AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9115, 15 June 1908, Page 5

AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

COUNTIES TN A DISTURBED STATE. Received June 14, 4.28 p.m. LONDON, June 13. A proclamation declares the Counties of Sligo and Westmeath to be in a disturbed state and requiring additional police. Cattle driving is increasing in several Counties in Ireland, and conflicts between the police and populace are of frequent occurrence. A desperate conflict took place in Elphin, County Roscommon, recently. A meeting of the United Irish League was summoned, at which there were numerous contingents with bands and banners. After the meeting concluded u procession, hooting and groaning, was led by four or five massed bands to the residence of Mr Donlon, the agent of Mr O'Connor, who owns grazing lands which have been boycotted. The police were ordered to charge wiUi batons, and in a few minutes there was a state of extraordinary confusion. The league bandsmen met the onslaught, the fifers using their fifes, the drummers their drum-sticks, and the sympathisers in the crowd hurled stones. Slowly but in good order the bandsmen withdrew. Some distance outside the town, as they were sullenly retiring, beating with them wounded comrades, three more league bands from Aughrim and Mantua hove in view with a huge following and joined their defeated comrades. They cheered through the town and literally swept the police out of it and captured the position. Outside Mr Donlon's house they resumed the drumming and groaning, and paraded the streets for hours. Many of the police were injured. During the absence of the police at the Elphini meeting several hundred head of cattle were driven off a farm at S-nithhill, near Elphin, and during a lull in the proceedings after one of the baton charges the bullocks were galloped through Elphin right through the ranks of the constabulary, pursued by mobs, and stampeded all over the country. The league by circulars and posters all over tha country notified the graziers of what was in store for them and the measures they might expect if they persisted in keeping on their ranches.