LONGEST-SERVING COUNCILLOR LOOKS BACK ON 34-YEAR CAREER
Longest-serving councillors looks back on 34 year career
IT IS the end of an era. When the incoming Omagh District Council meets for the first time after the local government elections, missing will be a man with almost 34 years of unbroken service to the people of Omagh, and the chamber will be a poorer place for his absence.
Although there will be seven new faces at The Grange, the one who will have the hardest act to follow will replace Crawford McFarland.
Elected unopposed as a member of the former 42-strong Omagh Rural District Council in November 1967, representing the old Mountjoy Forest West Electoral Division, this much respected man of the people boasts a unique and wide ranging commitment to the community at large.
Three times chairman and three times vice-chairman of the authority established to succeed the myriad urban, rural and county councils under local government reorganisation in 1973, he has made his mark at every turn.
It is said, and not in a very complimentary way, that the electorate gets the politicians it deserves. But, 34 years ago, when the Unionist Party selected Crawford McFarland to fight Mountjoy Forest West in succession to the late Willie Watson, who had resigned for family reasons, they launched a public career that has been littered with significant milestones.
And all the while Mr. McFarland, now 75, has successfully farmed almost 200 acres at Mullaghmena, a few miles from Omagh town centre, where he lives with his wife, Olive, and at Deerpark. His youngest son, James, who resides close at hand, assists him with a large dairy herd, a fact that mirrors his own young life.
A native of Tymurity, Lislap, on the edge of the scenic Gortin Glens, he was educated at the nearby Tycur Primary School, which he left as a 14-year-old to help his father, William Thomas, who, according to Crawford, "was not so well".
"My father was a farmer with about 70 acres and, when I married in January 1949, he gave me a small farm of my own, which I tended until 1951 when I bought the current family home at Mullaghmena," Crawford further explained.
Homestead
His new wife was the former Olive Beattie, of the well-known Kingarrow family, which lived not a stone's throw from the original McFarland homestead. The couple raised five sons and two daughters, all now grown up and married, and they have 21 grandchildren.
During the latter years of the Second World War Crawford served in the Home Guard, based at Dunmullan. where he recalled drill parade every Monday evening. He later joined the Ulster Special Constabulary.
He served it with distinction for five or six years, but resigned when he found demands on his time precluded his rostered attendances.
Crawford's had been a familiar face at Dunmullan, for he had brushed up on farming values of the day, in the aftermath of the war, by attending evening classes, held twice weekly by Vincent Courtney, of the Department of Agriculture, at Dunmullan Primary School
He had also joined Cappagh YFC and was quickly elevated to club leader, a post that probably set in train his future march into politics. Crawford held the top position for a number of years while, under the tutelage of the late W. A. Armstrong from Campsie in Omagh, he became a proficient stock judge, winning the Tyrone individual title.
In those years, too, he developed a love of piping, after first carrying the staff for Reaghan LOL 304. However, the twinkle in his eye suggests it was a love affair that did not prepare him for acting as Chieftain for a day at the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association Northern Ireland Branch champion of champions tournament.
'Long, hot summer'
He had been taught to pipe by the late Cecil Barbour and he continued playing only until 1959, when, he revealed: "That year, during a long, hot summer, I was laid up with a bad back, and I missed out on all the processions. I just never went back."
By then Crawford had had his first taste of politics. He had become an occasional rank and file member of the small Mountjoy Forest East branch of the Unionist Party that met it Dunmullan. But, when he moved to Mullaghmena, two neighbours approached him to drive them to North Tyrone Unionist meetings.
"Willie Watson and the late Jack Colhoun already traveled with me to Ulster Farmer's Union meetings. My first Unionist outing was not a very sociable one as far as I was concerned. Because I was not a delegate I was made sit in a corner and told to be quiet," smiled Crawford.
At Mr. Watson's insistence matters were soon regularised, and he was appointed a Mountjoy Forest West delegate to the North Tyrone body, whose member, Tom Lyons, was then an MP in the former Stormont government.
"I obtained voting rights at senior level and I was very happy to be involved, as it meant the odd evening out. The local branch also named me a delegate to the Mid and West Tyrone branch, which met at Omagh YMCA in Market Street," recounted Crawford, whose next step up came with the resignation of Willie Watson.
"There was to have been a bye-election but no one else stood, and I went on to sit on the rural council for more than five years until it was abolished.
