Things to Do in County Tyrone

More about County Tyrone

Where to base yourself

Tyrone is the biggest county in Northern Ireland and there is no train to any part of it, so pick a base with the driving in mind — Strabane to Dungannon is the best part of an hour and a half on ordinary roads. Omagh is the obvious centre: it sits where the rivers meet below the Sperrins, has the widest choice of hotels and guesthouses, and puts the folk park five miles up the road and the mountains twenty minutes north. Cookstown covers the eastern end and is the base for Beaghmore, Davagh and the Lough Neagh shore. Strabane is a border town handy for the northern Sperrins and for crossing into Donegal. Dungannon is closest to the M1 and to Belfast, useful if Tyrone is one leg of a longer trip. For the mountains themselves, the self-catering cottages around Gortin and the Glenelly Valley are the right choice — you want to be up there after dark, not driving back. In the south, Fivemiletown and Augher sit along the Clogher Valley. Beds are thinnest in the uplands, and the county fills for the July marching season and the Omagh show weekend.

The Sperrins and the dark

The Sperrins are rounded, heathery and empty — big rolling ground rather than rock. Sawel at 678 m is the highest, reached by a short but wet climb from the mountain road on the Derry border, and Dart beside it makes a longer ridge walk if the weather holds. Neither is technical, but there is no path and the ground holds water, so boots and a map are not optional. The Glenelly Valley road from Plumbridge east is the best drive in the county, twenty-odd kilometres of single-track between the two ridges. Mullaghcarn rises straight behind Gortin with a carved wooden figure at the top, and Bessy Bell above Newtownstewart is a short summit with a long view. The dark-sky designation is not marketing: at Davagh Forest there is a purpose-built observatory and viewing area, best booked ahead, and the season for it runs September to March when the nights are actually dark. Bring more layers than you think.

Stone circles and the O’Neills

Beaghmore is free, unfenced and signposted off a minor road, and it is at its best in low light when the shadows pick the rows out of the heather. There is no visitor centre and no shelter. Tullyhogue Fort outside Cookstown is a ringed earthwork on a hill where the O’Neills were inaugurated as kings of Tyrone until Mountjoy destroyed the stone inauguration chair in 1602 — a bare grass site, free, with a short walk up from the car park. Knockmany, above Augher, holds some of the finest carved stones in Ulster; the chamber is protected by a covering structure, but the forest walk up is worth it in itself. Harry Avery’s Castle near Newtownstewart is one of the very few stone castles built by a Gaelic lord rather than a Norman or a planter. Further south, St Patrick’s Chair and Well sits in Altadaven Glen, a mossy hollow where people still leave coins and rags.

Rivers, mills and market towns

Three rivers meet at Omagh: the Camowen and the Drumragh join to become the Strule, and all three are fished for salmon and brown trout on club waters. The Ballinderry runs east to Lough Neagh and carries the dollaghan, a big migratory trout found only in the Neagh system, while the Owenkillew is protected for its freshwater pearl mussels. Away from the water, the county’s other story is linen: Wellbrook Beetling Mill near Cookstown still has its water-powered beetling engines and runs them for visitors, though opening is seasonal and limited to certain days, so check before driving out. Sion Mills is a whole model village built around a Herdman linen mill, with black-and-white workers’ housing and the cricket ground where a local side beat the West Indies in 1969. Cookstown has the longest main street in Ireland, a mile and a quarter of it laid out in the 18th century, and Dungannon has the Hill of the O’Neill with a viewing platform and interpretive centre in the middle of the town.

Rain and family days

Tyrone gets weather, and the wet-day list is short but decent. The Ulster American Folk Park is mostly outdoors, but the buildings are enterable and heated and the costumed interpreters keep fires going in them; allow three or four hours and expect reduced winter opening. Todds Leap near Ballygawley does zip lines and off-road driving in any weather. Drum Manor and Pomeroy have surfaced forest trails that stay walkable when the hills are streaming, and the Carleton Trail loops through the Clogher Valley country the writer William Carleton grew up in. For an evening, the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh and the Burnavon in Cookstown both run theatre and film year-round.