The hospital was commissioned as an initiative of the gentry of the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh in the early 19th century.[1] It was designed by William Farrell in the Elizabethan Gothic style and opened as the Omagh District Lunatic Asylum in 1853.[2] Although it was originally intended to accommodate 300 patients,[3] this proved inadequate and additional buildings were erected and the east and west wings were both extended in the 1860s.[2] By the 1930s the facility had become the Tyrone and Fermanagh Hospital.[4] Following the introduction of Care in the Community in the early 1980s the hospital went into a period of decline and wards have been scheduled for closure.[5]
