In the 1840s, Gortin had 410 inhabitants living in 81 indifferently-built houses arranged along one irregular street. A visitor of the period found the surrounding scenery bold but generally destitute of beauty, lacking trees - except at Beltrim, the residence of the Hamilton family, who had planted young woodlands around their seat. The Hamiltons, later Cole-Hamiltons, owned an estate so large that the landlord boasted he could ride around it on horseback in a single day. He was a sportsman who preserved game with religious zeal. If a tenant owned a dog that killed a hare and word reached the big house, the dog was ordered destroyed; if the tenant refused, the family received notice to quit. A bailiff watched over the bog where the tenants cut their turf, and also watched for any sign that a tenant might be prospering. Improve your land, raise a few extra stacks of oats, and your rent went up to match.

The workhouse opened in 1841, two years before the famine, at a cost of 2,689 pounds, with another 200 pounds for the site. It was built to hold 200 paupers - a main building 200 yards long and three stories high, plus a general hospital and a fever hospital. When the famine came, porridge was handed out at the door to anyone who arrived with a vessel to carry it away. Seed potatoes, oats, and grass seed were also distributed, for a small fee. The workhouse outlived the famine and eventually closed; its inmates were transferred to Omagh, and the building was sold. The Catholic Church bought the main workhouse, knocked it down, and built a new church and parochial house on the foundations. The Presbyterian Church bought the fever hospital and turned it into a manse. Visitors of the period heard that religion was in a bad way in Gortin, because the Presbyterian minister was living in the fever hospital and the Parish Priest was living in the workhouse. A small graveyard still holds 33 of the people who died in those buildings.

Once there was a tannery here. The oak bark was soaked in stone pits whose outlines can still be traced in a village yard, and the leather went to local cobblers and harness-makers. There were two bakeries - one owner used to hitch two horses to two carts and drive to Dublin for flour. A sawmill ran on a steam engine with a windmill helping out, and the same power turned a corn mill grinding Indian meal and oats. A burn that runs through the village powered all of it. A company of Imperial Yeomanry was once stationed in Gortin, wearing badges roughly the size of taxi-driver licences with the words Gortin Imperial Yeomanry pressed into them; their main duty was hunting for poteen. A nailer once worked here too, hammering out nails of every size from iron rods called mailrod, using only a hammer, tongs, anvil, and chisel. A cooper made wooden firkins for butter, and pails and barrels to order. None of these trades survived the twentieth century.

Gortin sits in the valley of the Owenkillew, 10 miles north of Omagh, with the Sperrins rising on either side. The Sperrins are gentle mountains, more rolling than dramatic, made of ancient Dalradian quartzite and schist, their high points covered in blanket bog and rough grass. They have always been good for hill farming and not much else, and that has helped keep them quiet. Gortin Glen Forest Park opened next door in 1967 and covers 15 square kilometres of conifer plantation with waymarked walks and waterfalls. The Ulster History Park once stood nearby, recreating Irish settlements from Mesolithic huts to plantation bawns; it closed and has been redeveloped as the Glenpark Estate. The village has the singer Janet Devlin as its most famous modern export - she finished fifth on X Factor in 2011 and has been releasing her own records since. The Troubles touched here too, more lightly than elsewhere: a 19-year-old named Albert Ballantine was killed by the UVF in May 1975. The village marks that anniversary quietly.