Cookstown (, ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the fourth largest town in the county and had a population of 12,546 in the 2021 census. It, along with Magherafelt and Dungannon, is one of the main towns in the Mid-Ulster council area. It was founded around 1620 when the townlands in the area were leased by an English ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Alan Cooke, from the Archbishop of Armagh, who had been granted the lands after the Flight of the Earls during the Plantation of Ulster. It was one of the main centres of the linen industry west of the River Bann, and until 1956, the processes of flax spinning, weaving, bleaching and beetling were carried out in the town.
History
In 1609 land was leased to an English ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr Cooke, who fulfilled the covenants entered in the lease by building houses on the land. In 1628, King Charles I granted Letters Patent to Cooke permitting the holding of a twice-weekly market for livestock and flaxen goods.
In 1641, the native Irish revolted against the Planters in a bloody rebellion and the town was destroyed. The rebellion had a devastating effect on the town and development ceased for nearly a century. Over the succeeding years, the lands around Cookstown were progressively bought up by William Stewart of Killymoon until in 1671 all of Dr Cooke's lands were in the hands of the Stewart family. William Stewart and later his son James set out plans for the town soon after this. Inspired by the Wide Streets Commission's work in Dublin, they planned a new town to be built along a tree lined boulevard which was to be wide.
In 1802, Colonel William Stewart (James Stewart's unmarried son) approached the London architect, John Nash, and requested that he visit the area to rebuild Killymoon Castle. Nash also designed the Rectory at Lissan for the Rev John Molesworth Staples in 1807.
With the establishment of Gunning's Linen Weaving Mill, with over 300 looms, Cookstown developed in the 19th century as the local centre of the linen trade. Two railways established terminus railway stations at Cookstown - the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway and the Great Northern Railway.
Prominent developments in the second half of the 19th century included J.J. McCarthy's Church of the Holy Trinity on Chapel Street.
On 17 June 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) raided the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in Cookstown, with help from four sympathetic RIC officers. In a brief firefight, IRA volunteer Patrick Loughran was killed. He was the first IRA volunteer killed on active service in what became Northern Ireland.
Cookstown Town Hall was designed by the town surveyor, Charles Geoffrey Birtwell, and built on the Burn Road by James Corrigan of Pomeroy: it was officially opened on 27 May 1953.
During the Troubles, Cookstown suffered from several bomb attacks: on 2 November 1990 an off duty soldier from the Ulster Defence Regiment was killed by a car bomb.
Cookstown Town Hall was demolished in 1998 and the Burnavon Arts and Cultural Centre opened on the site in 2000.
Places of interest
Ardboe High Cross and Abbey (), one of the best examples of a 9th/10th century High cross in Ireland, is from Cookstown. It forms the only remaining part of an early monastery on the site.
Other ancient sites nearby include Beaghmore stone circles and Tullyhogue Fort (beside the village of Tullyhogue), the inauguration site of the chiefs of Tyrone (Tir Eogain), the O'Neills.
The Donaghrisk walled cemetery to the southwest of (and clearly visible from) the fort is the resting place of the O'Hagans, the chief justices of Tyrone (and as such, they presided over the inauguration ceremonies of the O'Neills).
Lissan House lies on the outskirts of Cookstown. It is a large structure which was the home of the Staples family for 350 years.
Killymoon Castle is about south east of Cookstown. This structure is regarded as one of Cookstown's finest pieces of architectural heritage. It was built in just over a year at a cost of £80,000 and was Nash's first Irish commission.
Drum Manor, approximately from the town. Alexander Richardson, a burgess from Edinburgh, Scotland, bought the estate of Craigbalk in 1617 and built Drum Manor, which was also known Manor Richardson. Alexander's son Sir William Richardson left it to his second son, Alexander, from which the Richardsons of Drum descend. Sir William's third son, William, who inherited lands near Augher, obtained a lease for lands in the townland of Tullyreavy on the Drum Manor estate, where he built a house by the lake known as Oaklands.