Town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Omagh
A Pittsburgh banking empire began with a boy from a farm near Omagh, and the town where three rivers meet still tells the story of those who left.
Key information
- County
- County Tyrone
- Nation
- Northern Ireland
- Known for
- Ulster American Folk Park, the Mellon family roots, Tyrone GAA
- What locals are called
- Omagh people, or simply Omagh folk
- Famous people
- Thomas Mellon, Andrew Mellon (family link), Michael Gallagher
About Omagh
The farm boy who founded a Pittsburgh banking dynasty
Thomas Mellon was born in 1813 on a farm at Camphill, just outside Omagh. In 1818 his family sailed for America and settled in western Pennsylvania. He later said that reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography set him on the road to the law. He became a judge, then a banker. In 1869 he founded the bank that grew into the Mellon financial empire, and his son Andrew went on to serve as US Treasury Secretary. The family's story is now told at the Ulster American Folk Park, an outdoor museum that opened in 1976 on the Mellon homestead. Its cabins, farmhouses and ship recreate the journey from Tyrone to the New World, and it is the thing most people name first when they think of Omagh.
Where two rivers quietly become a third
Omagh sits where the Drumragh and the Camowen meet and become the Strule. The Strule runs north through Newtownstewart, where it is joined by the Derg to form the Mourne. Further downstream the Mourne meets the Finn at Strabane to form the Foyle, so water from Omagh eventually reaches Derry and the Atlantic. The town's Irish name, An Ómaigh, is usually read as 'the virgin plain'. The flat, fertile ground by the rivers was a natural place to settle, and it explains why Omagh became the county town of Tyrone, with a courthouse, a market and a hospital serving the surrounding countryside.
Spires, columns and a grand courthouse
Omagh's skyline is pointed. The spires of its churches rise above the rooftops, among them the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart and the Church of Ireland's St Columba's. Together they give the town a profile you can pick out from the surrounding hills. The classical Omagh Courthouse dates from 1814, a reminder of the town's role as the legal and administrative centre of the county. Strule Arts Centre is the cultural anchor of the modern town. Outside its doors, Market Street and High Street hold the shops, cafés and pubs where a proper Ulster fry and a plate of soda farls are still treated as serious business.
15 August 1998
Omagh is also known across the world for the bombing of 15 August 1998. A car bomb planted by the dissident Real IRA exploded in the town centre on a busy Saturday afternoon. It killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and injured hundreds more. It was the deadliest single incident of the Troubles. The dead included Protestants and Catholics, locals and visitors, children and pensioners, among them a Spanish student, Fernando Blasco, and his group's leader, Rocío Abad, who were on a trip to Ireland. The attack came only months after the Good Friday Agreement and hardened public determination to hold on to peace. A memorial garden now stands in the town. Relatives, including Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed, have campaigned for years for answers and accountability.
Red-hand country on the edge of the Sperrins
Omagh is a keystone of Tyrone GAA. Healy Park, in the town, is a major county venue. Tyrone, known as the Red Hands, won All-Irelands in 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2021, and the county's gaelic football passion is easy to find in Omagh's clubs and schools. Association football has had its moments here too. Omagh Town spent years in the Irish League before financial trouble ended that run. Meanwhile the Sperrin Mountains rise just to the north and east. Gortin Glen Forest Park, a short drive away, offers woodland trails and a wildlife drive, so a day's walking is never far from Omagh's streets.