Mourners pay tribute to murdered pensioner

Hundreds of mourners today gathered at the funeral of a woman whose body was found last week after she had been missing for four months.

Retired librarian and mother-of-five Attracta Harron, 65, was discovered buried in a hidden grave near Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, last Monday, days after a 21-year-old man was charged with her murder.

Mrs Harron disappeared last December as she made her way home from mass in Lifford, Co Donegal, just across the border from her home in Strabane, Co Tyrone.

Her remains were uncovered after a major operation involving police on both sides of the Irish border, with specialist search teams from Britain called in at one stage.

Requiem Mass was staged for Mrs Harron at the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Strabane, and she was buried afterwards in Lifford’s Murlog cemetery.

Local priest Father Declan Boland said the last four months had been very difficult for the Harron family.

He told mourners the murder had shaken the locality to the core.

“People have been left struggling to comprehend the evil that perpetrated such savagery and violence on such a loving, trusting and gentle soul.”

He talked of the barbarity and callousness of Mrs Harron’s death and the “ruthless and merciless way in which it was carried out” that had numbed and shocked the community and crushed the hearts of her family.

Unemployed Sion Mills student Trevor Hamilton has been charged with Mrs Harron’s murder.