The day a solicitor was murdered with a hook in Omagh town centre

A SOLICITOR and a blacksmith were the central figures in a grim tragedy news of which shocked Omagh and the north-west on a bright August afternoon over 150 ago. All Ulster was startled to learn from the newspapers on the following morning that John MacCrossan, a popular and gifted lawyer had been murdered in Omagh’s Castle Street in a particularly appalling fashion.

For a time, until the details became more widely known, the authorities were fearful that there might be political repercussions, for John MacCrossan was, in those far-off times, the only solicitor of national tendencies in the county town and he was much in demand as a speaker at big public gatherings.

Back in 1864 the position of nationalists in Tyrone was hopeless. They had neither position nor influence. The Grand Jury ran everything, and not one Catholic was a member. In the courts the judges were picked from the Ascendancy. John MacCrossan was a forceful advocate and a fearless exponent of public rights.

For this he was regarded with hostility by what we would nowadays term the Establishment. But just the same the news of his cruel death was learned by everyone, friend and opponent alike, with feelings of horror and revulsion.

Older people in Omagh will recall hearing the story from their grandparents, but it is probably true that most of the townspeople know nothing at all about the grim deed enacted in Castle Street on that August afternoon and which had its origin in a demented man’s grudge against a hardworking and conscientious solicitor.

MacCrossan came the Dregish area of Drumquin and after completing the course of study required in those times for admission as solicitor, he commenced practising in Omagh.

Advocacy was the prime qualification in those days. Very little law sufficed to get a man through a more or less formal examination. What counted was the capacity to cross-examine and a flair for oratory in addressing juries. Poor MacCrossan had these essentials in generous measure.

He lived with his wife and family in what is nowadays the Gaol Square area and then known as Gaol Parade, where he had a fine house.

Not far distant, in Castle Street, there lived a blacksmith, one John McLoughlin. Their paths were fated to cross in blood and death.

Unlike what it Is today, the western end of Omagh in 1864 bore ravages common to most small towns in Ireland of the period. The marks of the bad old Famine days were still there, reflected in the rows of small, dingy, poorly thatched and uncared-for houses.

John McLoughlin lived about the centre of Castle Street on the north side and his forge was to the rear of tha small house where he dwelt. He was personally popular, was acknowledged to be hard-working and to be a competent craftsman.

But those who knew him best remarked that he was liable to go into fierce fits of rage if he was thwarted in anything, and that he would brood on wrongs, whether these were real or imaginary.

Yet he was kind to young and old. He was, however, very much a man of impulse and would do a thing on the spur of the moment, or in a temper, and then lament that he ever had ever done it.

There had been some litigation in regard to McLoughlin’s little house and forge and an ejectment decree was hanging over his head at the time of the murder.

Unfortunately, the lawyer John MacCrossan, and his brother, Charles MacCrossan, were interested parties in the case.

Charles was a deputy sheriff, and this fact strengthened poor McLoughlin in his belief that in some way or other he had been taken advantage of by the MacCrossans who, he thought, had used their legal knowledge to have him noticed out of his holding.

In his belief he nursed a strong resentment against John MacCrossan but does not appear to have gone any further than making his displeasure known to anyone who would listen to him.

And the whole affair might have passed off merely with mutterings and ill-will had not events taken a strange and ominous turn that gave McLoughlin an opportunity to have revenge in full.

On this August afternoon MacCrossan was walking down Castle Street but on being greeted by an acquaintance, halted opposite an entry yard by the premises occupied by McLoughlin, and commenced to chat.

The blacksmith was in an upstairs room of his house and on hearing the talk, looked out.to see John MacCrossan directly below him on the street.

At a glance McLoughlin took in the situation and, as the Crown afterwards contended at the trial, proceeded to put into effect a plan long pre-meditated.

It appears he had worked in his ‘smithy forging a weapon of his own design – a sort of iron gaff or ‘cleek’ with a long handle. The Crown’s case was that McLoughlin’s use of the weapon was no mere impulse or motivated by bad temper; the suggestion was that he foresaw a chance would come and that he was resolved to take it and to be prepared.

As John MacCrossan and his fellow-townsman talked on the side-walk, rain began to fall.

