March 23rd, 1916
Nine young men, three of them 15, arrested in Tullamore in connection with the alleged attempt to murder four police on Monday night in the Sinn Féin Rooms. The arrests were effected at dinner hour by detachments of armed police. There was no resistance.
The American newspapers report popular unrest in Bavaria, Westphalia, Wurtemberg, and other parts of the German Empire. In Bavaria, processions of thousands of men and women are marching through the streets in protest against sending boys under 19 to the front. The rioting recently became so serious that the troops were called out, but the soldiers refused to fire on the populace, and a mutiny broke out in certain battalions. Hundreds of soldiers were shot to prevent the mutiny spreading.
Editorial – "The tercentenary of Shakespeare's death is at hand, but no hint has reached us that Dublin intends to take any formal notice of it. The proper celebration would be, of course, a week of Shakespearean drama, performed by a good company, at one of our principal theatres . . . It is quite probable that the tercentenary of "unser Shakespeare" will be celebrated in Berlin . . . but not on the boards of any theatre in Ireland . . .
"At this time, the whole Empire is fighting for ideals that Shakespeare, more than any other human being, helped to shape and glorify. Irish soldiers are bleeding and dying for those ideals. Is it wholly impossible that at such a time we in Dublin should render thanks to Shakespeare, on the three hundredth anniversary, of his death, by a worthy performance of his greatest play ? One thing, at any rate, is certain, if in 1916 Shakespeare would "spell bankruptcy" in a British capital, while Mr Charles Chaplin earns £130,000 a year, we must, for very shame, cease to sneer at Germany's title to the possession of Shakespeare. She is acquiring him, as the lawyers say, by right of usucapio."
Irish Times reports: "Colonel Ruttledge at Castleconnell on Tuesday, hooked a fine spring salmon. The fish turned the scale at 431bs" . . .
“At Athlone yesterday the magistrates imposed a fine of £2 on Edward Browne for having fished in the Shannon with two rods when he had only a licence to fish with one. The defendant also had a licence taken out by his employer, and thought that it entitled him to use the second rod in his master’s absence . . .”