It’s a landmark year for Omagh Auction Mart Ltd., which celebrated its 50th anniversary in July. We caught up with director Seamus O’Kane to get an insight into day-to-day activities at one of County Tyrone’s most successful livestock auctioneers.
Since the heady summer of 1967, Omagh Auction Mart has been providing farmers from across counties Tyrone, Derry and Fermanagh with excellent facilities and a level of service that is simply second to none, professionally facilitating the efficient sales of their animals.
As a close-knit, family-run operation, employing vastly-experienced and knowledgeable staff, Omagh Mart has been leading the way for decades and continues to set the pace when it comes to straightforward, client-focussed no-frills, livestock sales.
Specialising in cattle and sheep sales on Monday and Saturday mornings respectively, Omagh Auction Mart also hosts seasonal pedigree bull sales between March and June, pedigree sheep sales from August until November and suckled calf sales on Wednesday evenings, September-December.
The Mart was initially established as Robinson & O’Kane Livestock Auctioneers on the Dublin Road (now the site of Dunnes Stores), as a partnership between the late Arthur Robinson from Ballymena and the late Eddie O’Kane from Drumquin. It’s been situated at its current well-appointed location on the Gillygooley Road since 1995 and the business is currently overseen by Eddie’s sons, Seamus and Eamon O’Kane, who are in turn assisted by Seamus’s son, Michael, and Eamon’s sons, Eireann and James (youngest lad, Calum, is still at school).
“Twenty-two years ago, we moved here to the new complex, which was state-of-the-art at the time,” Seamus reflects. “The Tyrone Farming Society Showgrounds is adjacent to us and they run their show every year on July 4th, which is the only day of the year that we close.”
Very little work has been required in terms of upgrading the already-excellent facilities since 1995. “We’ve made some of the pens smaller,” says Seamus. “Previously, you could have had two or three lots in one pen but we now try wherever possible to keep individual stock together. We’ve 110 pens now, each of which can hold six-ten animals, depending on size.”
Cattle sales take place on Monday mornings, with three rings: bullocks; heifers; and drop calves and weanlings. “Prices at the present time are going up,” Seamus confirms. “I haven’t seen them as good in a number of years. Beef is scarce at present since they stopped doing winter finishers and that has driven the prices up. It’s simple supply and demand.”
Sales days are very busy, with up to 25 people working in the Mart, which gathers customers from a wide catchment area incorporating West Tyrone, South Derry and North Fermanagh. “Omagh is mostly dairy farming and the further out you go it’s sucklers and sheep areas,” Seamus notes. “We’re beside the hills here and the Sperrins aren’t too far away from us. We have sheep sales from August 10th through until the end of October and we run extra sheep sales on Tuesdays for fat lambs and fat ewes. You could easily have 2,000 store lambs on any given day in September, so that’s why we run the Tuesday sale, to alleviate things. It would be too late come the Saturday and you’d lose sales.”
At the heart of Omagh Auction Mart are the excellent facilities on Gillygooley Road. “The complex is council-owned and the Ulster Farmers Union and Fane Valley Stores also have units here,” Seamus continues. “We have eleven loading and unloading bays and an excellent canteen, which is leased out to the Council.”
The O’Kanes provide a personal touch and treat all clients in a very transparent and friendly manner. “We are always here on site ourselves to deal with people,” says Seamus. “Between myself and Eamon and Michael, we work down in the yard during sales and we are approachable at all times. We don’t hide away in an office. We make ourselves available to people.
“We’re in a great location here on the outskirts of Omagh, on the Drumquin Road beside the roundabout on the Derry side, and we’re very accessible, which is important.”
Seamus joined Omagh Auction Mart straight out of school half a century ago. The dynamic of mart day has changed quite a bit during the intervening years. “The Mart used to be more of a social occasion and a social gathering but people haven’t time to hang around talking now and it’s all about speed and efficiency,” he states. “Now you have to move quickly – get the stock in, get the stock sold, get the prices and get home! They want a business-like experience now … they only want to be here for a few hours at the very most and then straight home. We’re here to facilitate that, to get them in an out as quickly as possible.”
Seamus hasn’t bothered to overcomplicate things with internet or camera sales as he firmly believes it’s better for a farmer to see what he’s buying. “As the saying goes, you don’t buy a pig in a poke,” he quips.
Away from livestock sales and family, one of Seamus’ other great passions in life is the GAA, which is equally deeply embedded in the local community. He’s been a Drumquin and Tyrone GAA stalwart all his life and had the distinction of togging out for the Red Hands against neighbours Derry in the 1959 Ulster MFC final. “All our yard staff are local farmers,” he points out. “We have one man from County Fermanagh, who has been a long-suffering Fermanagh football follower all his life and we always say that we just employ him out of pity. He’s a big fan and he’s still waiting patiently for their big breakthrough.”
Seamus also runs sucklers and sheep in conjunction with son, Michael. They have a farm leased in Broadford, Kildare and have 150 sucklers between there and the home farm, alongside some 200 ewes. Eamon also participates in some sheep farming, running around 100 ewes.
Farming themselves grants the O’Kanes a keen insight into the daily plight of livestock farmers. “It’s a struggle,” Seamus admits. “To be honest, we do it more for enjoyment than financial return. When you are born into stock, it’s part of your life and it’s hard to walk away from it, but you wouldn’t like to be solely dependent on it for income.
“The biggest problem is that you can’t plan too far in front of yourself because you don’t know from one month to the next what it will bring. We have a passion for it, though, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
Looking ahead, Seamus is worried about the future of livestock farming in Ireland as he doesn’t see the same passion and enthusiasm in the next generation. “You could count on one hand the amount of people under the age of 30 who go to the mart in Omagh, so that’s an awful big concern,” he concludes. “Dairy farmers are working hard and are expanding and are a home a lot and they haven’t time for the sales; you’d have to be scared about the future.
“In suckler sales, they are all over 50. I’ve spoken to people from Donegal to Ennis and they tell me it’s the same there, so I really don’t know what’s in store for the next generation. If the supermarkets could buy it for a halfpenny a tonne cheaper out of Argentina, they would and that’s a big part of the problem.”
Omagh Auction Mart Ltd.,
5 Gillygooley Road,
Omagh
County Tyrone,
BT78 5PN.
Tel: 028 8224 4645
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.omaghmart.co.uk/
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 6, September 2017