"The council had 42 members, far, far too many, and its passing was a good thing, although we did not think so at the time. We lost a lot of our powers but probably the one that really mattered was our control over district roads."
Seamless
Crawford's personal switch to district councillor was seamless. Mountjoy Forest West was swallowed up by the new Fairywater Ward, which spawned a Fairywater branch of the Unionist Party, and he was elected to represent the West Tyrone District Electoral Area (DEA) that, in 1973, returned five councillors.
The SDLP's Gerry McEnhill was the new council's first chairman and Norman Wilson its vice-chairman. When Mr. Wilson died within 12 months of taking office Mr. McFarland succeeded him as one of the three council nominees to the Association of Local Authorities for Northern Ireland.
Almost immediately ALAN1 nominated him to the NIFA, so beginning a 23-year association with the fire authority which was to bring Crawford the OBE.
"My first big step on the political ladder was undoubtedly that appointment to ALAN1, and the next was my nomination as council
vice-chairman to Gerry McEnhill when he was named chairman for a second time in 1977," he recollected.
"And 1 always remember that first term as a district councillor and the following four-year term as being the happiest ones of my career. There was a great rapport in the chamber. Of course, we had our differences but somehow it was a friendlier place back then.
"We had some extremely capable exponents of the debating art, too. I greatly admired the late Senator McGill and my own party colleague, Harold McCauley, for the way they delivered their opinions.
"But attitudes began to harden with the splits in unionism and nationalism in the 1980s, although I have to say that, on issues affecting the public, councillors have always shown a willingness to work well together for the common good."
Poll topper
A regular poll topper, Crawford was at the helm when the immediate past Duke of Abercorn opened the council's offices at The Grange. He was also council leader in 1989, lunching with Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, at Lisanelly Camp, and in 1991. and its deputy in 1988 and 1990.
"In its formative years a lot of council time was taken up with commissioning a new headquarters after the Town Hall was blown up one evening less than an hour before a scheduled meeting." he remembered.
In his 28 years as a district councillor. Crawford admits to having seen many changes and to having met and entertained a host of dignitaries, and he highlights the incumbency of Dessie Mitchell as chief clerk as a sparkling period for the council.
"Dessie was a "workaholic". During his time in the 1980s we developed Omagh Enterprise Company, and Liam McQuaid and myself were appointed the council's two directors. We are still on the company's board and I would really like to remain a director, but that is now in the hands of the new council," said Crawford.
Reviewing the low points in his career Mr. McFarland evoked memories of how he had lost his niece, Samantha, in the 1998 Omagh town centre bombing atrocity. And he said the death of Dessie Anderson at a tragically early age had robbed him of a good friend and the local authority of a great councillor.
"I have done my best to live up to Desmond's reputation since assuming his place on West Tyrone 2000, but I was just numbed by the bombing. It was horrendous. My brother, Gerald's girl, was just 17. I had been released from hospital a few days earlier and she had come to see me and she threw her arms around me, saying how great it was that I was back home. I never saw her again," Crawford lamented.
"It's terrible to think the bombers are said to be known, but that there appears to be no way to bring them to justice."
'Pride'
"But, I suppose the delivery of the Grange and the leisure complex, and the transfer of the old mart [from the Dunnes Stores site] to Gillygooley Road have offset that to some extent. I also take pride in being a founder member of the Fintona Regeneration Initiative that built the Ecclesville Centre with funding from the council, the DOE and the IFI."
Crawford's other appointments have included a four-year term with the NI Water Council, four years with the NI Drainage Council when , against all the odds at a time when money were scarce, he secured funding to clean the Routing Burn (near Beragh) and the Cottage Drain in Castlederg.
He has sat regularly on the Western Education and Library Board, currently chairing its finance committee, while in the past he has led the discretionary awards committee and other subcommittees.
He was chairman of the Ulster Unionist Councillors Association from 1993 to 1997, and he has been its president for the past four years. And he was the inaugural chairman of the West Tyrone Constituency Association, founded in the 1990s.
And there has been Crawford's involvement, too, with the Charolais and motor shows at Ecclesville. his council membership of the Omagh District Partnership, and his representation of the authority at conferences all along England's south coast and in Edinburgh, Southport, Scarborough and Brussells.
Delegate
He has also been an Ulster Unionist delegate in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, and he has been to Toronto on several occasions to fulfil engagements on behalf of the North West Passage committee. which he has previously chaired.
