Yesterday was the biggest market day of the year in Castlewellan and the good old days and the bad mixed as horses, sheep, and British soldiers shared the town centre.
The town's RUC station lies just off the main street and was cordoned off yesterday morning. Military bomb disposal officers, police forensic experts and detectives milled around the gate where the bomb exploded, maiming a 40-year-old reserve constable and father of three children. Away from the crime scene, few townspeople wanted to comment. Some said they had heard only fireworks the night before and others that they knew nothing except what they had heard on the morning radio news. A woman admitted that it was "vexing that the trouble is back".
One of the town's priests said the feeling in the town was one of annoyance. Father Sean Cahill said his parishioners "don't want it in their town; they don't want it in any town". Father Cahill said that Castlewellan was a predominantly nationalist town, with around 90 per cent of the population being Catholic.
Most of those would be supporters of the SDLP, while any republicans "would definitely be of the Gerry Adams kind," he said. With the peace process and the establishment of a joint government the town had been "looking forward with a feeling of hope and revival," he said. Father Cahill said the murder of 16-year-old James Morgan in 1997 was still very much on the minds of people in the town. "They have had far too many sad memories to have any other deaths or bombings," he said.
Back at the RUC station, a scene which has changed little in 30 years was replayed yet again as Scottish soldiers stood guard over bomb disposal experts.
Once they said they were satisfied there were no secondary devices in the area, a line of uniformed police began a "fingertip search" of the street while forensic specialists searched the immediate area.