THE family of the late Graham Cowan have paid tribute to the kind-hearted farmer who always looked on the bright side of life.

Henry ‘Graham’ Cowan (56) passed away peacefully at his home of Mossfield House, Kell Road, Clogher on February 10 following a short battle with cancer.

Paying tribute to Graham, one of his family members described him as a “larger than life character”.

“He was a big man in so many ways. He was physically big, he had a huge heart, he had a huge smile, he had a huge presence. You always heard him before you saw him. 

“He was one of a kind,” they said fondly, noting how he was also very kind-hearted and made friends wherever he went.

“There was something about him that people just loved,” she added.

Growing up in the countryside with his six siblings on the family farm outside Clogher, Graham fell in love with farming.

As a young lad, he couldn’t wait to finish school to start working on the farm full-time.

He later took over the farm from his father where he continued the dairy farming tradition before eventually moving into beef cattle.

“He loved his job. He used to say that he loved to get up in the morning to go out on the farm.

“He’d say, ‘I’m very fortunate that I’m doing something that I love’,” said the family member.

Coinciding with his passion for farming, Graham was an animal lover through and through.

“Everything to do with animals was really Graham’s life. He used to say it had to have four legs and a tail to interest him!”

Along with a herd of cattle, Graham kept sheep. “He really enjoyed sheep, but he was 6ft 4” and they were just a bit short for him.

“He used to say he’d like longer-legged sheep – that that would make his life easier,” recalled the family member with a laugh.

On the farm, Graham also had ducks, geese and hens, and in later years he got into horses.

Throughout his life, Graham had a lot of time for young people and was an inspiration to many.

“He loved young people,” said the family member, commenting that he was a wonderful grandad to his stepson Simon’s children.

“He was really fond of his grandchildren; he loved them very, very much, and his nieces and nephews were the joy of his life,” they said, adding: “Graham always felt that the next generation were our hope and our future, and he would try and encourage them as much as possible.”

Graham had a strong Christian faith.

“He got saved about nine years ago and he had a great faith. He had problems with alcohol in his life and when he got saved, he never drank again.

“He had a great belief in the saving grace of God, and he felt that he had been given a second chance, and he really did grasp that,” said the family member.

They continued: “He was just full of love, and that spilled out everywhere he went.

“He didn’t judge anybody; he accepted people. I think because he had problems in his own life, he was really able to understand where people were coming from.

“He was very supportive, and delighted in the success of others.”

At the end of last November, Graham was diagnosed with liver cancer, which spread to his spine and then to his lungs.

“It’s only in three places, it could be worse,’ that’s what he said,” said the family member, who was in awe of Graham’s positive attitude throughout his illness.

“His favourite saying was, ‘We are where we are’, and that very much summed up Graham. We are where we are and we just have to deal with it.

“He bore his illness with such dignity and cheerfulness. Until the day he passed, he thought he was going to get better.

“He was planning for the future, he never gave up,” they said, adding: “He squeezed every drop of life out of every day.

“He was just full of enthusiasm and everything was going to be better. Tomorrow will be better than today.

“He was phenomenal.”

Graham’s funeral took place in St. John’s Church, Fivemiletown on Friday, February 12 and was arranged by Marcus Madill, S.R. Elliott Funeral Directors.

A much-loved husband of Eithne and stepfather of Simon, a very dear brother of Aileen, Will, Maureen, Fred, Beth and Davida, Graham is greatly missed by his family and friends.

“He was such a wonderful man. We just don’t know what we’ll do without him,” the family member told this newspaper.