Coincidentally his last official engagement is tomorrow (Friday's) meeting of the North West Passage committee at the History Park.
And, when the outgoing council met for the last time last night, typical of the man, who. until he had a triple bypass operation at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital in 1999. seldom missed a meeting of any description, he intended to be there.
However, for all of that, he said he took his greatest delight from his membership of the NIFA.
"It was the highlight of my career, even if it was heavy work." he insisted. "Politics never interfered, despite two and, sometimes, three meetings every month. The full fire authority met monthly, and its finance and general purposes (F&GP) and building committees also met quite frequently.
"I succeeded Joe Higgins, of Dungannon District Council, into the F&GP chair when he died in 1979. and I became vice-chairman of the authority two years later. It was a great honour when I was made chairman of the NIFA in 1983, and, at the same time, a major challenge for me as someone who didn't have a big education CV behind them.
"I met Mrs. Thatcher again when she opened the new Lisburn HQ for which I had laid the foundation- stone in 1985 and I quit as the last elected chairman.
'Privilege'
"But I enjoyed every minute of the work. I had the privilege of lunching with our president. Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, and of travelling with two Chief Fire Officers, Clive Halliday and Billy Beggs, to meetings of the Institute of Fire Engineers in both Scarborough and Eastbourne.
"I genuinely believe that my greatest achievement in 34 years of public service was to secure backing for the N1FA to site its F Division HQ in Omagh. There was a great danger it was going to go elsewhere."
Crawford was awarded the OBE for his services to the NIFA. and The Queen bestowed the honour at Buckingham Palace in 1987. And his meetings with royalty also include the Duchess of York when she opened the Academy extension during one of his later stints as council chairman.
Among other famous people he has encountered have been Mary Peters and former US President, Bill Clinton, while he commends those, too numerous to mention, for whom the council has hosted "civic receptions".
"I've had a long innings and I know I am going to miss it, but I have a good man to follow me. I would urge my supporters to go out next Thursday and to vote for David Sterritt. He's a worker, who has been involved with the Unionist Party for more than 40 years. David, who is a popular figure on the bowls scene with all sections of the community, will get things done," claimed Crawford.
Nothing is more certain than that he has laid a foundation stone of great proportions for any budding politician to build on.
IT IS the end of an era. When the incoming Omagh District Council meets for the first time after the local government elections, missing will be a man with almost 34 years of unbroken service to the people of Omagh, and the chamber will be a poorer place for his absence.
Although there will be seven new faces at The Grange, the one who will have the hardest act to follow will replace Crawford McFarland.
Elected unopposed as a member of the former 42-strong Omagh Rural District Council in November 1967, representing the old Mountjoy Forest West Electoral Division, this much respected man of the people boasts a unique and wide ranging commitment to the community at large.
Three times chairman and three times vice-chairman of the authority established to succeed the myriad urban, rural and county councils under local government reorganisation in 1973, he has made his mark at every turn.
It is said, and not in a very complimentary way, that the electorate gets the politicians it deserves. But, 34 years ago, when the Unionist Party selected Crawford McFarland to fight Mountjoy Forest West in succession to the late Willie Watson, who had resigned for family reasons, they launched a public career that has been littered with significant milestones.
And all the while Mr. McFarland, now 75, has successfully farmed almost 200 acres at Mullaghmena, a few miles from Omagh town centre, where he lives with his wife, Olive, and at Deerpark. His youngest son, James, who resides close at hand, assists him with a large dairy herd, a fact that mirrors his own young life.
A native of Tymurity, Lislap, on the edge of the scenic Gortin Glens, he was educated at the nearby Tycur Primary School, which he left as a 14-year-old to help his father, William Thomas, who, according to Crawford, "was not so well".
"My father was a farmer with about 70 acres and, when I married in January 1949, he gave me a small farm of my own, which I tended until 1951 when I bought the current family home at Mullaghmena," Crawford further explained.
Homestead
His new wife was the former Olive Beattie, of the well-known Kingarrow family, which lived not a stone's throw from the original McFarland homestead. The couple raised five sons and two daughters, all now grown up and married, and they have 21 grandchildren.
During the latter years of the Second World War Crawford served in the Home Guard, based at Dunmullan. where he recalled drill parade every Monday evening. He later joined the Ulster Special Constabulary.
He served it with distinction for five or six years, but resigned when he found demands on his time precluded his rostered attendances.
