Teebane widow calls for justice

A WOMAN whose husband was one of eight men murdered in the ‘Teebane Massacre’ 31 years ago has called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

The annual Teebane memorial service took place on Sunday past at the crossroads on the main Cookstown-Omagh road. It remembers the eight Protestant workmen who died when their van was blown up by a 500lb road-side bomb at Teebane crossroads between Omagh and Cookstown on January 17, 1992.

Six other men were injured.

Those who died were Gary Bleeks (25), Cecil Caldwell (37), Robert Dunseath (25), Oswald Gilchrist (44), David Harkness (23), Bobby Irons (61) Richard McConnell (38) and Nigel McKee (22).

The men, who worked for Karl Construction, had been returning from work at the Lisanelly Army Barracks. No one has been convicted of the attack. The Provisional IRA later claimed responsibility and said the men were targeted because they had been doing construction work at an army barracks in Omagh.

Jean Caldwell who lost her 37-year-old husband Cecil in the attack, said 31 years on, “It doesn’t get any easier.”

“I think as you get older it gets harder,” she added. “The families have met many government ministers over the years about the murders.

“But you just get fed up hearing the same old thing over and over again. Nothing ever comes out of it.”

The families did get an Historical Enquiries Team report into the attack but Mrs Caldwell described as “useless.”

“I only read a quarter of it and I was disgusted with it.”

Mrs Caldwell recalled being “shattered and heartbroken” when she was told the atrocity had been carried out and her husband was one of the victims.

“How do you explain to a two-and-a-half year old girl who was standing crying waiting on her daddy coming from work?” she recalled.

Her message as she commemorates another anniversary, is clear: “Chief Constable – put us out of our misery and get these people brought to justice.”