A Gross Exaggeration – 1923

Freemans Journal 16th August, 1923 p 5

Galway Wednesday
Amazement was expressed in Kinvara at the report published in yesterday’s “Irish Independent,” that revolver shots had been fired at the meeting on Sunday last, and that eight people had been wounded.
The facts were given to me today by the Very Rev. M. Cannon Fahy, P.P., Kinvara, who presided at the meeting, and opened the proceedings by speaking in favour of the Treaty. He asked that those who had come to address them should get a fair hearing.
When Mr Geo. Nicholls, one of the Cumann na nGaedheal candidates, rose to address the meeting, he was cordially received by the greater mass of the poeple, but a group of about fifteen youths immediately began to interrupt and heckle the speaker.
Four young men who had arrived in Kinvara earlier in a motor car immediately approached the interrupters, and told them that they would not be allowed to upset the meeting.
Canon Fahy asked for a fair hearing for the speakers, and order was temporarily restored. Later however, the interruptions were renewed, and something in the nature of a free fight took place between the four men who had objected to the interrupters and the youths, who were putting a number of questions to Mr. Nicholls.
Ultimately the interrupters surrounded the four men, whereupon they produced revolvers. At this the crowd fled in panic and the meeting came to a conclusion. Canon Fahy assured me that not a single shot was fired, and the report of the affair was a gross and scandalous exaggeration.