Cookstown (Irish: An Chorr Chríochach) is a town in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It is the fourth largest town in the county (next to Omagh, Strabane and Dungannon respectively) and has a population of nearly 11,000 people (in the 2001 Census). It was founded around 1620 when the townlands in the area were leased by an English ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr Alan Cooke from the Archibishop of Armagh who had been granted the lands during the Plantation of Ulster. One of the Covenants contained in the lease of the lands was that Dr Cooke was to build ten stone houses on the land. Dr Cooke was granted Letters Patent of King Charles I to hold a twice-weekly market in the town in 1628. 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. More about Cookstown here >