Pat Smyth, a civil servant with the National Assistance Board in West Tyrone from the 1930's to the 1950's, recalls his memories, experiences and the larger than life personalities he encountered on the way.

On the way to Omagh on a return visit in 1993, when we were leaving Dunfanaghy in north Donegal, we had heard an early morning announcement by the B.B.C. radio that drivers entering Strabane should expect long delays for security reasons, but the sight of at least sixty vehicles held up outside Lifford when we got there, was appalling.

It was a glorious sunny day and a steady stream of housewives, many with baby carriages, was moving on foot towards Strabane. Were lower prices or better supermarkets the incentive?
   
Vehicles were moving at the speed of about two-car lengths every five minutes and at least one driver in ten was dropping out and making U-turns, figuratively thumbing their noses at the intimidating watch tower which no doubt was equipped with the latest in technological monitoring equipment.

It was the peak holiday season and foreign registration numbers were much in evidence, especially among those turning back. One foreigner with a French number plate periodically got out of his car to peer ahead, obviously frustrated and mystified. I was tempted to get out and reassure him that it was not all frustration in the North, but I had to stay in the queue.

Eventually the traffic lights came into view, winking from red to green and red again, letting only two or three vehicles proceed at a time. What was there to check in vehicles, which had queued for up to an hour for examination one wondered? There was no obvious check as we passed by.
   
We did not wish to enter Strabane hence the newly opened by-pass was a bonus. Soon we were at Melmount and out of the thirty-miles-an-hour limit, where a mobile R.U.C. unit surveyed us as we passed. The well-surfaced open road to Sion Mills was indeed welcome.

At Milltown I looked in vain for Smyth's flax mill, which I had visited in wartime. Signposts of Spamount, Castlederg, Drumlegagh and Baron's Court, brought memories of the days when we had used the Duke of Abercorn estate as a short cut in the war years.

He had a market garden, which provided an alibi, but in fact we were never challenged. Once we were held up while a hunting party removed the carcass of a stag from the roadway but the Duke had actually apologised to us for the delay and assured us, 'We will soon have this boy out of the way.'
   
Leaving Newtownstewart on the high hairpin bend I caught a glimpse of lovely Glenock chapel nestling in the valley below.

In the days when the railway, the road, and the Mourne river, ran side by side on the way to Omagh, I had rambled around as a young man, calf-deep in bluebells, taking snapshots of my little daughters, Anne and Maureen, in the late nineteen-forties.

The railway and all trace of it had long since gone. It claimed the lives of five permanent way gangers at Omagh station one dark, and foggy winter day around nineteen-fifty, when I had the melancholy experience of visiting all five bereaved widows the day after the funerals.
   
Beyond the Halfway House, signposts to the Ulster American Folk Park brought memories of a former civil service colleague, Eric Montgomery. While stationed in New York as an Information Officer for the Stormont Government he had successfully exploited sentimental memories of the old sod and enticed much-needed American investment to west Tyrone. Now the Park, which was his brainchild, is a Mecca for tourists.
       
Then it was on to Coneywarren and Gortrush where in the early nineteen-fifties, the housing estate built by the newly-established Housing Trust (and Gortmore Park further on) put an end to the hardship suffered by many homeless families, victims of the skulduggery in house allocations practised by the various local councils, Omagh included.

'Calf deep in Bluebells.' Pat Smyth's wife with Maurenn (left) and Anne on the banks of the Strule near the Halfway House.

The home of Roderick O'Connor, in his day a long-serving Nationalist M.P. at Stormont and latterly an R.M., came into sight here, and later the former residence of Anthony Mulvey, M.P. at the red-brick row at the bottom of the hill.

Good friends of ours, the Gillespies, lived there as well, and Senator Pat McGill, another acquaintance, eventually also took up residence near the now disused Army Camp. Morning and evening we heard the bugler sound the Reveille and the Last Post when we lived within earshot.
   
Charleton's Garage was a landmark at the entrance to Omagh half-a-century ago and the entrance to Goal Square is nearly opposite. It was there, more than a century ago, that they hanged the villainous police officer, Montgomery, for the murder of Mr. Glass, a Newtownstewart banker. I had a lock-up garage there, and I never lingered in darkness until I got out from underneath the archway over the entrance.

Sedan Avenue, once a frequently flooded area, brought memories of high Fordson tractors ferrying stranded people.

Then it was past the Orange Hall. Historians say that the hero (or heroine) of the siege of Derry 'Roaring Meg', the cannon, was brought to Omagh for the opening of that hall on 25th July 1871, the only time she left Derry's Walls.
   
It had gone one o'clock and we had a tedious fifty-mile trip from peaceful Dunfanaghy. Strolling lazily towards the town centre after lunch my wife and I paused to observe the gently flowing Strule - a spot with especially nostalgic memories for us.

We chuckled as we recalled the ugly wooden privies, like sentry boxes, that had adorned the rear walls of the Back Market slums in days gone by - an eyesore, and indeed a public nuisance when the water was low in the Strule. They have gone now, and good riddance.
   
Mary Yarrow's pub and Michael McSorley's fine display of motorbikes and gramophone records have also gone from Bridge Street, as well as Barney O'Reilly's prestigious drapery store. Packy McSorley's taxi depot has also gone. Paddy Laird's jewellery store is relatively new. Paddy set up house in adjacent apartments when we were at 11 High Street. He and Paddy Bogues of Omagh Players' fame were buddies in those days. Bogues was a colleague of mine.
   
Waterson's Royal Arms hotel and Montgomery's and Wilson's stationery shops on High Street seemed little changed externally. Robert Waterson's coal yard was a Mecca for householders when coal was rationed during the war. Every customer got his ration of one hundred weight a week, not an ounce more of less. Neither blandishment nor criticism cut any ice. It too has gone.
   
The War Memorial which stood within reach of our front window at High Street has been re-sited elsewhere.

Assistance Board Office. 1 Dublin Road

High Steeples from High Street, Omagh, 1947.

Pat Smyth, 2001