sentences:  World War I had a devastating effect on the local community at a cost of life commemorated in the prominent Cenotaph (loosely based on Lutyens' Whitehall Cenotaph) at the centre of the town unveiled in 1927.This is Cookstown's sole piece of public sculpture.On 17 June 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) raided the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in Cookstown, with help from four sympathetic RIC officers.