‘The Heart of Old Omagh’

A place’s past is not a clearly-defined, wholly-knowable subject. It is not scientific fact, but, rather, a realm of abstraction; full of contradiction, convergence, corroboration and discontinuity.

For this reason, any backwards journey down the road that led to today will always appear different, depending whose hand holds the lamps that lights the way.

One person can look back at the place they were raised and see only the indistinct shadow-scape of a time mostly forgotten.

Another, however, can go inside their mind’s eye and vividly bring to life their formative world in all its warmth – resurrecting local characters and reliving days of great drama and adventure.

Frank Gillease belongs to this second bracket of people.

For Frank, time has cast a long, redemptive light on his childhood in Brook Street – one that has probably turned warts into beauty marks and made heroes of ordinary men and women.

The Brook Street boy was one of the last people to move out of the area before most of the houses were demolished in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Today, with the exception of the two semi-detached bungalows that constitute Convent View, this part of the town is gone. But in its day, Brook Street – sometimes called ‘The Heart of Old Omagh’ – was a thriving community, once replete with its own hospital, chapel, school and shops.

So, without further adieu, here’s Brook Street, according to 83-year-old Frank Gillease.

“Agh, Brook Street was a deadly wee community, full of characters and music and craic,” recalled Frank.

“We lived in Fountain Lane (in a house that sat where the side entrance to the lower building of Holy Family Primary School would be today),” said Frank.

“Then you’d Castle Lane, Convent View and The Pads as well. But it was all Brook Street, if you understand what I mean.”

Frank explained how Brook Street and Castle View were at one time the same street. Unseperated by name, both fell under the address of Brook Street. However, this changed when some highfalutin resident decided he wanted to free himself from the foul reputation that he believed came with having an address in such a deprived, and occassionally chaotic, part of the town.

“Big Stevie McKenna (much-loved writer of long-running UH column, ‘As the Man Says’) did a lot of work to find out who this git that changed the name was, but he was never able to. Anyway, that’s supposedly how Castle View came about: Some guy wanted to put himself above his neighbours.

“But if you said you were from Convent View in Brother Hamill’s class (Frank’s teacher at the Christian Brothers Primary School), he’d have been quick to remind you there was no such place. He was old enough to remember a time when Brook Street and Convent View were one and the same,” said Frank.

There were a few dozen houses in the area altogether.

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When Frank closes his eyes and conjures images of his childhood, he sees children playing, while women stand at doors, chatting and watching.

“Mothers, sisters and aunties would be leaning against doorframes discussing all the goings on, while we ran about playing; leaping over the old chapel wall and running, through the wasteground where once stood the Church of St Peter and St Paul.

“Then, when you got to a certain age, you’d have been allowed to stand with the older boys at the corner,” recalled Frank, becoming even more animated by his memory of this glorious coming of age moment.

“At that stage, you could proudly consider yourself a corner boy.”

Corner boys, apparently, were a big part of the culture of Old Omagh: Groups of young lads who would stand at a corner, smoking cigarettes and singing songs.

“Nobody had any hassle singing a song in those days. We actually had a Brook Street anthem that we came up with.”

Frank then proceeded to chant out the tune without stutter or stumble.

The lyrics were all about being a proud member of the Brook Street brigade. It was both jovial and a bit threatening. As well as celebrating a sense of community and belonging, the song also carried more than an undertone of warning about what might happen those who dared mess with the choir of youngsters that idled at Brook Street corner.

“We used to play handball every Sunday after Mass. It was always winner stays on. Then the police would land down and break it up because, at that time, it was classed as an illegal Irish game.

“But that was all part of the craic too. The chase, jumping over walls, running into the first open door you seen.”

The corner was a place where lessons were learned. For instance, it taught a young fella the easiest way to lose – and, inversely, protect – a box of fags.

“You daren’t take out a full packet of cigarettes at the corner or you’d have been mobbed,” said Frank.

To avoid having all your tobacco robbed, some boys developed a trick.

“The crafty fellas used to bring out two packets: One with only one or two fags in it, then another secret packet where they’d keep the rest. If anyone asked for a fag, you’d show them your almost-empty packet.

“Oh aye, that was a big one,” laughed Frank.

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It was then time to talk well-known characters from the area. Disclaimer: If your loved one is not mentioned, blame me, not Frank. He mentioned too many to possibly include.

“There was Frank Coyle, who we called FCO. He got that name because he used to get the train to Bundoran, get drunk, then, when the guards inevitably approached him to make enquiries, before they had a chance to speak he would say, ‘Frank Coyle Omagh’.”

Then there was Nancy and Mary Angus Smith, who ran a shop from their front room.

“All the women would gather in there and gasp as Mary Agnus read them the News of The World – a publication looked down on by the priests at the time because of its reputation for spreading scandal.”

Reading one such story that related the salacious tale of a politician who was caught with a prostitute, Mary Agnus was struggling to to pronounce the word ‘whore’, when her less delicate sister came to the rescue.

“’It doesn’t matter what way you spell it Mary Agnus, a hoor is a hoor,’ said Nancy.”

Frank nearly fell off his seat telling that one (which I have abbreviated for the sake of space).

By the time Frank was born in 1941, Brook Street was already an old part of the town. In fact, with a pride that suggests superiority, Frank claims that Brook Street was the ‘home of the original Omagh people’.

Even the way he says it somehow conveys that he feels Brook Street residents are to Omagh what the Sioux or Apache are to America.

“Yeah, Brook Street was there from the start,” boasted Frank.

But such a legacy came at a cost.

“When I was growing up, you’d to go to the outside tap for a wash or a shave. Imagine having to do that before your work on a frosty morning.”

Sanitation was also extremely poor.

“There were no toilet facilities worth chatting about. There was a shed with a corrugated roof, and inside was a lump of wood with a hole cut out of it, and that was shared by everyone. And everything in those days ended up in the brook, so you can imagine what it was like when it burst its banks.

“Everybody from one side of the street piled into the houses at the other, which is where we lived. Then we’d usually all help them try to scrub the worst of it away when the water went down.”

By the mid-1900s, the houses were in such bad shape that a story – which sounds pretty implausible – was told and retold by residents in the area for many years.

“The bands were marching up Castle Street one day, making a big racket, when three houses came down; McNamee’s, Brogan’s and Mullholland’s. Everybody said it was the noise of the bands that tossed them.

“That shows you what condition they were in.”

We went on chatting about this and that, Frank recalling stories of tragedy, adventure and political unrest, each one of which seemed to involve the lighting of a
bonfire.

I said my goodbyes and thanked him for his time.

“Right Granda, that’s me,” I said.

“No bother wee son. Call over anytime and I’ll tell you plenty more.”

Then, just before leaving the house, I remembered to ask him one last thing.

“Here, what happened when the houses fell? Was anyone killed?” I asked. “No, nobody was even hurt,” he said. “Thankfully everyone was out watching the bands.”