Back to Album contains material relating to the death of Captain R G Peek, 9L in Ireland in 1921, with 8 photographs and ewspaper cuttings.
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Item 0003
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| Accession number | 912L : 2325 |
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Sketch Daily 9th LANCERS TRAPPED . Captain Peak Killed and All His Men Wounded . A party of the 9th Lancers while proceeding from Stokestown to Longford yesterday morning for rations were ambushed by a party estimated to be 200 strong . The strength of the military party is not known , but it is authoritatively reported that Captain Peak was killed , Lieut . Tenant seriously wounded , and all the others wounded . The attackers got away with arms and ammunition . A Mountain Ambush . A police patrol was ambushed on Tuesday night near Drumnin , in the mountains eight miles from Westport in the direction of Clifden . Sergt . Coghlan was killed and two other officers wounded , one of them named Maguire being in a serious condition . Large bodies of police yesterday made a thorough search of the district . General Headquarters , Dublin , in a statement yesterday say that on Tuesday night two bombs were thrown at a military lorry at a street corner in Dublin . Fire was opened on the attackers , who were seen running away . The result of the fire is unknown . 24.3 . An officer and men who dismounted from the lorry were also fired at . Fire was returned , the result being unknown . There were no military casualties . Captured Sinn Feiners Escape . A running fight , lasting about an hour , took place on Tuesday at Lispole Dingle . One police man is reported dead and five wounded , while two attackers were wounded . During the fighting five Sinn Feiners were cap tured , but they got away from custody . Crown forces rushed up and attempted to en circle the ambushers , but without success . One police - sergeant was killed , and three were seriously wounded on Tuesday night at Carry kennedy . Тамса 26,3 PEEK . On the 23rd March , killed whilst on duty in Ireland , CAPTAIN R. G. PEEK , 9th Lancere , dearly loved husband of Joan Peek and younger son of the late Sir C.E. Peek , Bart . , and Hon . Lady Peek , aged 32 . Maning Post , 24.3 LANCERS AMBUSHED . and Three Dead Policemen Missing . An official report issued in Dublin last night stated that a party of 9th Lancers and police , numbering nine , was ambushed near Strokestown , Co. Roscommon , yes terday . About forty attackers fired at point blank range as the car approached a bend , killing an officer and the military driver , and wounding four others . The rebels destroyed the car and took away two unwounded police . A military and police party sent to the scene captured The total Crown two armed rebels . casualties were : One officer and one other rank killed ; one officer died of wounds ; three other ranks and one policeman wounded ; two police missing . A local correspondent states that two military lorries in charge of Captain Peek , 9th Lancers , were carrying prisoners to Longford , when they were attacked at Scramoge . The ambush was prepared at cross roads , flanked by a dense wood , and it is surmised that the attack was made from the wood on one side , and from houses on the other . Captain Peek was an extremely popular officer in Co. Roscommon , and at Strokestown all shops were shuttered as a mark of sympathy . Two Daily Graphic 24.3 NINTH LANCERS IN AN AMBUSCADE . CAPT . PEEK SHOT DEAD AND SEVERAL WOUNDED . A DAY OF FIGHTING . POLICE INFLICT HEAVY LOSSES ON ARMED REBELS . Two hundred rebels ambushed a party of 9th Lancers and police at Seramage , Strokes town , co . Roscommon , early yesterday morn ing . The Crown losses are : Captain R. G. Peek , killed ; Lieutenant J. H. A. Tennant , three soldiers ( all of the 9th Lancers ) and one policeman wounded . Three soldiers and two policemen and arms and ammunition are missing . A local correspondent says that the Crown forces were escorting prisoners , in two lorries , to Longford , and that , besides Captain Peek , four soldiers were shot dead . The ambush was at cross roads flanked by a dense wood , and it is surmised that the attack was made from the wood and from houses on the other side . Captain Peek , whose home is in London , was extremely popular in county Ros common , and his death is deplored at Strokes town , where all shops were shuttered as a mark of sympathy . Troops and police , searching for wanted men in Blarney district , co . Cork , early yesterday morn ing , came under fire from a farm out - house . Hand - to - hand fighting ensued , and six men " on the run " were killed . Police.en hunting for the murderers of loyalists in Roscommon yesterday saw two armed men returning from a raid . A two miles chase ensued , and one of the fugitives , was shot dead . The other escaped . Eleven policemen ambushed by about 200 rebels near Dingle , co . Kerry , on Tuesday night , killed eight , wounded 20 , routed the rest and captured a quantity of arms and ammunition . Four police The same night men were slightly wounded . Sergeant Coghlan , R.I.C. , was killed and three constables were severely wounded in an ambush at Karrow Kennedy , co . Mayo . It was an Five policemen attacked by 50 rehels at Bally poreen , co . Tipperary , killed two and troops , rushed to the scene , captured 30 . nounced yesterday that the curfew in Dublin will continue to begin at 8 p.m. during the Easter holidays , and not at six , as previously reported . Post . 