Visitors to Garrison can enjoy a wide range of activities including golfing, fishing, hill-walking, water sports, horse-riding, cycling, camping and caving. The Lough Melvin Holiday Centre caters for large groups and there are a plethora of local guesthouses and chalets to let. Two local pubs – The Melvin Bar and The Riverside Bar – provide music and craic. The local restaurant, The Bilberry, is well established and well renowned in the North-West region.
in Ireland is home to the Gillaroo or 'salmo stomachius', a species of trout which eats primarily snails. Gillaroo is derived from the Irish for 'red fellow'. This is due to the fish's distinctive colouring. It has a bright buttery golden colour on its flanks with bright crimson and vermillion spots. The gillaroo is characterised by deep red spots and a "gizzard", which is used to aid the digestion of hard food items such as water snails. Experiments carried out by Queens University, Belfast established that the Lough Melvin gillaroo species cannot be found anywhere else in the world. They feed almost exclusively on bottom living animals with the exception of late summer when they come to the surface to feed and may be caught on the dry fly. Other lakes reputed to contain the gillaroo are Lough Neagh, Lough Conn, Lough Mask and Lough Corrib. However, the unique gene found in the Lough Melvin trout has not been found in some 200 trout populations in Ireland or Britain. The sonaghan trout is another species unique to Lough Melvin. It can have a light brown or silvery hue with large, distinctive black spots. There are sometimes small, inconspicuous red spots located along its posterior region. Its fins are dark brown or black with elongated pectorals. Sonaghan are found in areas of open, deep water, where they feed on mid-water planktonic organisms.
History
Garrison is named from a barracks erected by William III who halted here after the Battle of Aughrim. The Melvin Hotel, previously owned by the McGovern family, was blown up during the middle of a Catholic wedding reception, by the IRA reportedly as retaliation for allowing members of the security forces to stay on the premises. The Police Service of Northern Ireland came under gun attack in the town on 21 November 2009. Mick Moohan, one time cabinet minister in the New Zealand Government, was born in Garrison. Patrick Treacy, author and one time physician to Michael Jackson, was born in Garrison where his parents ran a shop, garage, and filling station. He released a memoir regarding his life growing up in Garrison during the Troubles and his later financial struggles to become a doctor in a book entitled Behind the Mask: The Extraordinary Story of the Irishman who became Michael Jackson's Doctor in 2015.
