HC Deb 07 November 1884 vol 293 cc1218-9
MR. SEXTON

asked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, If the Irish Executive will cause an independent inquiry to be held into the truth of the allegations made in the statement of Thomas Nolan, read to the House on Wednesday last, charging Mr. George Bolton and other officials in Ireland with having endeavoured to incite or terrify the said Thomas Nolan to give false evidence against the other accused persons in the Ballyforan murder case?

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)

There is no foundation for the suggestion that Mr. George Bolton, or any other official of the Irish Government, endeavoured to incite or terrify Thomas Nolan to give false evidence in the Ballyforan murder case. Nolan handed voluntarily a statement in his own handwriting to Constable O'Brien, and afterwards made a statement to the Resident Magistrate implicating two of the prisoners. Mr. Bolton never saw him at all. Nolan subsequently went back from those statements, and wrote that he had made the statements to fool the prosecutors. He now from America makes charges which are believed to be wholly false, and no further inquiry will be instituted.