Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the driving of cattle and horses on the 18th December last near Portarlington, in King's County; whether a number of horses belonging to the military authorities at Curragh were grazing on an evicted farm, and were all driven off by night; and whether the military authorities have removed their horses and ceased to use the farm as the result of this intimidation?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe police inform me that on the night of the 15th December last forty horses belonging to the military authorities at the Curragh were driven off 783W a grazing farm near Portarlington, but the horses were all recovered uninjured next morning. The military authorities have since removed the horses and ceased to use the farm. No person has been arrested in connection with this offence.
Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether anyone has been arrested or made amenable for the outrage committed in the county of Sligo on 25th August last, when a valuable heifer belonging to a Mrs. Graham, near to the town of Sligo, was mutilated and killed on a grazing farm, and the rest of the cattle on the farm driven off?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe answer is in the negative.
Captain CRAIGasked whether anyone has been arrested in respect of the series of cattle drives which took place on the night of 31st October last in the county Galway, when the gates of several farms were opened and the cattle driven out to wander on the public roads; and, if so, with what result?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe police authorities inform me that on the night of the 31st October last a police patrol found the gates of a number of fields left open and several head of cattle and sheep wandering on the public road quite close to the fields in which they had been grazing. There was no evidence that the cattle were driven, and the police believe it to be the work of some irresponsible youths.
Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary if his attention has been called to an address delivered by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe in the cathedral at Ennis, county Clare, in the month of December last, in which he said, referring to a murder which had lately taken place, that the constant outrages in Clare were due to the demoralisation, the fear, and humiliation which the unscrupulous moonlighter had spread through the community; whether any special steps have been taken in Clare or elsewhere to relieve the community from the reign of terror thus described; and whether the Members of Parliament for county Clare have been approached to use their influence with their constituents to prevent the repetition of these outrages and to relieve unoffending inhabitants of the terror of intimidation?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI have seen a newspaper report of the address referred to. There784W is a large extra force of police in the county, and special measures have been and are being, taken for the protection of life and property, and the prevention of outrages. I have not approached the Members for the County.