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GORTIN AND PLUMBRIDGE |
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If you're tackling the Sperrins to the north of Omagh, there are
really only two villages that can offer you any amenities at all -
Gortin and its near-neighbour Plumbridge . And even these are comatose
for much of the year.
GORTIN , ten miles north of Omagh and served by three buses daily, is a
long one-street village with a surprising number of pubs , one of which,
the Badoney Tavern , offers lunches and evening meals . Alternatively,
there's an innovative menu at The Pedlar's Restaurant . The Ulster Way
passes through Gortin, though the signposting which should connect it
with Goles Forest is at the moment incomplete and stops at Craignaddy
(984ft), two and a half miles north. However, the signposted Way does
continue to the south of Gortin through the forest park, with its little
loughs and wild deer, before swinging west to low farmland and the
Ulster American Folk Park . Accommodation is available at the Gortin
Outdoor Centre hostel (July-Sept; tel 028/8264 8083), fifty yards south
of the village crossroads, or the newly-opened self-catering Gortin
Village Accommodation on Main St (tel 028/8264 8346; £163-£325; sleeps
4-6). For camping , head to the Gortin Glen Caravan Park (tel 028/8164
8108), three miles south on the Omagh road (3 buses daily); the site
also has self-catering cottages. Smaller, but far more attractive, is
the Gortin Glen Forest Park campsite opposite (tel 028/8164 8217), a
good place to stay if you're contemplating some hill-walking.
A little over three miles south of Gortin is the Ulster History Park
(April-Sept daily 10am-5.30pm; July & Aug closes 6.30pm; Oct-March
Mon-Fri 10am-5pm; last admission 1hr before closing;
www.omagh.gov.uk/uhpindex.htm ; £3.75), which features full-scale
reconstructions of buildings in Ireland from 7000 BC up to the
seventeenth century. Inside there are videos and displays that serve to
distract in bad weather, but far more rewarding is the interactive tour
on which a guide talks you round such authentic traditional dwellings as
a stinking deerskin-covered teepee, shows you how to chip flint,
explains ancient symbols and answers questions expertly, no matter how
daft they are. The rath, crannóg and medieval castle are particularly
interesting, and the latest addition is a seventeenth-century Plantation
settlement.
PLUMBRIDGE , three and a half miles north of Gortin, sits clustered
prettily on the banks of the Glenelly River. Apocryphally, it gets its
name from the building of the village bridge: the engineer in charge
didn't have a plumb line and so, from his scaffolding, spat in the
water, using his spit to take the perpendicular. There's little here
beyond a few bars and a couple of shops, and the liveliest times are
during the annual Glenelly sheepdog trials in August. However, you might
encounter the odd optimistic gold panner, convinced that the river's
waters hold the key to their fortune.
Three and a half miles east of Gortin (on the B46 Creggan Road) is the
tiny village of ROUSKEY , with the ruins of a "sweat lodge", an early
form of sauna (after the steam treatment, the luckless invalid was
plunged into the icy stream nearby). Widespread use of sweat lodges died
out after the Famine years, possibly because the experience of typhoid
that accompanied the Famine dealt a severe blow to people's confidence
in traditional medicinal treatments, but some were still functioning up
to the 1920s. Also in the village is Teach Ceoil (tel 028/8167 1551), a
restored stone barn worth investigating for its regular evenings of
traditional music and dancing.
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