Crawford's had been a familiar face at Dunmullan, for he had brushed up on farming values of the day, in the aftermath of the war, by attending evening classes, held twice weekly by Vincent Courtney, of the Department of Agriculture, at Dunmullan Primary School
He had also joined Cappagh YFC and was quickly elevated to club leader, a post that probably set in train his future march into politics. Crawford held the top position for a number of years while, under the tutelage of the late W. A. Armstrong from Campsie in Omagh, he became a proficient stock judge, winning the Tyrone individual title.
In those years, too, he developed a love of piping, after first carrying the staff for Reaghan LOL 304. However, the twinkle in his eye suggests it was a love affair that did not prepare him for acting as Chieftain for a day at the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association Northern Ireland Branch champion of champions tournament.
'Long, hot summer'
He had been taught to pipe by the late Cecil Barbour and he continued playing only until 1959, when, he revealed: "That year, during a long, hot summer, I was laid up with a bad back, and I missed out on all the processions. I just never went back."
By then Crawford had had his first taste of politics. He had become an occasional rank and file member of the small Mountjoy Forest East branch of the Unionist Party that met it Dunmullan. But, when he moved to Mullaghmena, two neighbours approached him to drive them to North Tyrone Unionist meetings.
"Willie Watson and the late Jack Colhoun already traveled with me to Ulster Farmer's Union meetings. My first Unionist outing was not a very sociable one as far as I was concerned. Because I was not a delegate I was made sit in a corner and told to be quiet," smiled Crawford.
At Mr. Watson's insistence matters were soon regularised, and he was appointed a Mountjoy Forest West delegate to the North Tyrone body, whose member, Tom Lyons, was then an MP in the former Stormont government.
"I obtained voting rights at senior level and I was very happy to be involved, as it meant the odd evening out. The local branch also named me a delegate to the Mid and West Tyrone branch, which met at Omagh YMCA in Market Street," recounted Crawford, whose next step up came with the resignation of Willie Watson.
"There was to have been a bye-election but no one else stood, and I went on to sit on the rural council for more than five years until it was abolished.
"The council had 42 members, far, far too many, and its passing was a good thing, although we did not think so at the time. We lost a lot of our powers but probably the one that really mattered was our control over district roads."
Seamless
Crawford's personal switch to district councillor was seamless. Mountjoy Forest West was swallowed up by the new Fairywater Ward, which spawned a Fairywater branch of the Unionist Party, and he was elected to represent the West Tyrone District Electoral Area (DEA) that, in 1973, returned five councillors.
The SDLP's Gerry McEnhill was the new council's first chairman and Norman Wilson its vice-chairman. When Mr. Wilson died within 12 months of taking office Mr. McFarland succeeded him as one of the three council nominees to the Association of Local Authorities for Northern Ireland.
Almost immediately ALAN1 nominated him to the NIFA, so beginning a 23-year association with the fire authority which was to bring Crawford the OBE.
"My first big step on the political ladder was undoubtedly that appointment to ALAN1, and the next was my nomination as council
vice-chairman to Gerry McEnhill when he was named chairman for a second time in 1977," he recollected.
"And 1 always remember that first term as a district councillor and the following four-year term as being the happiest ones of my career. There was a great rapport in the chamber. Of course, we had our differences but somehow it was a friendlier place back then.
"We had some extremely capable exponents of the debating art, too. I greatly admired the late Senator McGill and my own party colleague, Harold McCauley, for the way they delivered their opinions.
"But attitudes began to harden with the splits in unionism and nationalism in the 1980s, although I have to say that, on issues affecting the public, councillors have always shown a willingness to work well together for the common good."
Poll topper
A regular poll topper, Crawford was at the helm when the immediate past Duke of Abercorn opened the council's offices at The Grange. He was also council leader in 1989, lunching with Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, at Lisanelly Camp, and in 1991. and its deputy in 1988 and 1990.
"In its formative years a lot of council time was taken up with commissioning a new headquarters after the Town Hall was blown up one evening less than an hour before a scheduled meeting." he remembered.
In his 28 years as a district councillor. Crawford admits to having seen many changes and to having met and entertained a host of dignitaries, and he highlights the incumbency of Dessie Mitchell as chief clerk as a sparkling period for the council.
"Dessie was a "workaholic". During his time in the 1980s we developed Omagh Enterprise Company, and Liam McQuaid and myself were appointed the council's two directors. We are still on the company's board and I would really like to remain a director, but that is now in the hands of the new council," said Crawford.
