Month: February 2025

Wednesday 19th February 2025: Speaker: Mr Alistair Orr
Topic: Cliff Scenery of Southwest Donegal

Alistair kicked off his presentation by protesting that he was not used to giving talks.   It was a protest quickly rejected as he launched into a fluent, fascinating and fact-filled talk. He attributed his connection to the area to a Derry Nun who enthused about the work of Fr James McDywer, the Parish Priest in Glencolmkille and urged his father, Albert Orr, to make his acquaintance. It was the start of regular visits to Southwest Donegal and the collection of many books about the culture, history and geography and of the area.

To whet the appetite of his audience Alistair began with a quiz and distributed two sheets of A4 depicting people and events with a connection to Southwest Donegal.  Members studied the 12 pictures, scratched their heads but between them came up with all the answers. The images included, Saint Columkille, The Spanish Armada ship, Girona, Bonny Prince Charlie, Poets William Allingham and Dylan Thomas, Singer Gracie Fields, Film stars, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick and Father Brown, the latter famed for his photographic record of the area in the 1920’s.  Father Brown was a Jesuit priest who had been a chaplain in the Irish Guards during the first World War and been highly decorated for his courage.

Club member, Oliver Loughran spoke for all present when he warmly congratulated Alistair on an erudite, well prepared, very interesting and informative talk.

Beetlemania: Hugh Ward

The speaker on Wednesday 12th February 2025 was club member Hugh Ward, drawn by lot to address the meeting on the topic of his own choosing.  Hugh entitled his talk Beetlemania and regaled members with his enthusiasm for buying, restoring and driving VW beetles during a period in his life some might consider a middle-age crisis.  He began by looking at the genesis of the Beetle during the 1930s when Adolf Hitler was chancellor in pre-war Germany with a vision for an affordable “people’s car” – Volkswagen. Costing 1000 Deutschmark and capable of carrying two adults and three children at 100 kilometres per hour he entrusted automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche with the design, and the rest is history.  The last Beetle to be built was produced in Mexico in 2024, part of a manufacturing network which at its height in the 1960s spanned the globe.

Hugh’s interest was sparked by his son who purchased a wreck of a Beetle from a scrap yard and together they restored it, an engineering achievement which became a passion as they acquired more and more old Beetles. At one time Hugh had 11 in his workshop with parts for sale on e-bay having bought out a VW service and repair dealership in Tassagh, Co Armagh.  With the passing of time his enthusiasm dimmed leaving him with precious memories, a shelf full of VW workshop manuals and many photographs of beloved Beetles. He was warmly thanked for his talk by Oliver Loughran whose wife still owns and drives a yellow Beetle sourced 12 years ago from Mexico.

Mr Sean Fitzgerald

The guest speaker on Wednesday 5th February was Mr Sean Fitzgerald, an ambassador for “Mercy Ships” since his retirement as a Stena Line sea captain. “Mercy Ships” is an international charity founded in 1978 by Americans Don and Dayton Stevens, and committed to bringing hope and healing to parts of sub-Saharan Africa where thousands of people do not have access to modern health care. A hospital ship is an efficient way to deliver state-of-the-art medical services to places where clean water, reliable electricity and skilled doctors are non-existent or scarce. The charity maintains two ships which together perform more than 5000 surgeries and over 28,000 dental procedures annually, while training more than 2800 medical professionals. This ensures ongoing support after the ships depart. The aim of the charity is to make itself redundant by establishing modern on-shore health care facilities.

The images below show the “Global Mercy” [on the left] and the “Africa Mercy”. To give some idea of scale the “Global Mercy” has a crew of 950 covering 200 different jobs. It has 6 operating theatres, 200 patient beds, a laboratory, a CT scanner, out-patients’ clinics as well as dental surgeries. The “Africa Mercy” boasts five operating theatres, an X-ray unit, a recovery suite, an intensive care unit and 86 ward beds. Both are similar in size to the Stena Line car ferries which daily between Belfast and Liverpool and were built on blue-prints provided by the company.
Sean was warmly thanked for his informative talk.

PROBUS CLUB 29th January 2025 Mr Oliver Loughran

Omagh Men’s Probus Club annually extends an invitation to the president of Omagh Rotary to address members in recognition of the fact that the club was sponsored by Rotary in the first instance, and owes its existence to Rotary, – as do all Probus Clubs in the UK and Ireland.  Unfortunately Mr Peter Waterson, Rotary President 2024 – 25 was unable to attend on Wednesday 29th. In his absence club member and Omagh Rotarian, Mr Oliver Loughran filled in and conveyed the best wishes of the Rotary Club for the year ahead.

Oliver took club members on a light-hearted trip down memory lane reminiscing about his childhood in Ballygawley where his grandfather, Joseph Loughran, had brought electricity to the village. Oliver attended St Matthews Primary School, Garvaghey where his mother was a teacher.  He recalled that the school was fully integrated and was envious that the Protestant pupils were allowed to play outside when the priest came to teach R.E.

Oliver is not the only club member to have attended the Christian Brothers Grammar School in Omagh and his contemporaries enjoyed sharing memories of the hardships they endured and the successes they enjoyed. At Queens he read English and with some pals formed a dance band. Their first booking was in an Orange Hall in Sandy Row.

In such lively and engaging vein, Oliver filled the morning with characteristic wit and good humour, a contribution for which he was warmly applauded.