THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Townlands fined for malicious destruction of flax

At the Co Armagh Assizes this week in 1868 Mr Thomas Finnigan was awarded for £40 10s to reimburse him a for malicious injury which had been committed on October 14, 1867, in the townland of Foughill-etra in the parish of Jonesborough, reported the News Letter.

Mr Finnigan told the assizes that he had rented land from a Mr Jones and that on the evening of the October 14 he had retired to bed at about 10 o’clock.

During the night Mr Finnigan had been awoken by quite a commotion and he was told that four stacks of flax had been set alight.

The stacks had been positioned roughly 50 yards apart but that despite efforts to put the fire out they had engulfed the flax stacks.

To determine the extent of the costs caused by the fire Mr Finnigan told the court that on the previous day that he had counted 15 stooks which had taken to a scutch mill but that he had been obliged to return these to his property because the miller did not wish to scutch it.

He told the court it had been his intention to bring the flax to another mill the following Monday. He said that the cost of flax was about £30.

A poll having been taken on the question whether or not the burning had been malicious resulted in 12 votes that it had been malicious and 10 that it had not been.

It was declared that the compensation should be levied from the townlands of Foughill, Edenappaph and Drumatee.