Reviewing the low points in his career Mr. McFarland evoked memories of how he had lost his niece, Samantha, in the 1998 Omagh town centre bombing atrocity. And he said the death of Dessie Anderson at a tragically early age had robbed him of a good friend and the local authority of a great councillor.
"I have done my best to live up to Desmond's reputation since assuming his place on West Tyrone 2000, but I was just numbed by the bombing. It was horrendous. My brother, Gerald's girl, was just 17. I had been released from hospital a few days earlier and she had come to see me and she threw her arms around me, saying how great it was that I was back home. I never saw her again," Crawford lamented.
"It's terrible to think the bombers are said to be known, but that there appears to be no way to bring them to justice."
'Pride'
"But, I suppose the delivery of the Grange and the leisure complex, and the transfer of the old mart [from the Dunnes Stores site] to Gillygooley Road have offset that to some extent. I also take pride in being a founder member of the Fintona Regeneration Initiative that built the Ecclesville Centre with funding from the council, the DOE and the IFI."
Crawford's other appointments have included a four-year term with the NI Water Council, four years with the NI Drainage Council when , against all the odds at a time when money were scarce, he secured funding to clean the Routing Burn (near Beragh) and the Cottage Drain in Castlederg.
He has sat regularly on the Western Education and Library Board, currently chairing its finance committee, while in the past he has led the discretionary awards committee and other subcommittees.
He was chairman of the Ulster Unionist Councillors Association from 1993 to 1997, and he has been its president for the past four years. And he was the inaugural chairman of the West Tyrone Constituency Association, founded in the 1990s.
And there has been Crawford's involvement, too, with the Charolais and motor shows at Ecclesville. his council membership of the Omagh District Partnership, and his representation of the authority at conferences all along England's south coast and in Edinburgh, Southport, Scarborough and Brussells.
Delegate
He has also been an Ulster Unionist delegate in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, and he has been to Toronto on several occasions to fulfil engagements on behalf of the North West Passage committee. which he has previously chaired.
Coincidentally his last official engagement is tomorrow (Friday's) meeting of the North West Passage committee at the History Park.
And, when the outgoing council met for the last time last night, typical of the man, who. until he had a triple bypass operation at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital in 1999. seldom missed a meeting of any description, he intended to be there.
However, for all of that, he said he took his greatest delight from his membership of the NIFA.
"It was the highlight of my career, even if it was heavy work." he insisted. "Politics never interfered, despite two and, sometimes, three meetings every month. The full fire authority met monthly, and its finance and general purposes (F&GP) and building committees also met quite frequently.
"I succeeded Joe Higgins, of Dungannon District Council, into the F&GP chair when he died in 1979. and I became vice-chairman of the authority two years later. It was a great honour when I was made chairman of the NIFA in 1983, and, at the same time, a major challenge for me as someone who didn't have a big education CV behind them.
"I met Mrs. Thatcher again when she opened the new Lisburn HQ for which I had laid the foundation- stone in 1985 and I quit as the last elected chairman.
'Privilege'
"But I enjoyed every minute of the work. I had the privilege of lunching with our president. Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, and of travelling with two Chief Fire Officers, Clive Halliday and Billy Beggs, to meetings of the Institute of Fire Engineers in both Scarborough and Eastbourne.
"I genuinely believe that my greatest achievement in 34 years of public service was to secure backing for the N1FA to site its F Division HQ in Omagh. There was a great danger it was going to go elsewhere."
Crawford was awarded the OBE for his services to the NIFA. and The Queen bestowed the honour at Buckingham Palace in 1987. And his meetings with royalty also include the Duchess of York when she opened the Academy extension during one of his later stints as council chairman.
Among other famous people he has encountered have been Mary Peters and former US President, Bill Clinton, while he commends those, too numerous to mention, for whom the council has hosted "civic receptions".
"I've had a long innings and I know I am going to miss it, but I have a good man to follow me. I would urge my supporters to go out next Thursday and to vote for David Sterritt. He's a worker, who has been involved with the Unionist Party for more than 40 years. David, who is a popular figure on the bowls scene with all sections of the community, will get things done," claimed Crawford.
Nothing is more certain than that he has laid a foundation stone of great proportions for any budding politician to build on.
Further Information
Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION
Ref: TC/0885
Published Date: 31-May-01
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