New-York tribune., 1882-04-09
nnTRAGES IN IRELAND.


As Americans have OILY faint and made
quate idea of the extent and atrocity OF agra
rian crime in Ireland, we take pains to give
the information asked for i'll the following
letter:
TO the Editor Of The Tribune.
SIR To settle a dispute, will you be kind
enough give the places dates and details OF the facts
which justify the latter part Of the sentence Land
agents are fred at from hedges and innocent women arc
bu cered in the high roads" which in your lead
ing editorial OF tns date Mr.. Lowell's Success.
Brooklyn. April 6, 1882. DIsPUrANT.
The outrage to which specific reference was
made in the latter half of the sentence was
described in the cable dispatches published on
Tuesday last. Mr.. Smythe, of Westmeath,
went to church on Sunday with three ladies'
and while he was returning from the service
he was fred upon in the high road. Two
of the ladies' his sister-in-law and Lady
Monck, escaped unframed, but his wife was
killed outright. The shot was fired at short
range and a portion of her head was blown
away. Mr.. Smythe himself was uninjured.
The details of this atrocious crime have not
yet been received by foreign mail, so that we
cannot state whether he had given the ten
antry any provOcatiOn for attacking his party.
Full particulars have been received OF many
similar Outrages of which innocent women
were the victims. On March IL a party OF
mOOnlighters," armed and disguised, broke
into house at Brosna, in Kerry, occupied by
farmer named 0'Connell. Springing out of
bed to confront the marauders, he was fired
upon and fell Oh the floor apparently dead.
The party then rushed into the room where
his wife and daughter were sleeping and
dragged them out of bed. The wife received
a gunshot wound in the knee, and while lying
PROSTATE on the floor was dubbed with
rifle, being repeatedly struck on the head. The
daughter, age nineteen, while endeavoring to
protect her from such savagery, was knocked
down by blow from the stock of a gun. Ac-
cording to the latest adVces. neither husband
nor wife was expected to live, and the daugh-
ter was seriously injured. OCOnnell had been
suspected of giving information to the police
respecting the posting of no-rent manifestoes,
but Indignantly del ed the charge.
A gamekeeper's son, named Gibbons, while
returning home by the high road from Clon
bur on March Il, was waylaid by three men
and murdered under the eyes of his mother.
She defended him as well as she could and
was badly wounded in the head. The boys
skull was fractured with heavy stones. The
only prOvocatiOn for the crime was the fathers
fidelity to his employer, Lord Ardilaun.
On the same night two ladies, under the
escort of an inspector and two men, left far
mer's house between Ballymote and Tubber-
curry, where there had been an evening party,
and had scarcely reached the high road before
they were fired upon by somebody lying in a
tI,o 1n1; Of
Sligo, was severely wounded, and the Inspector
himself who had excited odium by firing upon
mob, was also hit i'll the shoulder.
Among the crimes against women must be
included numerous attempts to destroy by fire
and dynamite houses occupied by families the
heads of which have incurred the dspleasure
of the Land League or the lawless tenantry.
On March 4, for example, Mrs. Reilly, a poor
woman living in a mountainous district near
Clifden, awOke at midnight to find the cabin
in blaze, and with great difficulty succeeded
in rescuing her husband and three children.
The same family had been previously attacked
and beaten by disguised marauders, and Reil-
ly's mother had died from injuries sustained.
On March 27 an explosive shell was thrown
into a house near Letter Kenny, County Don
egal, and two rooms were destroyed and on
the previous day the house of Lord Clon-
brooks agent had been nearly blown to pieces
by charge of dynamite lodged i'll window,
the five inmates escaping.
AS our correspondent restricts his inquiry to
crimes against innocent women, we have not
made any effort to illustrate the atrocity of the
agrarian outrages without reference to sex.
We have simply aimed to justify the assertion
which lie called in question, and have done
this by citing instances which have Oc-
CURED within month, and which might
be multiplied, if the whole period of
Land League lawlcssness were brought under
review. We have not told how John Stanley,
an old man, for merely paying his rent, was
dragged out of bed beaten and fired at, and
finally held over hot Goals nor how Arthur
Herbert, an active anti-Leagucr was assassi-
mated on the high road by ruflians whose
fury was not appeased until they had stabbed
eleven lambs in his sheepfold; nor how a
band of moonlighters" pounccd upon
local politician who had opposed the
Land League candidate and cut off his
nose We have not referred to the re-
turns of the Constabrlar Office in Ireland
for evidence that between 5000 and 5000
agrarian outrages have been committed during
the last fifteen months. As for the moral of
these inhuman and atrocious crimes, it has been
so admirably pointed by Patrick j. Smyth, |
member of Parliament for Tipperary that we
can only repeat his words If Irishmen are
" not utterly lost to every sense of patriotism
" and human feeling, let them weep for land
" reduced to a condition Of savagery. See the
recent Outrages, and reserve your curses for the
" League of Hell which has brought all this ruin
" and shame upon our Nation"
GOOD APPOINTMENT