IRISH WARFARE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1922, Page 5

IRISH WARFARE.

ACTIVITY RESUMED. BRIGANDAGE RAMPANT. GRAVE PLIGHT OF PEOPLE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. Received Sept. 24, 11.20 p.m. London, Sept. 23. All telegraph and telephone wires and railway lines in Kerry have been destroyed by irregulars, who have concentrated forces in the mountains, where they are carrying on operations with renewed activity. Dai.,’ Free Staters are hampered by broken bridges and barricaded roads, and constant ly ambushed from mountain tops. A strong force is required to dislodge the irregulars. The plight of the civil population is serious. Brigandage is rampant, and hundreds of families are workless and on the verga of starvation. The object of the irregulars seems to be to starve the people into submission. Mr. Cosgrave informed Parliament that compensation for property damaged since the truce amounts to between £20,000,000 and £30,000,000. Parliament adopted a resolution accepting the principle that local authorities should be responsible for compensation for damage done from a future undefined date.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. WARFARE CONTINUING. London, Sept. 21. The latest reports from Ireland indicate the recrudescence of fighting in Ulster, in addition to continued warfare in the South. Two Ulster constables were ambushed near Market Hill, and one wounded. A patrol from Clogher, Tyrone, was ambushed on the road to Monaghan, and returned the fire. The ambushers fled, abandoning their ammunition and field dressings, but blocking the way with trees. Shots were fired at a sentry in the neutral zone on the Fermanagh border. There is no sign of the end of the Irish postal strike. The staffs are gradually increasing, '.but commercial people are organising their own letter deliveries. The principal news from the South is of the attacks on Maeroom and Newport. Irregulars at Newport used machine-guns, bombs and rifles. The troops replied vigorously, and the firing continued for four or five hours. The residents were terrorised; the attackers were eventually forced to retire. London, Sept. 22. Brigadier Devins, an anti-treaty member in the Dail Eireann, Professor McNeill’s son Brian, and four other rebels were killed in a battle with Free Staters in the Sligo mountains. McNeill’s brothers are serving in the Free State army. THE CONSTITUTION BILL. London, Sept. 22. The Dail Eireann carried the second reading of the Constitution Bill by 47 votes to 16. Mr. Duffy condemned the constitution as less wide than the treaty. He charged Ministers with lack of moral courage in abandoning the original draft. Mr. Cosgrove, replying, said Ministers had the moral courage to accept full responsibility for their acts/and sufficient courage to arrest five or six thousand men, and would arrest as many more, if necessary, to secure the country fr\?m danger.