REFLECTIONS OF A YOUTH GROWING UP IN OMAGH
Reflections of a youth growing up in Omagh
by Ivan McMichael who is a freelance journalist who has lived in Belfast almost 40 years, but was born and brought up in Omagh. He looks back at the town of his youth.
THE womb that spawns life creates a bond that can never be broken. So, too, I have just realised, is the link to the place of our formative years.
To have those fond memories shattered in such a diabolical fashion as the bomb that blasted my home tome of Omagh has caused a hurt that I cannot explain.
You see, the Omagh that I grew up in was - like any similar-sized Ulster towns of the Fifties - a place of happiness.
We were too young to be aware of the political gerrymandering which permitted a minority Unionist population to control a majority Nationalist town.
The amazing thing is that in spite of such blatant abuse of democracy, the people got on so well.
I'm told that such political irregularities have been rectified since my fumbling days as a cub reporter working for the Tyrone Constitution.
But maybe that is what made Omagh a headline target for the bombers who blasted it into history on Saturday afternoon.
For, make no mistake, my home town is destined to loom large in the annals of history of the current conflict in our land.
As I sit in front of a computer screen I am forced to reflect on why I am engaged in such soul-searching.
An hour ago I was in church - not a frequent happening, I must confess -honouring the passing a month ago of a dear sister-in-law Deirdre Kee.
A member of the Young family from Killyclogher outside Omagh, she brought hope to fellow cancer sufferers, not least by her courage in the warts-and-all TV programme A woman in Twelve.
When I got back home there was a message on my answer phone. I returned the Deputy Editor's call and he said he would like me to write a personalised memory.
At first I demurred, fearing to tread on the suffering of the relatives of the dead and injured. Then I recalled a book about my home town which Benedict Kiely, who was raised in Omagh, had used as a setting for his novel Proxopera.
The loquacious Ben's book was about a car-bomb plot - a work of fiction that was to have its grim reality last Saturday afternoon close to the long-gone dry toilets overhanging the river Strule which featured in a colour wrap-around for his memoir Drink to the Bird.
Such literary diversions, however, only serve to deflect from the task in hand -childhood and adolescent memories of the town where the spires of the fine churches of the Anglican and Catholic faiths seem but one from a distance.
Our family lived at Cranny, a mile or so outside Omagh. The terrace row of 12 houses, owned by the hospital where my father worked, has long gone.
We were lucky - the Catholic Sharkeys were on one side the Protestant Coyles on the other.
Memories of my childhood days there with my two brothers, a sister and our companions are vivid.
I attended school in Omagh and every lunchtime I would hurry home for a veritable feast past the spot where the men of evil consigned so many innocent to a premature end.
On the way back to school I would sneak into Dessie Mullan's shop to get a supply of teeth-rotting sweets!
On the very corner where the bomb went off a member of the Plymouth Brethren used to exhort the less holy to a better life.
And where the new road runs from Dublin Road across the river there was Anderson's grocery store. Many a time I had to call there to "do a message" for my mother.
While I waited the expertise of Billy Johnston on the bacon slicer left me in awe but in dread of him losing a finger.
But always it was the dispatch of money to the first-floor office via a complicated-looking pulley system which captured my attention.
A little bit up Market Street there was a confectionery shop where I bought chocolates for my girl-friend. The shop was owned by a man called Pickering, whose son has been in the news of late as rector of Drumcree Parish Church.
A watering-hole of my youth - the Central Bar, owned by the late Frank McNeill - was on the other side of Market Street, facing the YMCA where my elders introduced me to matters not at all in keeping with the association's Christian founders.
Around this point the thoroughfare becomes High Street which leads to the hilltop Courthouse, the wrong location which served to divert people to death and injury instead of safety.
At the foot of the Courthouse hill, the offices and printing works of the Tyrone Constitution still stand.
Four years ago I was back in Omagh for the 150th anniversary of the paper and on my desk today is a suitably-inscribed Tyrone Crystal paperweight, the result of a bit of arm-twisting by Deric Henderson, another "Con" artist who was to follow in my footsteps.
Reflecting on my days under the patronage of editor Mr (Robert) Parke and chief reporter Bob McFadden, I recall with pride the genuine friendship which existed between the editorial staffs of the "Con" and the Ulster Herald in John Street, which catered for the nationalist people of the area.
Pipe-smoking Patrick McGill was the editor, the recently-retired Teddy Quigley his second in command, and John Devine, now Northern Editor of the Dublin-based Independent Newspapers, my contemporary.
Mr McGill was later to become a member of the Stormont Senate and when illness struck him, he used his period of convalescence to study and gain a doctorate, so he ended up with the rather grand handle of Senator Dr Patrick McGill.
Of course, not everything was fair and right in my home town in those bygone days and my fond reflections of a happy childhood and adolescence leave me open to the charge of having rose tints in my specs.
