Flowering Shamrock
Creative Commons
North Otago Times, 13th April, 1911
CREATING IRISH CRIME
The Connaught Tribune, a leading Nationalist newspaper published at Galway recently printed, on the authority of “a reliable correspondent,” the following extraordinary story of “loyalist” methods in agitating against Home Rule;
Many of the strange and meaningless outbreaks that have recently occurred in County Galway are not the result of any land agitation at all, but the direct outcome of a sinister secret organisation financed by men who are, and have all their lives, been enemies of Ireland, and who are prepared to resort to any desperate mans to prevent this country securing Home Rule.
The statement may appear at first sight very far-fetched (says the correspondent), but I am in possession of information that leads me to believe that a certain despicable class of non-resident landlords are prepared to do all in their power, and have at their disposal unlimited funds, for the purpose of blackening the fair name of this country.
I could lay my hands on over half a dozen men in County Galway who have no visible means of subsistence and who yet always appear to have plenty of money. These men are “in the know” of everything, and it is notorious that they make frequent secret journeys to distant and secret destinations. They are nothing short of “village bums,” and yet they pose as patriots.
But, unless I am very much mistaken, they are the aiders and abettors of the treacherous enemies who are today stabbing us in the back and keeping the progress of our country back half a century by encouraging, if not actually siding in the perpetrating of these outrages that have absolutely no other meaning, and can effect no other purpose whatever except to do untold injury to the country.
The Burren and Beyond 