25 YEARS AGO/1983

Jailed for threats to Catholics

A FORMER UDR man who admitted issuing death threats to Catholics in the Fivemiletown area was jailed for two years at Belfast Crown Court. The 28-year-old admitted 15 offences against local Catholics including intimidation and attempted intimidation through death threats and ten counts of criminal damage.

Judge John Curran told the man that his behaviour was like a "slow poison seeping through the Fivemiletown area".

"This type of behaviour is comparable in my view to taking a gun to go out and shoot people," he said.

The court heard that the man singled out his targets because of their religion. He had sent letters containing death threats, loyalist slogans and obscene pictures to a man and wife and to another man. He had also daubed 'UVF' across a Fivemiletown shop window and painted part of the frame blue.

£25,000 for girl kicked by horse

A YOUNG Omagh girl who lost the sight of an eye when kicked by a horse was awarded £25,000 compensation in the High Court. The girl sued the Ministry of Defence.

The court was told that the girl went into a field near Lisanelly Camp with her father, her pet Labrador 'Fad' and another dog on February 28, 1980. The field was used for grazing horses and the girl went over to a mare which resented her attentions to her foal and kicked out – killing 'Fad' and knocking the girl unconscious. A soldier on guard duty saw what happened and rushed to get her assistance and helped to get her removed to the Tyrone County Hospital. Afterwards she had lost the sight of her eye, but did not remember anything of going to hospital or being in a helicopter.

50 YEARS AGO/1958

Daring Omagh robberies

THREE Omagh businesses were broken into during daring weekend robberies which would appear to have been carried out by an experienced gang. A sum between £200 and £300 was stolen from Messrs CA Anderson hardware merchants, Market Street. The thieves apparently entered through the window of a rear office. In an inner office they overturned a safe containing a considerable sum of money and forced open the back.

Entrance to FW Wellworth's general store at Market Street was also obtained through the rear from the river bank. The thieves stole goods and cash totalling almost £40.

The third robbery was carried out on the premises of Messrs Crawford and Wilson, High Street, to which entrance was gained from the Old Market Yard. The thieves failed to force the door of the strongroom although they made a hole in it. Only a few fountain pens and wallets were taken.

Shirt factory closes

TWENTY local girls employed in the Somax Shirt Factory, Clogher, will draw their wages there for the last time when the factory closes its doors. This factory, which has given work to an average of 30 girls for the past 25 years, is ceasing production, not because of a slump in business, but due to the management's inability to recruit sufficient local girls.

When asked to what he attributed the labour shortage, owner and manager Thomas Stockdale said it was due to a number of reasons, chief among them being the higher education available to working-class girls.

To keep the factory going the management advertised widely in the local press and displayed posters throughout the countryside.

75 YEARS AGO/1933

Child's body in field

INFORMATION was conveyed to the police at Castlederg that the body of a child, wrapped in a parcel, was lying in a field of Mrs McHugh's, Drumnabey. Sgt Flannigan proceeded to the place and had the body removed to the workhouse mortuary.

At the inquest, Robert Clarke, labourer, said he was walking along Mrs McHugh's field beside the public road, when he noticed what he took to be a bundle of old rags in the mud that had been cleaned from a drain. He did not examine it closely but two weeks later he noticed the bundle was still there. He examined it, and noticed a child's leg protruding from the parcel.

Dr Leary, Castlederg, said the body was that of a male child fully developed. Decomposition was well advanced. He was of the opinion that the child was not born alive.

Communist quarters attacked

WILD scenes took place in Dublin when several hundred young men marched on Connolly House, the headquarters of the Irish Revolutionary Workers' Group and attacked it. Bricks and other missiles were thrown at the windows of the building, which was later found to be on fire.

The marchers fought their way up the staircase of the building and attacked the men in the building, who retreated through the upper storeys.

The police had considerable trouble in dislodging the intruders, and there were repeated baton charges.

Twenty persons were injured, four of whom were taken to hospital and detained. One man was found to be suffering from a shot wound in the right knee.

100 YEARS AGO/1908

Driving accident

AS Miss Rachel Fleming, aged about 16 years, was driving a pony and trap from Pomeroy to her grandfather's house near the Rock, she was met, about three miles from her destination, by a man driving a horse and car.

The man, it is stated, was driving rapidly and in the middle of the road, and his vehicle collided with that driven by Miss Fleming, overturning it.

She was thrown out on the road, and received a severe cut on the head. The man drove on, leaving her to raise her vehicle, one shaft of which was broken.

The accident was not witnessed by anyone, and the plucky young lady had to mend the shafts as best she could, and walk the three miles to her grandfather's house.

Fell into boiling vat

A WORCESTER man named 'Digger' met with a terrible death.

Digger, who was a monumental mason, was assisting a friend, a publican, with his brewing, and mounted with a sack of malt upon his shoulders up the steps leading to the brewing vat for the purpose of tipping the contents into the boiling liquid.

The sack, however, proved too heavy, and the man overbalanced and disappeared with the sack into the vat.

Digger was dragged out terribly scalded, and in a dying condition, and was removed to the infirmary, where he expired.

– Nigel McDonagh