The hunger strike of the members of the Irish Republican Army in the Dublin prison gives some idea of the trouble the government of Eire is having in dealing with that illegal organization. One of the seven prisoners is S. MacCurtain, accused of the murder of a detective in a street in Cork, who together with the other men is claiming that he should be treated as a political prisoner. If by treatment as political prisoners they claim that they- should be relieved of the pains and penalties of their crimes, it obviously means in the case of Mac-Curtain, that so long as he can allege that the murder with which he is charged was inspired by political motives, he should go free. The contention is a ridiculous one, and were it admitted for a moment would inevitably lead to an outbreak of lawlessness with which the authorities would have the greatest difficulty in dealing. The astonishing fact is that these men base their claim on the ground that being members of the Irish Republican Army they are in fact soldiers of the Irish Republic, but the LR.A.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.