The triumph and tragedy of Knock-Na-Moe Castle

Few of the buildings that are synonymous with Omagh will have backstories as fascinating as Knock-Na-Moe Castle.

Once a landmark structure situated on the Old Mountfield Road en route to Killyclogher, it served many purposes during its long history, before a ferocious blaze effectively brought it down in the early ‘90s.

Those of a certain age will recall going to dances or ‘discos’ at Knock-Na-Moe, but it has also served as a hotel, private manor, American military base and even at one stage, the town courthouse.

It was also the scene of the first atrocity of The Troubles in the town, when a bomb blast in the grounds killed five British soldiers.

The history of the castle started with two Presbyterian clergymen, over 150 years ago.

Mullaghmore House is associated with the Stack family who were prominent in church, military and legal circles in Tyrone during the 19th Century.

The Rev Richard Stack was installed as rector of Drumragh Parish in 1791 and agreed to swap parishes with Rev Robert Burrowes, who was in Cappagh in 1807. The Stack family’s connection with Cappagh had begun.

They then acquired Mullaghmore House and the associated townland of Mullaghmore. The Rector of Cappagh Parish would have received a substantial income as the church owned extensive lands in the parish. The Mountjoy Estate, some 30,000 acres, owned by the Gardiner Family, had become bankrupt and the estate was put up for sale. The Stacks took the opportunity to acquire land which was the most prominent symbol of social status. By 1876, when a survey was carried out of landowners, George Hall Stack of Mullaghmore House owned 3,134 acres and Richard Stack of Omagh had 437 acres. In addition, branches of the family owned properties in Omagh, including all of Brook Street.

The Jacobean-style Knock-Na-Moe Castle was built in 1875 for the Stack family, who acquired the talents of an English architect named Charles Lanyon, famous for his design of the main building at Queen’s University.

This ‘castle’ stood in the grounds opposite Mullaghmore House. These lands were part of the 39 acres which made up the original lands of Mullaghmore House.

An idea of the scale of the building can be ascertained as it had 24 rooms and was valued at £82, whereas Mullaghmore House has 11 rooms and a valuation of £28.

It was financed by Richard Francis Stack who had been a barrister for the Colonial Government in Calcutta and retired with a substantial pension. However, he only lived there for a year as he died in 1878, aged 58.

It was rented out to various persons, including Canon Hayes but by 1911 it had been sold to a Colonel Battersby, a local military leader who would lose both his sons in the Battle of the Somme five years later.

Following the partition of Ireland in the 1920s, the castle was occupied by the boundary Commission of Northern Ireland as they drew out the new constituencies for the six counties of the North.

For a brief period, the castle was owned by the Campbell family, who at the outbreak of WWII, publicly announced that they would host refugee children in the building.

Military Use

Although this generous plan would not come to fruition, the castle was requisitioned by the US army as a strategic base of operations in Europe.

During the military’s occupation of the castle, it became a pivotal centre for information gathering by the allied powers, with dozens of American army personnel joined by members of the French, Polish and other resistance groups.

In preparation for the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, urban myth has it that that US General Eisenhower and British Field Marshal Montgomery visited Knock-Na-Moe to assess the intelligence before the assault on Normandy.

It’s even been reported that Winston Churchill once stayed there.

Following the war, the castle was returned to public hands and its military huts were auctioned off.

It was briefly used as a courthouse between 1959 and 1963 whilst the town courthouse on High Street underwent renovations.

Afterwards, the castle embarked upon a new lease of life as a hotel and some of its rooms were named after the military generals who stayed there. In 1962, the site was bought by an insurance broker from Canada by the name of Mr M Boyd, son of Mrs Boyd who owned it before the war, and managed by local businessmen George McDermott and Patrick O’Neill.

The hotel opened in 1965 with 28 bedrooms, a dining hall to fit 80 guests and a function room that could hold 500. It was well received throughout the years by guests and visitors alike, and became a popular venue for dances and live music during the 1970s and 80s.

In fact, Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher played there in the 1980s and its weekly discos drew large crowds.

Tragedies

However, the hotel is also associated with death and misfortune.

Four off duty members of the British Army were killed by an IRA booby trap bomb which detonated as they got into their car after attending a dance in 1973. A fifth soldier died from his injuries later.

The hotel also suffered a number of fires, the first of which reduced a good part of the castle to ruins to ruins in the mid-1970s. However, under the ownership of Mickey Ward, it rose like a phoenix from the ashes and became the entertainment mecca of the west, only to be burned again in 1988.

But a third fire ravaged the hotel to such an extent that it never recovered.

In May 1993, the Knock-Na-Moe Hotel was gutted when flames turned the historic building into an inferno which was seen for miles around.

The fire broke out when the hotel was unoccupied, having been vacant for a few weeks, and multiple fire crews from across Tyrone battled the blaze for ten hours.

When the smoke eventually cleared, the once magnificent building was reduced to a burnt out shell.

The following year saw the complete demolition of the site.

Thirty years after the blaze, only one building associated with Knock-Na-Moe Castle is still left standing,

Situated on Knock-Na-Moe Mews is a section of the castle in its original design, now occupied as a private dwelling.

This gorgeous house is the last remnant of a building that has played such an important role in Omagh’s history.