Exactly four months after her disappearance, the funeral took place in Strabane, Co Tyrone, yesterday of Ms Attracta Harron, the 65-year-old mother of five whose body was found concealed in a field at Concess Road near Sion Mills last Monday afternoon.
Ms Harron, a retired librarian, was last seen alive as she walked to her Strabane home after attending morning Mass in St Patrick's Church, Murlog, Lifford, Co Donegal, last December 11th. A twenty-one-year old unemployed man, Mr Trevor Hamilton, Concess Road, Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, is currently in custody charged with her murder, a charge which he has denied.
Hundreds of mourners, among them police officers from both sides of the Border who took part in the search for Ms Harron, as well as members of several mountain search-and-rescue teams, joined the Harron family in the Church of the Immaculate Conception for Mass of the Resurrection. Following the Mass, Ms Harron was buried in the cemetery adjoining St Patrick's Church, Murlog.
The Parish Priest, Father Declan Boland, told the congregation that the barbarity and callousness of Ms Harron's death, and the ruthless way in which it was carried out, had caused a profound shock. "It has crushed the hearts of her family and of her many many friends. This heinous crime has shaken us to the core and we struggle to comprehend the evil that would perpetrate such savagery and violence on such a loving, trusting and gentle soul that was Attracta", he said.
"Attracta was not afforded any rights, her dignity completely disregarded on that terrible day, yet she would have been the very first, in her involvement with others, to recognise their dignity and rights and treat them with gentleness, courtesy and respect. This Easter we are a community in mourning, a wounded, traumatised people."
Father Boland said the tragedy had united the entire community in Strabane to a degree that had never happened before and he said it had brought out the very best in people.