The bus pulled into a miscellaneous town on a grey Sunday morning, I wasn't
sure where or who I was but thought I'd like to find out. Soon all was divulged
- this was indeed Omagh, county Tyrone, part of the country I'd been living in
for the past five months, ignorant of it's existence. It had recently made
itself known as the place of my ancestors, a point of passing for the Nixon clan
on their migratory route from Scotland to New Zealand, and I had come to
investigate.
I had two names - Gavaughy and Sixmilecross - possible leads to evidence of
Nixon occupancy. Talking to a friendly lad I was told there were no buses
working that day and also those two places were 15 km south east of the town,
it's a Sunday morning so good luck to ya getting there, but his cousin was
heading that way anyway, we can give yee a lift, and off we went.
We drove through green picturesque hills and fields, and some stilted
conversation later I stood in a cloud of fumes from the exhaust of a lone car -
the lads, as they drove away - and this was the main street of Sixmilecross.
Nice fat drops of rain landed on me, waking me up, refreshing the long rows of
attached houses that spread out from the central hub of the butchers shop, pubs
and a Spar. I headed for the only place with signs of life - Big Bulls (?) pub -
but another sign intervened on my way across the street - Presbyterian church,
1/2 m ^. An automatic right and there I am being herded into a friendly looking
protestant church with the service about to begin. And the service was unusually
good, the Reverand had some interesting things to say, made more exciting by his
mention of the fact that by goodness we have a visitor today and we don't often
have visitors in these parts.
Loitering about afterward I was smiled at by many friendly country folk and soon
as the word was out that I was a 'tracer', I was passed on to the wise man of
the village, Mr Weir. Nixons? Aye! Nixons. There's been Nixons in this here
village for years and years. Well, there's none here now of course, none anymore
- oh except old Lottie who's in the rest home in Omagh - her husbands in the
graveyard here, there's a few Nixon's buried here Aye. Och musical people they
were, musical, played the pipes like yee wouldn't believe, so they did, so they
did.
A frantic woman then approached asking who I was did I have a car and more
importantly where was I to have lunch? I don't know. Och well you'll be coming
with us sure you will. I'll just put the spuds on, and see yee up at the house
a'right!
The Reverend and Mr Weir then took me around the graveyard, showed me a few
recent Nixon graves and an unmarked section of the older part which was said to
be Nixon's too. A search of the church records did not show up any James'
however, though our hunting was hampered by the fact all the pre-1900's records
had been burnt in a bombing. James died in 1878. One of the few churches in the
area without any records. I did not feel the presence of any closely related
ancestral spirits and with no evidence I was unbelieving. We left the church and
sauntered up a hill, and right into the Reverand's house. The frantic woman was
his wife, and quite nice, eager to talk.
The grand Sunday feast was about to be embarked upon when a light joke sent
order into chaos - Lucky you're not a vegetarian! She said, and visions came to
me of the Sunday roast in the country and what it meant and how could I have
possibly have not realised but I can't lie to a Reverand and his wife and I
couldn't eat that pig/cow/ox anyway - ah, actually, yes, I am. Her recovery was
quite impressive - her daughters boyfriend in the city was a vegetarian she said
- and I was placated with three hearty vegetable helpings and a cuppa tae.
The Rev then took me into Omagh to see this mysterious woman Lottie, married to
the last Nixon who lived in the area, Robert John, long since departed but she
has a memory like an elephant, he said, she'll give you some names.
Charlotte Nixon lived now in a resthome but she'd grown up in Sixmilecross,
could remember her husbands family and gave me a few names here and there. Her
husband, Robert John, had a variety of sisters and brothers - Maisey, Sisey, Flo,
William, - and his father was named George Nixon, and his father was also named
George Nixon. They'd been involved in handyman trades - carpenters, painters,
fencers. They were intelligent people, she said. All of them had been members of
the Orange Order, (I'd seen a massive brick building outside sixmilecross that
was the local Orange Hall) and they'd played in the pipes in the band. She was
very proud of them, showed me the vase she'd been given by the Order decades
ago. She couldn't remember anyone who'd ever emigrated to NZ or Australia. She'd
never heard of a countryhouse called Gavaughy, her and her family lived in the
village and weren't farmers. She couldn't remember that much more which was
relevant to me, but she insisted we have a dash of port when the reverand had
gone and then told me a few stories of her children before growing tired and
looking at her watch.
Not long after I'd exhausted my last feeble topic of conversation her daughter
arrived. She was quite interested in why a foreign stranger was sitting talking
to her mother and became enthused on discovering I was a 'tracer', a Nixon in
fact, like herself.
There were a few hours to go before my bus back to Belfast so we went off to see
the town of Omagh which I imagined was the main hub of the area and once vast
Nixon families would have descended on it monthly to trade farm goods and have
Sunday clothes made.
Hazel worked for the council, in the water department, had lived herself in
sixmilecross and then moved into Omagh and been there ever since. We went up and
around the main streets, which were charming in a North Irish, winding small
streets and houses scrunched together with a big cathedral on the hill
overlooking it all, kind of way, with the modern influence of the 'chippie' -
fast chip shops, coffee@grinders American cafe's and a few swanky restaurants.
It was in no way how Grandad's nephew Lance described in back in '92 - the
soldiers and barricades had gone and not many police, friendly people - however
I did see where the '94/'95 (?) bomb had blown up, a few big buildings were
destroyed, one still being repaired, and the street was bumpy and rippled. It
obviously still had a huge effect on people. We went to the garden of
remembrance and then the time came for my bus.
Hazel then decided she would draw up a family tree for me, would contact cousins
and uncles and aunts out in the countryside who knew more. I vowed to return the
following week so we could go and meet these other connections, go in search of
Gavaughy and visit more churches in the area. She was quite excited, as was I,
although my sneaking suspicions told me we were highly unlikely to have a
connection it was wonderful meeting nice people from the countryside who did
after all have the same last name.