FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Summertime began at the end of March 1922 amid extreme tension in the recently formed Free State. The IRA split formally on that Sunday, in a step towards the Civil War, while the North was embroiled in violence, with seven people killed in Belfast over the weekend. There was high tension along the newly defined Border where the anti-Treaty IRA and the Northern forces were taking up positions, as an amalgam of reports from Border areas recorded.
A SERIOUS state of things prevails near the Fermanagh-Tyrone border, says our Belfast Correspondent. During Thursday night a good deal of shooting took place, with fatal results.
Yesterday morning it was found that three men had lost their lives. The victims were Frank Kelly, a shoemaker, of Reiltus, near Trillick; William Cassidy, a motor driver, of Drumbarvey, Irvinestown, who was discovered dead in a field with a bullet wound in his head; and Edward McLaughlin, a farmer, of Glengreen, a married man with a small family.
It was near this district that a Special constable was fatally wounded a few nights ago.
An attack was made in the early morning on a guard stationed at the rear of Strabane Police Barracks. Firing took place in a field about 150 yards from the barracks, and was replied to by the police, who speedily turned out . . .
After the murders of loyalists earlier in the week, says our Omagh Correspondent, the district of Trillick, County Tyrone, experienced on Thursday one of the most terrible nights in its history.
No sooner had darkness set in than shooting commenced, and it was continued during the night throughout the district.
So intense was the terror that nobody thought of going to bed during the night. Country districts were particularly bad, and as families sitting by their firesides throughout the night, heard sounds of footsteps, or, indeed, the slightest suspicious sound, they dashed from their homes.
Many families have packed their clothing and personal belongings into boxes, and hidden them away in fields, while money is being concealed in hollow trees and other places.
A security police officer on Thursday discovered £61 hidden in one tree, and smaller sums in others. Such property as hardness, bicycles, etc., is to be found hidden away in bogs, as far removed as possible from dwelling-houses . . .
In the Dromore district tension is somewhat easier than at Trillick, and a number of people, said to be associated with the Sinn Féin movement, have approached a prominent local Unionist associated with the police force, assuring him of their innocence of any complicity in the murders or burnings earlier in the week, and praying for his influence on their behalf . . .
Some 20 or 30 rounds of rifle ammunition (says our Brookeborough Correspondent) were fired yesterday morning by I.R.A. snipers at two men who were removing straying cattle from the turnip field of Mr Thomas Clarke, one of the Protestants who was forced to leave his farm in the danger zone at Ballagh, near the Tyrone-Monaghan border . . .
The assumption is that on the Southern side of the frontier there are considerable forces of the Irish Republican Army, drawn from distant parts, and that these are constantly on the watch for police approaching the border. The police appeared to be apprehensive of a raid in force, and are reserving their energies for such an emergency.
In Clones the I.R.A., wearing full uniform, are in charge of the town, doing patrol work.
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