HC Deb 13 March 1907 vol 171 cc48-9
CAPTAIN CRAIG

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Bradys, the boycotted persons for attacking whom certain persons were indicted at the recent Leitrim assizes, were unable to get supplied with shelter, food, or drink in the county town where the assizes were held during the trial; were the police and Crown solicitor unable to procure any person in the town willing to relieve their wants; has he received any Report from the police on this matter; are the Bradys under constant police protection by night and day; were they attacked on the road, and some provisions they had obtained in a remote village forcibly taken from them and destroyed; and has any person been punished for the various outrages committed on these people.

MR. BIRRELL

I am informed that on the occasion mentioned the persons referred to were unable to obtain a lodging in the assize town elsewhere than in the police barracks. They were able, however, to obtain food supplies in the town. They are under constant police protection. As regards the two concluding inquiries, eight men are still awaiting trial for the offence referred to, and I am therefore not prepared to enter into the details of the case.

CAPTAIN CRAIG

Is it not the fact that during the trial the boycott of these Bradys was carried to such an extent that the learned Judge had to send them his own luncheon, and that they had to be smuggled out of the town into another county where they were not known before they could obtain a night's lodging?

MR. KILBRIDE

Are not the Bradys looked upon by the people of Leitrim in the same light as trade unionists in this country look upon blacklegs?

MR. BIRRELL

repeated part of his Answer as to the difficulties experienced by the Bradys. He could not, he added, say whence they obtained their food supply.