We have received a letter from the Clerical Secretary of
the Irish Church Missions describing the rioting in Limerick after the Unionist meeting held in the theatre on the 10th inst. Not only were the Protestant clergy and others mobbed and struck, but the windows of the Protestant shop- keepers in the principal streets were broken, Trinity and St. Michael's churches and the Wesleyan church were partially wrecked, over a thousand stones were thrown into the Havergal Hall, and the windows of Archdeacon Hackett's house were broken. In short, though a few Roman Catholic Unionists suffered, the attack was almost entirely directed against Protestants. This account is confirmed in every particular by a private letter which we have received from a Limerick resident, as well as by the accounts in the limerick Chronicle, which show that the police were absolutely powerless to check the rioters. We are constantly assured that religious and political intolerance is unknown outside of Ulster. The recent experience of the Protestant Unionists of Limerick may help us to estimate this bland optimism at its true value. Just imagine the Liberal comments if a Protestant mob had acted like this in Londonderry.
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