A green hill far away
Malcolm Rogers travels to Strabane, recently adjudged to be the third worst town in Britain, and answers all your questions about the much-maligned town.
 “I’ll take my stand by the Ulster names,
Each clean hard names like a weathered stone,
Tyrella, Rostrevor are flickering flames
The names I mean are the Moy, Malone
Strabane, Slievegullion and Portglenone.”
(John Hewitt 1907)
Where in the world?
Strabane sits on the Tyrone/ Donegal border, where the Rivers Mourne and Finn join to form the Foyle. The River Mourne is reputedly the best salmon river in Ireland and is certainly as soporifically beautiful as you can get, babbling through glens and meandering through water meadows.
Across the border lies the town of Lifford and nearby lie the empty and beautiful Sperrin Mountains. The view of the Sperrins rising up from Strabane is said to have been the inspiration for the hymn There Is A Green Hill Far Away, written by Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander, who saw the view every day from her bedroom window.
Meaning of the name Strabane, then?
An Strath Bán — the White Holm. Holm is an old Viking word meaning ‘island of land’.
Quintessentially Irish, then — Gaelic and Viking — but it came third in a UK, ie British, poll?
To call it part of the UK is, of course, strictly correct in that the town falls under British jurisdiction. But to imagine that Strabane is British in the manner of, say, Sheffield or Luton, is very wide of the mark.
For a start, there’s the monster barracks of a building which is a PSNI station. This immediately tells you that the police here aren’t like The Bill. The station is buried under a ton of concrete with surveillance cameras and electronic equipment bristling from every rooftop, and makes Colditz look positively friendly.
The town is fiercely Republican, a nationalist enclave tucked into a largely Protestant farmland area. With the peace process and the recent decommissioning of British army posts, the place has managed to regain an air of normality, but a sense of siege mentality still somewhat pervades the area.
OK, that’s the political situation taken care of. But the place must really be as ugly as sin to do so well (or badly) in that popularity poll?
Well, that’s the funny thing. It’s quite a handsome place, especially if you approach from the Donegal side. As you cross the river from Lifford you can see the five spires of Strabane’s churches rising up towards the gorse covered hills. These, presumably, are some of the dreary steeples of Tyrone which Winston Churchill referred to.
But while Churchill wasn’t a keen admirer of either Tyrone or Fermanagh, novelist Anthony Trollope was reasonably taken with the place.
In his ‘letter from Strabane’ to a friend in England in 1854, he said: “The North of Ireland has some charms for the tourist — and should you take my advice and visit there I beg to offer myself as your host and guide.”
One thing Trollope wouldn’t have seen back in the 19th century is a truly remarkable sculpture situated just outside the town. Entitled Let The Dance Begin, it was built to celebrate the Millennium. Five semi-abstract stainless steel and bronze figures — approximately 18 feet in height — play fiddle, fife, drum, etc., in a representation of Music and Dance.
The people responsible for Dublin’s Millennium Spire could have learnt a thing or two from this very impressive Strabane sculpture.
And the middle of the town?
Well, in all honesty, there’s not a huge amount to recommend the place. It’s a quiet country town, but not as handsome as nearby Omagh or as picturesque as Sion Mills, a heritage town two miles along along the Mourne River. Strabane once boasted a castle — built in James I’s time — but it has long disappeared.
One particular place of interest is the Gray Printers’ Museum on Main Street. With a handsome Georgian façade, the museum is a fine — if limited — look at the power of the printed word, and Strabane’s own hand in printing history.
So was Strabane big in the printing world?
Well, in the 18th century it was an important enough printing and publishing centre. John Dunlap emigrated from the town to America and in 1776 published the American Declaration of Independence as well as the Pennsylvanian Packet, America’s first daily paper.
The American connection could be why the town is twinned with Sioux Falls in North Dakota. Apart from the printing connection it’s difficult to imagine many other points of similarity.
Aside from printing, anything else to see in the environs?
Water Wall and the gravelly banks of the Mourne are pleasant for strolling as well as fishing. The main square has a Gothic style church (C of I) with the east window donated by Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander. The Catholic church in Barrack Street is a handsome building, not without interest. But there are few must-see architectural gems.
Any other famous figures from the area?
 Flann O’Brien (aka Myles na Gopaleen) was born Brian O’Nolan at 17 Bowling Green Square.
Today it is a locked, downcast, three-storey terraced house, dour and unkempt. It would probably pass more suitably as the birthplace of Bram Stoker. Little attention is paid to Flann — perhaps his satirical humour and biting wit was at odds with the parochial nature of the town.
Any other big names from hereabouts?
 Well, rather less amusing is the singer-songwriter Paul Brady, who is a Strabane man, and even less amusing than that is President Woodrow Wilson’s father. The US President’s ancestral home is just down the road in the heavily nationalistic village of Dergalt, two miles east of Strabane. Mr Wilson (Snr) was a printer in the locality.
 The other big name with connections round here is the aforementioned Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895), author of All Things Bright And Beautiful and There Is A Green Hill Far Away.
Strabane is also the home town of country singer Hugo Duncan, aka the Wee Man from Strabane.
In addition, the town can boast two superb songs — the Strabane Hiring Fair and The Flower of Sweet Strabane.
“If I were King of Ireland’s Isle, and had all things at my will
I’d roam for recreation, and I’d seek for comfort still.
The comfort I would ask for, so that you may understand
Is to win the heart of Martha, the Flower of Sweet Strabane.”
Well, that seems a reasonable haul for somewhere which comes third in a poll of the Britain’s worst towns.
Hang on a second, there’s more. Strabane was also the home of poet William Collins, part of the abortive ‘Fenian invasion’ of Ontario in 1866 — the only time when an Irish force has invaded a foreign country.
But more of that another time. Just listen to these lines penned by Collins:
“O God be with the good old times when I was twenty-one
In Tyrone among the bushes, where the Finn and Mourne run
When my heart was gay and merry, recked then not of care or toil
Blithsoine as the bells of Derry ringing o’er the sunny Foyle.”
So: printing and poetry, song and literary connections, set in glorious countryside, but maybe not the most exciting town in the world, never mind Britain. Would that sum up the place nicely?
Not bad. Strabane is recovering from “the Bother” now, and there are some terrific day trips hereabouts. Strabane Glen, just over a mile outside town a narrow gully with steep rock faces and views over the Foyle.
Lundy’s Cave is said to have been a hiding place of the military governor of Derry, who defected to the besiegers when the apprentices closed the city gates against the Jacobites.
‘Lundy’ is still an insult hurled by loyalists, in an area where the events of four hundred years ago are still fresh in the mind.
For further information contact Strabane Tourist Information — Telephone: 028 7188 3735. |
