TYRONE, a county in the province of Ulster, in Ireland, having Londonderry on the north, Armagh on the east, Monaghan and Fermanagh on the south, and Donegal on the west; extends about 42 miles from north to south, 54 from east to west, and contains 1271 square miles, or 813,440 English acres. It is divided into the four baronies of Dungannon, Strabane, Omagh, and Clogher or Upper Dungannon, and 35 parishes which belong to the sees of Armagh, Derry, and Clogher. Situation. Extent.
The greater part of this district is mountainous, particularly the baronies of Strabane and Omagh on the west. In the former are two hills of great height, called Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,—names celebrated in Scottish song. Dungannon, on the east, is a rich and fertile tract, and Clogher, on the south, also contains a considerable proportion of good land; but, generally speaking, the territorial value of this inland and northern district is much inferior to that of most of the other Irish counties. Besides the usual varieties of soil, clay fit for bricks of various colours, and particularly pale bricks, which are deemed the most durable, occur in almost every parish and townland; and about Fintona, in the barony of Clogher, other sorts of clay are made into a great variety of earthenware for country use. The best pottery, perhaps, in Ireland is in the barony of Dungannon, where all sorts of coarse crockery-ware, fire-bricks, and tiles, are made of as good a quality as any that are imported. At Coal Island, in the same quarter, coal is wrought to some extent, though, according to Mr Wakefield, it is bituminous and of a bad quality. This is one of the few districts of Ireland in which there is little or no limestone. A great many small streams, having their source in the high grounds, traverse the county in every direction. The more considerable are the Blackwater, which, rising near Clogher, soon after forms the boundary on the south and south-east, till it falls into Lough Neagh, and the Mourne, which falls into the Foyle near Strabane. The Foyle also washes its north-western extremity in its course from Lifford to Londonderry, but does not properly belong to this county. Lough
Tyrone. Neagh, which Tyrone touches on the east, is the largest lake in Ireland, covering, according to Wakefield, 173 square miles, or upwards of 110,000 English acres; but it is less celebrated for its scenery than some of the other Irish lakes.
Estates. Tyrone is divided into estates of very great extent, many of them worth from £5000 to £7000 a-year, and its productive or arable land into very small farms, not often exceeding 20 Irish acres. The chief proprietors are the Marquis of Abercorn, Lords Belmore, Northland, and Mountjoy. The leases are for various periods,—thirty-one years and three lives, three lives, and twenty-one years and a life. On some estates the land passes through the hands of middlemen, in portions of various sizes, till it reaches the actual cultivator, for the most part, in very minute subdivisions. It is customary for several persons to be concerned in one townland, which is held in what is called rundale, the cultivated land being divided into shares, which are changed every year, and the cattle pasturing in common,—a system utterly inconsistent with profitable occupation, or the amelioration of the soil and live stock. The cattle and sheep are accordingly of a very inferior description; and the latter, which are not numerous, may frequently be seen tethered upon the small patches of herbage which are interspersed among the shares of these partnership concerns. The tillage land, too, is more frequently stirred with the spade than the plough; and where a plough is used, the team, consisting of horses, bullocks, and even milk cows, must be supplied by the contributions of three or
four neighbours, who unite their means for the purpose, each attending its operation, lest his poor animal should have more than his proper share of the labour. Potatoes, oats, and flax, are the principal crops.
The towns are Omagh, the county town, Newton-Stewart, Strabane, and Dungannon, the two latter places of considerable extent and population; besides a number of villages. Augher and Clogher, though Parliamentary boroughs before the Union, are very small places. The linen manufacture is carried on to a great extent, and the potteries and collieries before noticed also employ a considerable number of hands; to which we may add illicit distillation, which prevails throughout all the north-western counties of Ireland. The food of the lower classes is oatmeal and potatoes,—wheat bread and butcher meat never being used but on extraordinary occasions.
The county, which has 20,000 freeholders, sends two members to Parliament, and the borough of Dungannon a third. Before the Union, Tyrone had ten representatives in the Irish Parliament.
In 1791 the population was computed at 157,700; and by the census of 1821 it was 259,691. According to Mr Wakefield, the Catholics are to the Protestants as 6 to 1; but property is chiefly in the hands of the latter. Many of the Protestants are of the Presbyterian persuasion.
See the general works referred to under the former Irish counties, and M'Evoy's Statistical Survey of Tyrone. (A.)