose husband was head on a boycotted farm on the lienticy astute, that she saw Maenainara lire a revolver outside her house. Police evidence showed that constables who went h the directions whence the shots were tired met Macnamara and uiners, whom they searched. They found a revolver containing five empty cartridges in a field bv the roadside. 'The judge commented upon the widespread use of firearms. He had been informed, he said, that revolvers could be purchased for a few shillings, and a rifle that would cavrv two thousand yards for 18s (Id. The habit of carrying firearms was a dangerous one, aud he did not know of anything fraught with greater danger to the public peace. I Eventually the jury acquitted Macnamara. SHOT IN THE ROAD. In a second case Pat Stevens was similarly charged. A farmer named John Moloney swore that he saw Stephens lire a revolver shot in the road in front of his house, and he subsequently lired a number of shots about tht house. Head Constable Coffee gave evidence as to the disturbed state of the Broadford district. The place was full of re volvers, lie said, and people coming home from market lired them along the roads. In the village of Broadford itself recently fifteen or sixteen shots were discharged by opposing parties at opposite ends of the village, and a constable who got in the line of fire was wounded. Mr Justice Wright said the'head constable had given a graphic account of a pitched battle, in which the one perso-.i wounded was an unfortunate constable, who in the discharge of his duty, tried to wet between the parlies. It was a deplorable state of things that uliirosll every person in Broadford went about carrying a revolver, and the only conclusion "to his mind was that Broadfor! was a very good place to live out of. '• The jury also acquitted Stevens. In a third ease, in which a man named • Keidy was charged with an attack on 1 the house of a man named McMahon, a ■ son of the latter said he recognised tno ■ accused by the Hash of the gun which he ' lired into the house. This man also \va--1 acquitted.