Omagh mart remains a big part of local farming landscape

AS Omagh Auction Mart marks three decades at its current site, company director Seamus O’Kane can’t help but wonder what the future holds for the buying and selling of livestock.

The O’Kane family has been associated with the trade for nearly 60 years after Seamus’ father Eddie started selling cattle in a sale yard in Drumquin.

Robinson and O’Kane took over Omagh two years later and in 1995 the business relocated to the current premises on the Gillygooley Road.

Seamus has witnessed many changes during a lifetime involved in the auctioneering of cattle, sheep and pigs and with smaller family farms gradually disappearing from the landscape he can see the pace of change speeding up even more.

As it has done since the early days, Omagh Auction Mart will have to keep moving with the times insists the unassuming director.

Larger farms

“I do believe the future is larger farms run by companies and staff,” he said.

“Even thinking about ourselves and the auction mart, I can see a time when cattle will be sold at home by weight and going direct to feed lots; it’ll be a certain price per kilo.

“If the same changes occur in the next 30 years as the last there will be very few auction marts; perhaps just for dropped calves.”

Seamus tells many stories which illustrate just how much things have changed since he first entered the business.

Back then there were sale yards dotted right across the county in many villages and towns.

The director remembers Castlederg as ‘a going concern’ and Strabane as ‘one of the best beef sales in the North of Ireland’.

As well as Drumquin there were sale yards in Fintona, Fivemiletown, Greencastle and many others that Seamus admits he has forgotten about.

Purpose-built

The opening of new purpose-built facilties at Omagh 30 years ago filled the void and now it services many of the same buyers and sellers.

Seamus remembers a time when the late George Thompson and Duncan Hamilton used to walk their suckled calves through Drumquin to the sale yard on the Omagh Road.

“Back then going to the mart was a social thing,” he continued.

“At Drumquin, calves were penned the night before and certainly by six on the morning of the sale.

“The local publican may have bent the laws slightly and have been open from 8am. By the time of the sale people could have been quite happy at times!

“Years ago we were never concerned about the amount of staff we had because you knew before the sale would have started that there would be farmers coming to the mart with a couple of sons.

“If you were short of staff to pen livestock it was only a matter of asking a farmer, the two lads were more than helpful and they would have been glad of the day’s pay.

“Nowdays you just see the farmer himself, if he even stays for the sale.

“Now some men bring in their stock and go home and watch the sale on LSL, see their stock being sold and wait for their cheque on a Thursday.

“Years ago the farmer spent the whole day at the mart, nowadays it’s in and out and home as quick as possible.”