The war over Omagh’s gold: the £21bn mine plan tearing a community apart

On Monday, a public inquiry will reopen, nine years after the plan was proposed and a toxic local battle began

When Fidelma O'Kane retired more than a decade ago from her career as a social worker and lecturer, she thought she would be travelling and having a glass of wine and eating chocolate and reading books" while based in the quiet, hilly corner of rural County Tyrone where she has lived almost all her life.

It didn't quite work out that way. Instead, an idle remark from a neighbour would set O'Kane on a path that would become an all-consuming mission. A mining company, the neighbour told her, was planning to drill for long-rumoured reserves of gold in the Sperrins, the low peatland mountain range in Northern Ireland where O'Kane's family has lived for generations.