{"id":339414,"date":"2025-12-28T15:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339414\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T15:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:04:13","slug":"newtownhamilton-two-ni-churches-damaged-in-christmas-day-burglaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339414\/","title":{"rendered":"Newtownhamilton: Two NI churches damaged in Christmas Day burglaries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stock image. Picture: Aodhan Roberts\/Belfast Telegraph.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bdaf43bb-964d-4997-9834-308d6d6539a6.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stock image. Picture: Aodhan Roberts\/Belfast Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Two churches in Co Armagh were damaged during burglaries on Christmas Day, police have said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The incidents occurred at churches in the town of Newtownhamilton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It was reported to police that sometime between 3.00pm on December 25 and 9.00am on Friday, December 26 entry was gained to churches on Dundalk Street and Castleblayney Street. <\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Police have said that damage was caused to both churches and a number of items have been taken including electronic speakers and a wall clock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Sergeant Nelson said: \u201cWe are appealing to anyone that may have noted suspicious activity in the area of these places of worship in particularly around Dundalk Road, Newtownhamilton and Castleblaney Street, Newtownhamilton during this time frame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cSlieve Gullion Neighbourhood Policing Team are also aware of these incidents and have increased patrols in these areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cI would ask that members of the public continue to be vigilant and report to police any suspicious activity around places of worship.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stock image. Picture: Aodhan Roberts\/Belfast Telegraph.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bdaf43bb-964d-4997-9834-308d6d6539a6.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stock image. Picture: Aodhan Roberts\/Belfast Telegraph.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">The story behind Belfast&#8217;s &#8216;Alec the Goose&#8217; tribute outside St George&#8217;s Market in Belfast<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom5 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">&#8220;We would appeal to anyone who may have noticed any suspicious behaviour in the area; or who may have CCTV, dashcam or other footage which could assist our investigation; to contact us on 101, quoting reference 801 \u2013 27\/12\/2025.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stock image. Picture: Aodhan Roberts\/Belfast Telegraph. Two churches in Co Armagh were&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39107,59,57,58,50,2497,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-339414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-armagh-news","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-greatbritain","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}