6.4 IRELAND TO - DAY . Manning Sinn Fein's Methods . REVOLTING MURDERS . No Army Only a Gang . No. II . ( FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT . ) SLIGO , It is an insult to all chivalry to speak of the Sinn Fein force as an " Army . " It is a gang without defined organisation , without a flag or a uniform that it can show anywhere in open day . Its members lurk in the slums of Dublin or in remote drinking dens of the country side and prowl out to throw a bomb , to shoot at a wayfarer or to burn a house . Occasion ally the gang is bold enough to plan and carry out an ambush on tip - and - run prin ciples . These ambushes are at the best a mean sort of warfare , but they are war fare , and if carried out by men in uniform and if unstained by the atrocious murders of wounded prisoners might be defended . But they represent only a small propor tion of Sinn Fein activity , which is in the main directed to cold - blooded individual assassination of soldiers , police , public officials , and private citizens . It is an abuse of terms to refer to this as the work of an Army , " and , as I hope to show in a future article , it is a waste of energy to attempt to meet it with an Army . It is on the lines of the " Black Hand " and " Mafia " assassin organisations which have afflicted American cities in the past , and properly to be met by thorough police activity . " SOME TYPICAL OUTRAGES . Not to attempt a catalogue of atrocities -which if it were exhaustive would fill columns - let me cite a few typical crimes which have come under my direct observa tion during my stay in Ireland . The morning that I landed at Dublin within a stone's throw of where I was staying , a gang of four men surrounded an officer , in plain clothes , who was employed in the Dublin Castle postal service , and pistolled him . He was unarmed . Almost before he was dead his murderers slunk away back to their slums . There were scores of onlookers , but if any of them could identify the miscreants they would not do so . had ran of the the The same afternoon a lorry was passing through the streets of Dublin , when a lurk ing Sinn Feiner threw a bomb at it and away . The bomb missed . The sergeant in charge of the lorry had his general instructions in such cases to direct volley fire towards the place of the attack . But it was five o'clock , and the street was crowded , mostly with girls going from shops and offices . Being one " Auxiliaries " ( whom so many of British newspapers represent under the name of " Black and Tans as murderous savages ) he might have been expected not to trouble about their fate and to obey his general orders . But being " Auxiliary " he was also an ex - officer , and he used his discretion and withheld fire seeing that the effect of a volley would be to kill civi lians not directly implicated . His action was endorsed subsequently by higher authority . an The bomb intended for the forces of the Crown wounded two Irish girls . It was a poor sort of bomb or it would have killed several . The wretch who threw it if he were capable of reason must have foreseen some such result . ( I say " if he were cap able of reason " because it is only too clear that many of the murder gang are half witted youths , who are in the Sinn Fein force instead of the lunatic asylum . ) The Sinn Fein Press chronicling this incident stated that " as a lorry contain ing police passed an explosion occurred " and two girls were the victims . The other A MOST ATROCIOUS MURDER . The next day , going to Longford , I was close on the track of a typical country dis trict outrage . At Scramoge , in Longford County , a squad of Lancers and R.I.C. ( nine strong ) in a lorry were ambushed . The Sinn Feiners poured in a volley from behind stone walls and the squad was knocked out before it could get into action . A captain was killed outright and a lieutenant wounded in both legs and the men wounded . The Sinn Feiners came up , set the wounded officer against a wall , and shot him in the stomach . wounded they stripped of their arms , but did not murder . This most foul assassina tion of a seriously wounded man after a successful coup which would have put most savages in a good humour makes it difficult to believe that any sane human feeling had survived in the perpetrators . It was a needless murder done not in sullen desperation but in exultation . Another typical incident at Bally hamine on March 29. A constable ( aged nineteen ) went out unarmed and unac companied to meet his girl . He was shot in the back . The girl threw herself over his prostrate body and the assassin ran away . The constable was brought in alive and is now in Galway Hospital . It is doubtful if he will survive . At Clifden the police had been living in fancied security , the inhabitants profess ing friendliness . In response , it is sur mised , to a complaint from Sinn Fein head quarters of the unhappy state of peace in the district , an ambush was arranged and two police shot dead . THE SPIRIT OF TREACHERY . The note which is dominant in all these crimes is their treachery and their callous recklessness of human life , even the life of their own friendly Irish womenfolk . A score of similar crimes may be collected from any month's record . Each one of them proclaims the same message , that the criminal lunatics responsible for them should be exterminated before there is any discussion even of what political claims Sinn Fein wishes to advance . |
