Soon, what seemed like an innocuous fire became a blaze as file after file of private papers and souvenirs were heaped upon the flames. It’s reckoned that information worth millions of pounds was burned that day along with invaluable records and other material of immense local interest.

Onlookers would not have realised it but what they were seeing was the result of a secret pact – the last bizarre chapter in the history of one of Derry’s most noteworthy and eccentric families, the Loughrey’s of Clooney.

Derry has produced some remarkable personalities in its time and surely high on the list must be the Loughrey sisters, who had the pet names of Bird and Dill.

They were known as the Miss Loughreys (sometimes the Misses Loughrey) and were famed the world over as breeders of Scottish Deerhounds - large, thick- coated dogs, with very docile temperaments. Bird and Dill ruled the deerhound scene between the 1920s and the 1960s.

The sisters were as different as chalk and cheese. Bird, properly named Florence, was the elder of the pair. She was attractive, petite and quite feminine, while her younger sister Dill, or Hylda Mary, was haughty and domineering. Dill is remembered for her outlandish appearance – she wore a shirt and tie, a tweed jacket and a tweed skirt reaching down to her brogue shoes. But perhaps the most remarkable item of her attire was her pork pie hat. This was her trademark and it was rumoured that she bought a dozen of these bizarre hats at a time.

Bird and Dill had a brother Edward and they were the children of Joseph Loughrey, a successful solicitor based in Shipquay Street. Joseph’s brother was the redoubtable and feisty Fr. Edward Loughrey, P.P. Dungiven who, during a quarrel with Bishop McHugh in 1910, famously wrote – ‘ My Lord – I respectfully desire to inform you that I now go to Rome to lay my complaint in proper hands….’

So it was not in the Loughrey temperament to be a shrinking violet and Bird and Dill maintained the tradition. They would frequently be seen around Derry perched regally in the rear of their Riley beach wagon with brother Edward at the wheel.

Edward was a retired brigadier who’d served in the Sudan and had been something of a big game hunter in his day. As a result, he’d brought back some very unusual souvenirs to Derry – among these was a fearsome tiger’s skin rug, two giant elephant tusks and the stuffed heads of several wild animals. You might well believe that visitors to Rosslyn, the Loughrey home at Clooney, were awe-struck with the sight of such weird trophies.

Eccentric or not, Bird and Dill’s fame as Deerhound breeders brought them adulation wherever they went. It was said that no one could match Dill’s handling of dogs in the show ring, while Bird’s ability to spot a future champion was unequalled.

Dill eventually became a renowned judge at Cruft’s. She was President of the London-based Deerhound Club for 28 years and joint Secretary/ Treasurer with Bird for 23 years.