Northern Ireland’s oldest postman has retired after nearly 45 years serving his community, marking the milestone by celebrating his 75th birthday.
Liam O’Rourke, who lives in Convoy, Co Donegal, started delivering the post in Omagh, Co Tyrone when he joined Royal Mail at the age of 31.
He previously worked in jobs for a number of firms before applying to join the postal service.
After a few years on the door-to-door beat, he took up a role working at the Omagh sorting office, where he marked his last day in the job on Wednesday.
“I guess I was the oldest and now I’m retired,” Liam told the Belfast Telegraph.
“I did love the job. It was quite the experience. I put a lot into it and there was highs and lows, but mostly highs.”
Liam said he took the role of handling the public’s mail seriously, explaining: “Just generally, you have to have a certain amount of security about it and respect for other people. You have to ensure that things keep moving along.
“I’d been based in the office for about 35 years, sorting mail for delivery, doing the wages and things like that.”
He has witnessed the job transform over the years from hands-on to the advent of machines to sort the mail, speeding up the process.
The Donegal man said his last day in his job, which was first reported by the Ulster Herald, was “just another day in the office”, but his colleagues helped ensure it was memorable.
“I didn’t do anything different, really. I didn’t want a fuss, but there was sandwiches, cakes and buns,” he added.
Delivering the post is something of a family trade for Liam, with his sons Paul and Richard based in the Omagh office and his grandson Kyle having been a postman for five years.
“Richard mainly worked with me and Kyle gets his mail from the Omagh office in the morning and goes to Dromore to deliver it,” he said.
One demand of the role Liam is more than happy to say goodbye to is the eye-watering early starts.
“The last while, especially since Covid, I’ve been getting up for work at 1am and getting into work for 2am, driving from Donegal, then my shift would end at 5.30pm,” he said.
“The way we worked was a three-day week, doing double shifts.”
Now that he has extra free time on his hands, Liam is planning to get more involved with his local Gaelic football team.
“I do a bit of training and I’m involved with the senior team a bit as well” he said.
“I’ve a big interest in the county team as well. I’ve plenty to keep me going.”
With more than four decades of memories to look back on at the Omagh office, Liam has plenty of memories, good and bad.
Among the worst is Omagh’s darkest moment: the day the Real IRA blew up the town centre. The atrocity, on August 15, 1998, killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, nine children and three generations of one family.
It was the single biggest tragedy of the Troubles, and took place three months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
“I was working that Saturday. It never leaves you. [In] the aftermath... the photographers, the post office was overrun with Press doing stories. They used the roof of the post office because it was the highest point in the town for photographs.”
He also recalled the official visit to Omagh by then United States president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, who mourned with the victims of the attack a month later.
“It was a big thing when he came, all the security that surrounded him,” Liam told the Belfast Telegraph
“Loads of things happened over the years. All sorts of things happened during the Troubles, but the last 20 years, it has settled down and been good.
“During those early years it was rough, though.”
