Tullyhommon

Tullyhommon or Tullyhomman (from Irish: Tulaigh Uí Thiomáin, meaning "Ó Tiomáin's hillock") is a small village in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is beside the bigger village of Pettigo, which lies in County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. The two are divided by the River Termon, which forms part of the boundary between Northern Ireland and the Republic. In the 2001 Census the village had a population of 81 people.

History

The Troubles

On 30 August 1973, British Army officer S/Sgt Ronald Beckett (aged 36) was killed while trying to defuse a bomb planted by the Provisional IRA at Tullyhommon Post Office.

On 8 November 1987, a Provisional IRA bomb exploded at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in nearby Enniskillen, killing 11 people and injuring 63. A few hours after the blast, the IRA called a radio station and said it had abandoned a 150 pounds (68 kg) bomb in Tullyhommon after it failed to detonate. That morning, a Remembrance Sunday parade (which included many members of the Boys' and Girls' Brigades) had unwittingly gathered near the bomb, which was larger and had the capacity to inflict more casualties than those at Enniskillen. British soldiers and RUC officers had also been there, and the IRA said it triggered the bomb when soldiers were standing beside it. It was defused by security forces and was found to have a command wire leading to a "firing point" across the border.

People

• Basil McIvor (17 June 1928 – 5 November 2004), Ulster Unionist politician and pioneer of integrated education, was born in Tullyhommon.