Overview
Cookstown has the longest main street in Ireland: a single straight line 2 km (1.25 miles) long and an unusual 135 feet (41 m) wide, laid out at that scale in the late 18th century by the Stewart family, who had Dublin’s Wide Streets Commission in mind and bulky loads of linen and livestock to move. It defines the place – one long line of Victorian shopfronts and churches in the middle of County Tyrone, between the foothills of the Sperrin Mountains and the Ballinderry River. Cookstown is the fourth-largest town in the county, with a population of 12,546 at the 2021 census, and the natural base for this stretch of Mid-Ulster.
Linen money
An English ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr Alan Cooke, leased the townlands here from the Archbishop of Armagh around 1620, and the town took his name. Livestock and linen built it: by the 19th century the weaving mills employed hundreds, and two railway termini connected Cookstown to Belfast before both closed in the mid-20th century. The construction left the place so strung-out and lean that it earned the nickname ‘Long Hungry Cookstown’. The linen trade went the way of all Irish linen in the last century, but the architecture it paid for survives – Holy Trinity Church, the First Presbyterian Church, the old courthouse – and former civic buildings now house cultural venues. The pavements are broad and level, easy with a wheelchair or a pushchair, and walking the street feels more like a promenade than a shopping run.
Wellbrook Beetling Mill
A short drive west of town, in a wooded glen on the Ballinderry, Wellbrook is the last working water-powered linen beetling mill in the UK. Guides run the original machinery and show the beetling itself – the rhythmic hammering that gave linen its sheen – and a woodland walk follows the old mill race. One caveat: access for visitors with disabilities is limited here, unlike most of the town.
Lissan House
On the edge of Cookstown, Lissan House has sat in its valley on the Lissan Water for nearly 400 years, the home of the Staples family across that whole span – reputedly the longest continuous habitation of a country house in West Ulster. It reopened in 2012 after a major redevelopment, with interactive exhibits set among the original family furnishings, and its 250-acre demesne takes in ancient woodland, a walled garden and quiet walking trails. The house and grounds are run by an independent trust and a team of volunteer guides, who offer tailored tours – arrange these ahead, and check opening times before you travel.
Stone circles, forts and a Nash castle
- Beaghmore Stone Circles – seven Bronze Age stone circles, twelve cairns and ten stone rows, dating to around 2900–2600 BC and only rediscovered in the 1940s when peat cutting exposed them. They stand in open country at the foot of the Sperrins, a few yards from the car park.
- Drum Manor Forest Park – an 18th-century demesne turned public forest park, with marked trails, open glades and the shell of the old manor. Car parking is £5 (mid-March to October).
- Tullaghoge Fort – the ‘Mound of the Warriors’, a circular earthwork on a drumlin 4 km south of town where the O’Neill chiefs of Tyrone were inaugurated, with wide views over the county.
A short drive southeast, Killymoon Castle – designed by the architect John Nash – overlooks the Ballinderry beside a golf course with the Sperrins as its backdrop.
The town today
The Burnavon Arts Centre on Burn Road opened in 2000 on the site of the demolished Town Hall, and carries the year’s programme of theatre, live music, film and community workshops; it also houses the Cookstown Visitor Information Centre, open all year, with free parking, fishing licences and tourist information under one roof. The Cookstown 100 road races draw racing crowds from across Ireland and Britain each year, the local GAA clubs compete at provincial level, and the leisure centre has a pool and gym. Supermarkets, pharmacies, cafés and traditional pubs cover the practicalities.
Getting there and around
The A29 runs through town, south to Dungannon and on into the wider Mid-Ulster network; from Belfast allow about an hour via the M1 and A29. Buses connect Cookstown with Belfast, Dungannon and Omagh, but services thin out in the evenings and at weekends, and Wellbrook, Lissan and the Sperrin trails really need a car or taxi. Town-centre car parks are free or cheap, with accessible spaces marked – though on Saturdays the Market Day Trading Charter, which lets traders set up stalls, can eat into blue-badge spaces.
If one trip out of town is all you have time for, make it Beaghmore: seven Bronze Age circles standing in open country, with the Sperrins behind them.