From The Times, March 21, 1922
The news from Monaghan, Tyrone, and other parts of the Ulster border grows steadily worse. We hear no more of the border commissions which were set up a month ago in the hope of easing the tension. The situation has passed beyond their control. The country on both sides of the line is occupied by hostile armed forces, which have already engaged in long-distance sniping. Trenches have been dug, roads barricaded and bridges blown up; peaceable inhabitants have left their homes and fled over the border to seek shelter among their co-religionists. Worse than that, members of the Irish Republican Army, not content with defensive measures, have crossed into Ulster and raided police barracks at Pomeroy and Maghera, and several other cases of wanton and provocative aggression on their part in the territory of the Northern State are reported by our Belfast Correspondent. It is obvious that collisions of this kind cannot continue without the gravest risk of starting a conflagration which may blaze through the whole country. The only hope of avoiding it lies in the self-restraint of all moderate-minded men in both States.
Our Dublin Correspondent telegraphs that Mr de Valera has shocked the whole country. He has actually declared that if the electors support the Treaty his followers will wade through Irish blood to defeat it. If they never have realized it before, the Irish people know now what they have to expect from the Republican leader. It is the opinion of our Correspondent that Mr de Valera and those who support and encourage him are aware now that the country is against them, and are trying to intimidate the Provisional Government. In that purpose he does not believe that they will succeed. On the contrary, Mr Griffith and Mr Collins are gaining new strength, are making their plans for the elections with courage and confidence, and will not hesitate, he says, to take disciplinary measures where Republican troops are out of hand. Without a shadow of doubt, if they will deal promptly in this spirit with the deluded men of the Republican Army who are doing their utmost to stir up civil strife on the Ulster border they will have the whole of the rest of the South and West behind them.