Poor MacCrossan raised his umbrella and sought to shelter himself from the summer drops.

But something else was soon coming against which there was to be no protection.

McLoughlin quietly reached for his curious and deadly weapon.

From the open window he stealthily lowered it and then, with a quick upward thrust, caught his poor victim in the throat with a fearsome iron hook.

The force of the thrust almost bodily lifted the unfortunate gentleman off his feet.

Whether the blacksmith used words or not, is not certain. He was supposed to have cried out, “I’ve cleeked you now; get off that if you can!’ but the words (if ever uttered) were not put in evidence against him.

For a moment the bystander and a few passers-by were horrified and then all rushed to poor MacCrossan’s aid. But his time on this earth was quickly seen to be all too brief. Word was sent hurriedly for medical assistance and three doctors were quickly on the scene. There was no stretcher available, but a resident offered a shutter, and on this the unconscious form of the solicitor was borne to his home.

He had sustained terrible injuries under his chin.

Blood gushed from the gaping hole on to the clothes of the helpers as they sought to ease his suffering.

Crowds gathered as though from nowhere. In a short time upwards of 150 people were on the scene, and these hustled and jostled their way as the dying man was borne onwards to his home in the Gaol Parade.

And there a still more haunting scene took place.

The glorious August sunshine had lighted up the Parade after a brief shower and the lively MacCrossan children were spiritedly romping in a front room, the windows of which overlooked the Parade.

The surging crowd attracted their attention. ‘They are bringing a man to gaol,’ shouted the children as they gazed out at the people coming steadily onwards.

All too soon, however, Mrs MacCrossan and her young family were disillusioned when the swaying crowd halted in front of their home and the terrible news was broken to them.

They are said never to have fully recovered from the shock.

Within a few months of the tragedy they left Omagh never to return, and made their home in Dublin.

But what was happening in the blacksmith’s house?

The Royal Irish Constabulary had been sent for and at once proceeded to effect his arrest. This, however, was not too simple a matter.

McLoughlin had remained in the room, but he had bolted it strongly, and entrance could not be effected from within the house.

County Inspector A W Heard was equal to the emergency.

He directed his Sub-Inspector John Croker to ‘call up the ‘black sergeant’, this last-named being a formidable local policeman who feared nothing and who would try anything.

The ‘black sergeant’ with his revolver in his hand was raised upwards from the street by his colleagues towards the stillopened window.

He quickly swung himself over the sill and bounded into the locked room where McLoughlin was standing by the opposite wall near the door and still clutching his weapon of death.

A curt order to surrender was at once obeyed; the ‘black sergeant’ was known not to take chances.

Held in strict custody until his trial, the blacksmith made no difficulty about the evidence.

The authorities were in some doubt as to whether he could be said to be responsible, in law, for his action, but ultimately went ahead with the prosecution, deciding to leave that aspect of the matter to the Court.

His trial at the March Assizes in Omagh 1865 was brief.

The Court sentenced him to penal servitude for life.

As he turned to leave the dock, those in Court thought they had seen the last of John McLoughlin, blacksmith, of Castle Street.

But they were wrong.

McLoughlin lived to complete 20 years of his sentence and when over 60 years of age was released on condition that he reported regularly to the police.

The Government offered him a free passage to another country but this he declined, preferring to return to Omagh where for upwards of 21 years he engaged in his work as a ‘smith and was a familiar figure in the town. He died in 1907.

The unfortunate John MacCrossan was buried in his native Dregish, the funeral being of immense proportions.

He was greatly mourned in Omagh where he had inaugurated a tradition of forceful advocacy on behalf of the downtrodden and the oppressed.

His widow and family lived out their days in Dublin.

The last of the family, his daughter, Margaret, died on Christmas Day, 1924, at Monkstown, Co Dublin, where she had lived for many years.

She was the last direct link with the terrible tragedy that had appalled the North many years earlier.

It is of interest to note that County Inspector Heard was still in the town in 1872 when he had as Sub-Inspector a certain Thomas Hartley Montgomery, remembered now only for the local crime of the century – the murder of William Glass, the bank cashier at Newtownstewart.

Adapted from Ulster Herald archive: January 13, 1973