25 YEARS AGO/1982
Row over police station fence
A ROW has erupted over the erection of a 12-foot high iron security fence surrounding police property adjoining the RUC Station on the Mountjoy Road in Omagh.
Local residents feel that the structure will create a bad impression to tourists visiting the Grange – the offices of Omagh District Council – in the green-belt area opposite the police station, and that it would affect the rateable value of nearby houses and their re-sale value in what is one of Omagh's longest-established residential areas.
The fence requires planning permission and a spokesman for the local Planning Service pointed out that the law is not being broken. At the same time, should the application be refused, then the structure would have to be taken down. The residents fear that, should the application be rejected, there could be difficulty amending what has already been constructed.
One of the residents stressed that their protest was not anti-RUC; they understood completely the need for a security fence.
Carrickmore man found dead
A CARRICKMORE man, who was found dead in his Omagh flat, could have died days earlier, according to police. The 26-year-old man's body was found in his flat at Camowen Terrace. He was last seen around five days previous.
The discovery was made by a relation when she called at the flat. After failing to gain entry, she raised the alarm and was assisted by several men who were working nearby. They forced their way into the flat where they found the young man dead.
The deceased, who was single and lived alone, suffered from epilepsy for a number of years.
50 YEARS AGO/1957
Sub-machine guns found
FOUR sub-machine guns, each with a fully-loaded magazine attached and 120 rounds of spare ammunition, were found by the police in a sandpit near Coalisland. The guns were in working order and appeared to have been oiled and cleaned. With the ammunition, they were contained in a large suitcase.
The discovery was made by police during a search of the sandpit at Brackaville. Head Constable R Hyndman, Dungannon, and Sergeant AJ Ovens, Coalisland, with other officers continued to search the area after the discovery.
There have been a number of incidents in the Coalisland area. In other areas of Northern Ireland, there was a considerable police activity and a number of people were questioned.
Coal found near Dungannon
AFTER months of preparation, a five-feet coal seam has been discovered at Rossmore, near Dungannon. The first samples brought to the surface have proved to be of high bituminous quality, and have been proved to be part of the Drumglass coal measures.
Boring operations have proved a three-feet seam at a greater depth than the five-feet one now about to be worked. The task of de-watering the old Drumglass deep mine has been accomplished, and the electrically operated pump is now resting at 160 feet, which is 60 feet below the new shaft at Rossmore, a quarter of a mile distant.
The pumping of over 20 million gallons of water from the former workings has been accomplished in 13 days - one day ahead of schedule - and this leaves the 100 feet Rossmore shaft dry right to the bottom.
75 YEARS AGO/1932
Murder of Tyrone girl
COALISLAND was visited by detectives and statements taken from local residents, having it is understood, an important bearing on the mystery of the death of the Dungannon girl, Minnie Reid, who was found murdered at Derryane, near the Birches.
It has now been definitely ascertained that the girl, an expectant mother, was murdered and the theory that the body was conveyed by motor-car to the laneway where it was found has been explored.
At the resumed Inquest, Head-Constable Slack said from the position of the razor and the body and the nature of the wounds it would have been impossible for the girl to cut her own throat and thrown the razor away so far.
Another display of bigotry
THE Unionist members of the Omagh Rural District Council added another chapter to their already unenviable record for bigotry when the claims of a Catholic ex-serviceman, who served in the European War, were ignored and a young man named Gibson accepted as the tenant of a labourer's cottage near Fintona.
It did not matter to the unionists that Fleming was seriously wounded in the war, and that there is still some German ammunition lodged in his head.
All that seemed to matter was that he was a Catholic, and as such – even if he covered himself with glory on the battlefield – would not get the tenancy of a labourer's cottage under that bigoted body if there was a Protestant available for it.
100 YEARS AGO/1907
The colonel and his whiskers
COLONEL E. O'Sullivan, one of the best known political leaders in Louisiana, has just lost an action in the New Orleans courts on the ground that loss of his whiskers cannot be considered a disfigurement or inconvenience.
Col. O'Sullivan claimed $60,000 from several prominant rival politicians for assault and loss of whiskers. The case resulted from a political fracas during elections.
The colonel's most conspicious adornment was a flowing white beard and noble whiskers, and during a squabble on election day a number of his opponents seized him and cut off his whiskers and beard with a pir of scissors.
Mother charged with attempting suicide
WHEN a respectably dressed woman was charged at Birmingham with attempting suicide by taking poison, her husband and two daughters stood weeping in the dock.
The girls admitted giving their mother trouble. She complained that they stayed out late and went to work in their Sunday clothes, and when she reproved them they answered her back.
Between her sobs the defendant said she only wanted her girls to be good and get home in time to get up early enough to go to church. She was discharged, her husband promising to look after her.
– NIGEL McDONAGH
