The Topeka State Journal

TELL OF IRELAND

Relatives of Late Lord Mayor MacCurtain to Speak Here.

Susanna and Anna Walsh Will Lecture Thursday.

Miss Susanna and Miss Anna Walsh, sisters-in-law of the murdered Lord Mayor MacCurtain of Cork, will speak at the auditorium tomorrow night at 7:30 o'clock. No admission will be charged to the lectures. These young ladies are making a farewell speaking tour of the principal cities of Kansas before returning to their homes in Ireland. They have won great reputations as speakers and have shown that the women of new Ireland are possessed with education, refinement and culture.

Miss Susanna Walsh spent several years in France, Spain and Italy, and was called back to Ireland to take charge of her brother-in-law's business. She managed it alone thru the turbulent times attending the establishment of the Irish republic, as Thomas MacCurtain devoted all his time and energy to the cause of his country. When she came to this country last December, she closed the factory, and will reopen it upon her return home.

Both Are Business Women.

Miss Anna Walsh was head of a department in a large retail store in Cork. Both are business women and were and are still actively interested in the Republican government in Ireland. They were in the house and saw the murder of their brother-in-law.

Thomas MacCurtain, lord mayor of Cork, was the first elected under the Irish republic and was considered one of the ablest men in the Republican movement. He was an administrative genius and in the three short months he held office, established civic systems that are now being used in Cork and other towns and cities of Ireland. By his personality he had welded together all factions and classes, and his government of Cork was a marvel of tranquillity. To be popular in Ireland is not safe.

At 1 o'clock in the morning, March 20, 1920, his house was broken into by a band of armed men, their faces blackened, and they were further disguised by wearing long coats. They called Lord Mayor MacCurtain from his bedroom and shot him as he crossed the threshold. He died fifteen minutes later. As a testimony of the esteem in which he was held, practically the entire city and county of Cork went to his funeral.

The American commission on conditions in Ireland invited his widow to this country to give testimony as to this tragedy and other happenings. The news of this invitation got abroad and an attempt was made on her life. Her health, already poor, was completely shattered by the shock and as she was unable to make this trip, her two sisters, Susanna and Anna Walsh, came to this country in her stead.

After finishing their testimony before the commission, they were invited to many cities to speak on present day conditions in Ireland, under the auspices of the American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic. Besides achieving a personal triumph, they have won many members for this fast growing organization. The American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic has already passed the million mark. It is a wholly American, strictly non-sectarian association, formed with the single object of obtaining recognition of the Irish republic, by the United States government. It is a moral movement, and the association is carrying on a campaign of education on Ireland and the Irish republic as it is today.

The association will eventually have councils in every community and by means of speakers and literature, will place before the American public the actual facts and the right of the Irish republic to recognition.