BLOWN TO PIECES.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1917, Page 6

BLOWN TO PIECES.

NINE FISHERMEN KILLED BY MINE In June a cable message recorded an incident which happened on the Irish coast. The full story is' given in the following remarkable passage in the Times: An accident by which nine lives were lost is reported from County Galway. While four fishermen were fishing off the coast on Friday, at a place named Loughancbeg, 10 miles from the town of Galway. they saiw a strange object floating in the water. They pulled their curragh towards it, and saw that it was barrelshaped and had handles on each side. The men towed the object ashore and began to unscrew it. They were joined by other men until there mere in all ten men on the beach. One of them, Joseph Flaherty, believing that the object was a mine, warned his companions of the danger of tampering with it, and hid behind a rock on the shore. A young man succeeded in unscrewing a portion of the mine, and when he tried to withdraw what appeared to be a cord or fuse, an explosion occurred, which was heard in the village of Spiddal, four miles away. Flaherty was struck on the head by a stone or piece of the mine. When he etood up there was not a trace of his companions. All that was to be seen was a great hole in the shore where the explosion had taken place. A little boy, who saw the men on the beach, immediately before the mine exploded, ran towards tlvem. One of his arms was afterwards found near his father's house. There is no trace of his body. Dr. W. A. Sandys, of Galway, who was motoring in the neighborhood, said that his car was almost lifted off the road by the explosion. He attended the injured man Flaherty, who has become deaf as a result of the shock, and then brought the coastguard to the scene. The nine missing men belonged to the Loughane"-" beg district, and three of tliern were married and had families.