A look back on five decades of education on the Brookmount Road

To start the story of St Conor’s Primary School properly, we must begin by remembering the final days of old Culmore.

Located on the Tamlaght Road, in the same spot that St Eugene’s Hall stands today, Culmore National School opened its doors in 1914.

For 60 years, from the first morning it opened to the final evening it closed, Culmore was a cornerstone of community life for families along the Tamlaght Road, as well as the suburbs and countryside that surrounded it.

No more than three modest classrooms and two outdoor mobiles, Culmore, was attended by many pupils from big parks such as Shandon, Strule and O’Kane, but was considered a country school.

Sitting on the outermost edge of Omagh, where town turns to countryside within just a few hundred yards, Culmore drew pupils from both urban and rural backgrounds.

Long before words like inclusivity, tolerance and diversity had entered the mainstream, Culmore accepted pupils of different faiths and varying abilities.

Perhaps partly because of this proto-pluralistic ethos, Culmore spent most of its life in rude and stable health. Each year, as the senior pupils packed their bags for big school, a fresh flock of P1s never failed to take their place. What summer stole, September always gave back.

However, no institution is without its challenges, and by 1957 Culmore had found itself in a bit of bother.

The steady stream of pupils that had once flowed through the school had begun to dry up, and, with the passing of each summer holiday, the numbers grew fewer.

With attendance falling and the school becoming rundown, the authorities began to look askance towards the Tamlaght Road. By 1957, even if every pupil turned up in the morning, less than 70 hands would be raised when roll was called.

However, despite its dwindling numbers, Culmore clung on for another decade – albeit under the close, watchful eye of the parish and education board.

Then, in 1967, Colm MacRory came on the scene; a man who would change the course of Culmore’s history forever.

In his first year as school principal, there was scarcely 90 pupils on the register.

By 1971, after just four years at the helm, Mr MacRory – who has been described as a ‘force of nature’ – had brought that number up to almost 180. Inside his short tenure as top brass on the Tamlaght Road, Mr MacRory had doubled the attendance, restored the parish’s faith in Culmore, and commenced an ambitious campaign to build a brand new building on the Brookmount Road – just across the feild from the site of Culmore.

By September 1971, tender for the construction of a new school had gone out to the public, and Patrick Haughey, a decorated architect who had won awards for his design of a new chapel in Sion Mills, had designed a blueprint for the new facility.

In early 1972, the first shovel entered the earth as the foundations were dug. On September 1, 1973, with a staff of seven teachers and 213 pupils, St Conor’s Primary School officially opened its doors.

Over the next 50 years, thousands of pupils would pass through its hands, the mark of the school forever imprinted upon them.