But in truth they were good days, happy days. How I wish that the good people of Omagh could honestly say the same thing today.
by Ivan McMichael who is a freelance journalist who has lived in Belfast almost 40 years, but was born and brought up in Omagh. He looks back at the town of his youth.
THE womb that spawns life creates a bond that can never be broken. So, too, I have just realised, is the link to the place of our formative years.
To have those fond memories shattered in such a diabolical fashion as the bomb that blasted my home tome of Omagh has caused a hurt that I cannot explain.
You see, the Omagh that I grew up in was - like any similar-sized Ulster towns of the Fifties - a place of happiness.
We were too young to be aware of the political gerrymandering which permitted a minority Unionist population to control a majority Nationalist town.
The amazing thing is that in spite of such blatant abuse of democracy, the people got on so well.
I'm told that such political irregularities have been rectified since my fumbling days as a cub reporter working for the Tyrone Constitution.
But maybe that is what made Omagh a headline target for the bombers who blasted it into history on Saturday afternoon.
For, make no mistake, my home town is destined to loom large in the annals of history of the current conflict in our land.
As I sit in front of a computer screen I am forced to reflect on why I am engaged in such soul-searching.
An hour ago I was in church - not a frequent happening, I must confess -honouring the passing a month ago of a dear sister-in-law Deirdre Kee.
A member of the Young family from Killyclogher outside Omagh, she brought hope to fellow cancer sufferers, not least by her courage in the warts-and-all TV programme A woman in Twelve.
When I got back home there was a message on my answer phone. I returned the Deputy Editor's call and he said he would like me to write a personalised memory.
At first I demurred, fearing to tread on the suffering of the relatives of the dead and injured. Then I recalled a book about my home town which Benedict Kiely, who was raised in Omagh, had used as a setting for his novel Proxopera.
The loquacious Ben's book was about a car-bomb plot - a work of fiction that was to have its grim reality last Saturday afternoon close to the long-gone dry toilets overhanging the river Strule which featured in a colour wrap-around for his memoir Drink to the Bird.
Such literary diversions, however, only serve to deflect from the task in hand -childhood and adolescent memories of the town where the spires of the fine churches of the Anglican and Catholic faiths seem but one from a distance.
Our family lived at Cranny, a mile or so outside Omagh. The terrace row of 12 houses, owned by the hospital where my father worked, has long gone.
We were lucky - the Catholic Sharkeys were on one side the Protestant Coyles on the other.
Memories of my childhood days there with my two brothers, a sister and our companions are vivid.
I attended school in Omagh and every lunchtime I would hurry home for a veritable feast past the spot where the men of evil consigned so many innocent to a premature end.
On the way back to school I would sneak into Dessie Mullan's shop to get a supply of teeth-rotting sweets!
On the very corner where the bomb went off a member of the Plymouth Brethren used to exhort the less holy to a better life.
And where the new road runs from Dublin Road across the river there was Anderson's grocery store. Many a time I had to call there to "do a message" for my mother.
While I waited the expertise of Billy Johnston on the bacon slicer left me in awe but in dread of him losing a finger.
But always it was the dispatch of money to the first-floor office via a complicated-looking pulley system which captured my attention.
A little bit up Market Street there was a confectionery shop where I bought chocolates for my girl-friend. The shop was owned by a man called Pickering, whose son has been in the news of late as rector of Drumcree Parish Church.
A watering-hole of my youth - the Central Bar, owned by the late Frank McNeill - was on the other side of Market Street, facing the YMCA where my elders introduced me to matters not at all in keeping with the association's Christian founders.
Around this point the thoroughfare becomes High Street which leads to the hilltop Courthouse, the wrong location which served to divert people to death and injury instead of safety.
At the foot of the Courthouse hill, the offices and printing works of the Tyrone Constitution still stand.
Four years ago I was back in Omagh for the 150th anniversary of the paper and on my desk today is a suitably-inscribed Tyrone Crystal paperweight, the result of a bit of arm-twisting by Deric Henderson, another "Con" artist who was to follow in my footsteps.
Reflecting on my days under the patronage of editor Mr (Robert) Parke and chief reporter Bob McFadden, I recall with pride the genuine friendship which existed between the editorial staffs of the "Con" and the Ulster Herald in John Street, which catered for the nationalist people of the area.
Pipe-smoking Patrick McGill was the editor, the recently-retired Teddy Quigley his second in command, and John Devine, now Northern Editor of the Dublin-based Independent Newspapers, my contemporary.
Mr McGill was later to become a member of the Stormont Senate and when illness struck him, he used his period of convalescence to study and gain a doctorate, so he ended up with the rather grand handle of Senator Dr Patrick McGill.
Of course, not everything was fair and right in my home town in those bygone days and my fond reflections of a happy childhood and adolescence leave me open to the charge of having rose tints in my specs.
But in truth they were good days, happy days. How I wish that the good people of Omagh could honestly say the same thing today.
Further Information
Publisher: THE IRISH NEWS
Ref: IN/0033
Published Date: 17-Aug-98
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