3-071-023 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The State of Ireland: the affray at Belmullet, County Mayo, from a sketch by A. O'Kelly, 1881. View of '...the deplorable affray which took place on Friday, the 28th October...on the north-west coast of Ireland. The hamlet of Grawkill, perched on the side of a mountain overlooking the Atlantic...consists of about a dozen houses of the meanest and poorest class...the police, about sixty in number, were accompanying a process-server who was about to serve summonses for the rates. The people of the neighbourhood, seeing the police approaching, gathered to the number of about three hundred. When the police were ascending the mountain path to the village, they were assailed by the crowd...with showers of stones. The police charged them up the hill several times, but they returned to the assault. The sub-inspector in command at length gave the order to fire, which was obeyed, and some of the shots took effect, but even after some of the rioters were wounded, they did not retire. Twenty-four shots were fired. An elderly woman who received a...charge of buckshot in the chest, is dead, and a young woman who received a bullet in the left side. Many others were less seriously wounded...More than twenty persons were arrested and sent to Castlebar Jail'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.