Irish Tragedy

One William Ford, storekeeper in the village of Drumcollogher, County Limerick, welcomed to the musty loft of his barn last week a crowd of eager Irish peasants who climbed up the single rickety ladder, sat down in rapt expectance of Drumcollogher's first cinema show, a drama called The Decoy.

The operator, one Patrick Downing, planted his projector on a table in front of the barn-theatre's only door, ground off one reel of film, another. Then suddenly he screamed--too late--as a spark from a nearby candle fell on a roll of film lying on the table. . . .

While hot, hissing celluloid flames cut off the only door, the barn, tinder-dry, kindled with a roar. Forty-nine persons were burned to death in this, the worst cinema-theatre fire in the history of the British Isles.

The fire achieved international notice when the Government of Ulster despatched to the Government of the Irish Free State the first message of sympathy and condolence which has ever passed between these perpetually contentious regimes.