Seward Daily Gateway

SIXTY-FIVE DIE IN MOVING PICTURE
THEATER FIRE, IRELAND--MANY ARE
TRAMPLED IN WILD RUSH FOR EXIT
UNPROTECTED MOVIE PROJECTOR IN MIDDLE
OF HALL--FILMS ON TABLE NEARBY--TWENTY-
NINE BODIES UNRECOGNIZABLE -BUILDING
WAS SHEDLIKE STRUCTURE AND UPPER
FLOOR USED FOR HALL
CIGARETTE PLACED ON FILM SAID BEEN CAUSE OF FIRE
Windows Barred With Iron Strips--Solitary Door Only
Exit -Flames Consume Supports, Floors Collapsed
Hurling People to Floor Below, Where They Were
Crushed and Burned
LIMERICK, Ireland, Sept. 8. (P)--Forty-nine were
reported killed and ten injured where a fire in an improvised
wooden movie theatre with an unscreened projecting
apparatus caught on fire. One door was the only exit
and many were trampled and burned. Twenty-nine of the
bodies recovered were unrecognizable.
LONDON, Sept. 8. (AP) -Later reports from Drum-
collogher, Ireland, showed that about 65 were killed and
many bodies consumed. The place was a shedlike structure
forming an upper story of an old building and was
reached by a narrow ladder and a small solitary doorway.
The little windows were barred with iron rods. Flames
consumed the supports and the floor collapsed, and persons
inside fell to the store below, where they were crushed
and burned. The fire was ascribed by someone laying a
cigarette on the table beside the films.
LIMERICK, Ireland, Sept. 8. (AP)--
A crowd broke the store windows of
Patrick William Ford, owner of the
wooden building where the cinema
tragedy occurred. Drumcollogher Ireland,
reports Ford and the movie operator
Patrick Downing are in the custody of the officers.
DRUMCOLLOUGHER, Ire. Sept. 8.
(AP)-The old wooden building had no
fire apparatus and was packed with
men, women and children. The unprotected
movie projector was in the middle of the hall with inflammable
films on a nearby table on which a
candle was burning, was the stage
described at the inquest. Operator
Downing said after the two films on
the table caught fire, the crowd was
still for awhile, then rushed for the
door.