BREAK FROM GAOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 January 1943, Page 2

BREAK FROM GAOL

MADE BY I.R.A. MEMBERS HELD ON SENTENCES FOR TREASON GREAT MAN HUNT FOLLOWS IN BELFAST. FUGITIVES GET AWAY IN WAITING CAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.10 a.m.) LONDON, January 15. Four members of the Irish Republican Army, imprisoned on treason charges, scaled a wall and escaped from Belfast Prison. The escapees, who include McAteer, jumped into a waiting motor-car. Probably the greatest man hunt ever seen in Belfast followed the escapes. Every available policeman was mobilised. Some of them were armed with Sten guns. The police stopped all traffic and searched vehicles at the city’s exits. They also interrogated hundreds of city workers going home to lunch. Special patrols operated at railway stations. It is understood that shortly before daybreak, the cells which the escapees occupied were found empty. Later, a hole was discovered in the glass roof of a one-storeyed washhouse inside the prison compound. It is believed that accomplices waiting outside had a rope ready on the 20-foot wall surrounding the prison and that the men were rushed into a car in an adjoining street. Hugh McAteer, mentioned in the above message, was described at his trial in November last as the chief of staff of the I.R.A. He was sentenced to 15 years’ penal servitude. The presiding judge said to McAteer: “You were the ringleader of this movement and the man responsible in Northern Ireland for a great deal of evil work that has been done.”