Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1886 — BLOODSHED IN IRELAND. [ARTICLE]

BLOODSHED IN IRELAND.

Fierce Outbreaks of Orangemen and Home-Rulers at Belfast and Lurgan. Hotels Sacked and Burned—Rioters and Policemen Shot Down—Nine People Killed. [Belfast (Ireland) dispatch.] A mob of Orangemen made an attack npon a tavern kept by a man named Duffy. The police were promptly on the scene, and after a stubborn contest, during which they used their carbines, drove the mob away in disorder. The rioters reassembled with increased strength and again attacked Duffy’s, this time overpowering the police and driving them from the place. In the first assault Chief of Police Carr was wounded. He was carried away and now lies in a critical condition. When the Orangemen returned to the fight they were accompanied by a large number of factory girls, who goaded or shamed the men on to battle and formec a most dangerous element. When the officers abandoned Duffy’s the mob at once took complete possession of the tavern and it was thoroughly sacked. All the taps and spiggots were set running, and everybody was invited to help himself according to his taste. All the barrels of liquor found in stock were earned into the street, lifted up high and let fall until they broke and liberated their contents. All the furniture was carried out, piled in the center of the roadway, and burned in a bonfire to furnish the rioters light duriug their debauch. Men, youths, and girls drank until they fell helpless in the gutters, the girls acting with greater fury during the earlier stages of the orgy than the men. The noise, the profanity, und the disorder were terrible. The mob ei ded its work by firing the tavern itself, and it burned to the ground. Then .the stronger men, who bad become infuriated and overpowered by their potations, ran through the streets, wrecking and pillaging wherever they went, and increasing their following tbe further they proceeded. These rioters, after a while, congregated around the police station and stoned the police until they were tired. They then marched down to another tavern. The police hastened thither in advance and attempted to protect the property, but they were overpowered and driven away. The mob, left in possession, treated the tavern as they had treated Duffy’s—turned on all the taps, broke the full barrels in the street, made a bonfire of the furniture, and finally set fire to the building. The police returned, and this time got the better for a time of the mob, whose ranks were depleted by the scores who had fallen away in drunkenness, and extinguished the flames before they could gain control of the structure. But the officers were unable to drive the rioters from the locality, and they remained and dominated it until morning. During the rowdyism of the night Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell were both burned in effigy, and a dummy corpse labeled “home rule” uas cremated The rioting was renewed here this evening and the riot act was again read. The mob increased in size and began throwing stones at the police. The latter fired, killing four persons. The mob returned the fire and a brisk fusillade was kept up for twenty pinuteij, The mob drove a force of iSO policemen into the barracks and then attacked tbe buildings, firing revolvers and throwing stones at the doors and windows. The police fired, killing five persons. Several Protestant clergymen tried to disperse the mob, but their efforts were unavailing. During the riots one hundred houses were wrecked. After sacking the hotels many Orangmen reeled through the streets shouting “To h—l with the Pope!” Twentyfive policemen were hurt. Two men named Hart and Mason were arrested for the murder of Thomas Gallagher, who was shot dead during the rioting at Lurgan. Gallagher \VaB a well-known local simpleton. He waved an Orange sash in the face of a home-rule mob during an incessant fire between that mob and its Orange enemies. During the riot the situation at one time became so desperate that Mr. Mathers, a local Orange leader, publicly declared that unless the authorities did their duty he and a thousand armed Orangemen would take charge of the town. Mathers was on the point of carrying out his threat when the military appeared. An infernal machine, consisting of a jar tilled with a black substance and some clock-work, was thrown last night against the door of a Protestant house in Lurgan and exploded in the doorway. Arthur and Andrew Donnelly, leading Catholic merchants, have been arrested at Lurgan on the charge of firing from their windows. A mob wanted to lynch the prisoners and stoned the police. It was finally dispersed at the point of the bayonet.