Owner and editor of various newspapers told to leave country or be killed

Dublin, 11 December 1922 – The owner of the Freeman’s Journal newspaper and the editor of the Irish Independent have both been ordered to leave Ireland or be killed.

The threat to the former, Martin Fitzgerald, was issued to the offices of the Freeman newspaper on Middle Abbey Street by the Dublin Brigade of the anti-Treaty IRA.

The letter dated the 6th of December states that Mr Fitzgerald refused to obey previously issued ‘orders’ from the IRA and instead persisted in a ‘campaign of misrepresentation’ against them. Mr Fitzgerald had, the letter claims, been ‘clearly told either to (a) hand your paper over to [Free State] Provisional Government to be run by them as a [Free State] organ or (b) to be a free press.’

Fitzgerald, who was imprisoned and whose paper was previously suppressed by the British government, was given until 12 o’clock noon on 8 December 1922, to leave Ireland or face the penalty of death.

A similar threat was delivered to the office of the editor of the Irish Independent, Timothy Harrington.

This is not the first time that Mr Harrington has been targeted. On 25 November two men called to his private residence and intimated to his wife that her husband had been ordered by the Republican Army to quit the country by 8pm that night or ‘be shot at sight’.

Threatening letters have also been issued since last summer to the chairman and staff members of Independent Newspapers.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]