A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
An Ómaigh· Irish · main form · validated name
Omagh· English · main form
Place & story
Rebuilding after fire
Lewis records seventeenth-century fires and another destructive fire in 1743, after which Omagh was rebuilt on a new plan. His 1837 description lists three principal streets.[2]
River and county functions
Omagh stands on the Strule along the Dublin–Derry mail route. Lewis records its succession to Dungannon as the county town, while acknowledging that he could not establish the exact date.[2]
People & connections
Alice Milligan and cultural revival
Alice Milligan was born at Gortmore near Omagh in 1866. A writer of poetry, plays and fiction, she became an important organiser and editor within the Irish cultural revival. Libraries NI preserves an Alice Milligan collection in Omagh, including research papers assembled by Catherine Morris for her study of Milligan’s work. The local association is consequently both biographical and archival.[3]
The Ulster-Scots Agency’s account places her in a Methodist family with strong antiquarian and literary interests. It traces her early fascination with Irish to hearing workers from the Donegal Gaeltacht on a relative’s farm near Omagh. Her later language study and cultural activism developed from that wider network of family, education and travel.[4]
Both censuses use the same 2015 settlement boundary. These exact counts cover usual residents in the settlement, rather than local government districts or historic counties. Other NISRA tables may use approximate counts.
View population figures
OMAGH TOWN — Settlement 2015 (N11000603) — census population
placenames