16 JULY 1921, Page 3

On the eve of the truce tragic riots began in

Belfast. In the early hours of Monday morning a band of Sinn Feiners attacked a party of police, killing one constable and seriously wounding two. This outrage led to the usual retaliation. A number of houses were burned and the Falls and Springfield districts were, as the Belfast correspondent of the Times said, "in a state of ferment." The police and soldiers had continually to return the fire which was opened upon them. Altogether fourteen persons were killed and over a hundred were wounded. The rioting continued long after the truce was supposed to be in operation, and it seems that the provocation in most cases came, as it did at the outset, from the Sinn Fehiers.