§ MR. DOOGAN (Tyrone, E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant or Ireland whether he is aware that the Rev. Father M'Brien, Washing Bay, and a party of friends, were insulted and threatened by an Orange crowd when driving to Cookstown on Sunday last; that, notwithstanding the fact that this circumstance was duly reported to the police, no notice was taken of it, with the result that on their return journey Father M'Brien and his friends were hooted and stoned; and, if so, will he explain why the police did not afford the Rev. Father M'Brien any protection, and will the ringleaders of his assailants be prosecuted.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe Rev. Mr. M'Brien states he informed a constable in Cookstown early in the afternoon of the 1st August that he had been insulted on the road to Cookstown, and that he apprehended a renewal of insult, and possibly an attack on him when returning from Cookstown. I have ascertained that the rev. gentlemen drove from Cookstown at 10.30 p.m., and that stones were thrown at the occupants of his car without, however, inflicting injury. The police have made exhaustive inquiries, but, so far, have not succeeded in tracing the offenders, who are stated by the rev. gentleman to have been six or eight boys and girls. It is much to be regretted that the constable to whom he spoke in the afternoon did not make a report of the matter to his superiors. Had this been done, special precautions would have been adopted for his safety. Every effort has been made to trace the constable, but so far without success. He was, in all probability, one of the strange constables brought in for the occasion from other counties.