About County Tyrone
County Tyrone is the largest county in Northern Ireland, a landscape of rolling moorland, river valleys and the Sperrin Mountains. The county was the heartland of the O'Neill dynasty, the most powerful Gaelic family in Ulster, whose resistance to English rule defined the final years of the old Gaelic order. Tyrone people are known for their quiet tenacity and fierce community bonds.
History
The Nine Years War of 1593 to 1603 was fought largely in Tyrone, as Hugh O'Neill waged the last great Gaelic military campaign against the Tudor conquest. His defeat led directly to the Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster. The county's Scottish Presbyterian settlers mixed with its surviving Catholic Gaelic population to create the complex cultural mix of modern Tyrone.
How Tyrone families left Ireland
Tyrone families emigrated through Derry, which was the major port for the entire northwest Ulster region. The Scots-Irish tradition was particularly strong here, the ancestors of several American presidents, including Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson, came from Tyrone's Presbyterian families.
Places worth visiting in County Tyrone
- Ulster American Folk Park, the notable open-air museum tracing the emigrant journey from Tyrone to America
- Beaghmore Stone Circles, the Bronze Age ritual landscape on the Sperrins, seven stone circles in a single field
- An Creagán, the heritage centre and archaeological landscape on the Tyrone moorland
- Gortin Glen Forest Park, the wooded glens of the Sperrins, home to red deer and ancient hill forts
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