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Showing posts from January, 2021

PORTGLENONE MURDER 1832 - a quiet man who deserves to be remembered.

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  A report of a murder near Portglenone appeared in the pages of the Northern Whig newspaper dated 11 June 1832: 'On Monday the fourth inst. Arthur Henry, a respectable, inoffensive man (a Catholic) of the parish of Tamlaght O'Crilly, was on his way home from Bellaghey fair, waylaid and so inhumanly beaten and abused between Bellaghey and Portglenone that he expired Wednesday last. He has left behind him a wife and seven children. He was a very quiet man, and was never implicated in any party measures'. It seems there had been an upsurge in party violence in the Portglenone area in previous months. A stipendiary magistrate had arrived in the town on the 8th June to 'deal out justice and teach a wholesome lesson to the disturbers of public peace'. In memory of a quiet man - Arthur Henry.

Judge John McCunn of Burnally, Limavady

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Judge John H. McCunn (November 2, 1820 – July 6, 1872) was born Burnally, Myroe, Limavady on 2nd November 1820 son of William McCunn and Martha [Matty] McKinley. Tamlaght Finlagan (Ballykelly) Church of Ireland baptismal register gives his birth details as follows - 1820 - Nov 2nd John son of Wm & Martha McCunn, Burnally [page 97]. McCunn said he walked into New York in a red flannel shirt and canvas trousers and eventually walked out as a Judge of the Central Criminal Court. He amassed a fortune and bought the large farm at Farmhill, Coleraine, which passed to his brothers and later to the Bullick family. McCunn presented in 1857 two magnificent silver tea services for competition at Keenaught Farming Society's ploughing match (Derry Sentinel 3 July 1857). He died in New York on 6th July 1872 shortly after having been impeached in a political scandal. He was a self-made man, his life being a somewhat remarkable one. When a child he conceived a fondness for a sailor's life,