BY ADRIAN MULLAN
LISANELLY British Army Camp in Omagh is no longer a military installation. The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday (Wednesday) that no soldiers remain at the sprawling base.
Lisanelly had been scheduled to close at the end of the tour of the King's Own Scottish Borderers on July 31. The total military withdrawal by that date, codenamed 'Operation Banner' marks the official end of military support for the police in Northern Ireland which began in 1969.
However, the UH has confirmed that the King's Own Scottish Borderers have already gone. The MOD confirmed that there is no rearguard, no garrison, in fact, not a single soldier remaining in the camp.
The closure of Lisanelly means that Tyrone is now a completely demilitarised zone with the army having already pulled out its military personnel from Omagh's St Lucia Baracks, Dungannon, Clogher Valley, Cookstown and Strabane.
Just two years ago, the army was insisting that the Lisanelly camp would be kept as a strategic training post for NATO training, along with its bases in Ballykelly, Ballymena, Lisburn and Balykinlar. However, following the St Andrews Agreement, that plan changed and Omagh was deemed surplus to military requirements.
An MoD spokesman said that the camp is due to be handed over to the Defence Estates Agency in mid-July and will be offered to the Office of the First and Deputy First Ministers initially. Should the Assembly not choose to avail of the camp, it will then be put on the open market.
Already contractors are on site removing watchtowers and sangers. The infrastructure of the garrison will be removed an destroyed except for the armoured glass which is still classified and must be recovered as it is still considered a "military secret".
St Lucia Barracks, which was home to one of the Royal Irish Regiments Home Battalions, has been empty for some months now. St Lucia is connected to Lisanelly by a Bailey bridge. Al though it had been hoped that this might provide a public through-route from the Derry Road to the Gortin Road in a matter of weeks, the MoD have put the dampers on that, insisting that they must remove all military infrastructure.
West Tyrone MP Pat Doherty hailed the early withdrawal of the British army garrison.
"The people of Omagh have waited for this day for a long time," said Mr Doherty. "This now opens up major possibilities for these sites to be used for the regeneration of Omagh and its hinterlands.
"We've waited a long time to see the back of the last British soldier out of Tyrone," the Sinn Féin MP said.
However, Ulster Unionist Cllr Ross Hussey lamented the closure of the military camp.
"I think this is a sad day for Omagh as a garrison town for well over 100 years," he said. "It's sad, not just from my perspective as a unionist. Many people from the area, from both sides of the community, were in employment in the camp over many years; now those jobs have gone."
Clr Hussey added, "St Lucia is now just an empty shell and it has enormous connections to the local community. A lot of families, from both traditions, can trace their ancestry through St Lucia.
"I suppose it's good in a way and means we no longer live in turbulent times but I would liked to have seen Omagh retain its status as a garrison town, both in terms of jobs and tradition," he said.
