extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. COUNTY TYRONE Cookstown’s fairs date back to 1628 when Charles I granted Dr. Allan Cook (a Dublin lawyer) a weekly market and twice-yearly fairs. Cook had earlier leased his lands from the See of Armagh as they were termon [or church] lands. At that time the place was a mere hamlet of a dozen or so mud and daub houses and remained so until Cook sold his lease on the land to the Stewart family of Killymoon in 1666. It was William Stewart who in 1726 hatched the bold plan of the present town with its mile-long main street earning it the name of Long Hungry Cookstown. The Saturday market transferred from the Oldtown common to the main street in 1752 and has been held there ever since. All the usual commodities were on offer. The sale of turf was a speciality. The most anticipated market in the year was the one before Christmas called An Margadh Mor (pronounced Margymore), as in Augher and Clogher. On that day the atmosphere changed to one of expectation and excitement as the town thronged with people wanting to buy ducks, geese, hens, turkeys and whatever other bits and pieces they could afford. Shopkeepers made a special effort to be festive by placing sprigs of holly amongst the assortment of match boxes, candles, clay pipes, jew’s-harps, bottles of castor oil, ginger ale, shoe laces, liquorice, tins of sweets and the hundred and one other things that were likely to adorn their shop windows for the occasion. Fairs were held on the twentieth of the month throughout the nineteenth century but changed later to the first Saturday in the month.       Outlying villages and hamlets had their own fairs though they declined as those in Cookstown became more successful. In the eighteenth century Dunaghy and Orritor had quarterly fairs. By the nineteenth they had just two and by the twentieth they had died out altogether. Several bleaching establishments had also ceased to exist though those at Tullylagan and Desertcreat lasted longer than most.       It was near Cookstown also that Hugh and Samuel Faulkner started their beetling business in the eighteenth century. Beetling is the final process in finishing linen – after retting, hackling, scutching, spinning, weaving and bleaching. Faulkner’s mill at Wellbrook was one of many at that time. Surprisingly it functioned until 1965, was given to the National Trust in 1968 and can still be seen working on certain days each year when its doors are open to the public. The thunder of the beetling hammers as they crash down one after the other on the linen is an unforgettable experience.       Coagh in those days had regular fairs held on the second Friday of each month when ‘an extensive assortment of cattle, sheep, goats and hogs’ were offered for sale. These included cows, calves and heifers but never beef cattle which were always taken to neighbouring larger towns. There was no pork market in Coagh either though there was a good supply of live pigs. You could have purchased a milking goat for around seven shillings or a young kid for a shilling. The town had no market as such but the commodities needed by farmers were usually on sale i.e. harrows, ploughs, barrows and some yarn for the benefit of local weavers. Most of the implements could be purchased for fifteen shillings or under. A box barrow cost seven and sixpence, a hand barrow or a turf barrow about half a crown. The shopkeepers and tradespeople provided the rest, basing their prices on those reached in Cookstown market the previous Saturday. They also had a good supply of turf spades, scythes, teethed hooks, iron hoops, deal planks and boards and fresh pollan and eels daily from Lough Neagh. Though cheap coal could be obtained locally at the pit-head in Coalisland, farmers preferred to burn turf which could be bought by the gauge (a cubic yard, or enough to fill a donkey cart) for one shilling and sixpence half-penny. By 1900 almost all of this had gone. In 1895 Coagh had just one fair held in the month of May. Tullyhogue held one in December that year. Successful monthly fairs were once held in Castlecaulfield, Rock, Donaghmore and Stewartstown. Hiring probably took place at all of them. Fairs were still operating in all but Donaghmore in 1895.       Coalisland never claimed to be a successful market town though it had both fairs and markets at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The corn market flourished, due no doubt to the convenience of the canal which was used to transport grain and other commodities to Newry and Belfast. But Coalisland was not dependent on its markets for success. It was the discovery of coal in the area in the seventeenth century that provided the impetus for building the canal in the first place. The enterprise proved uneconomic however due to the fact that the seams of coal were short, and mixed with layers of sand and gravel or sometimes heavy clay. Ironically coal was to be the main commodity carried upstream in the opposite direction. There was always plenty of work to be had on the farms in the Coalisland area, not to mention the spade mills, quarries (both limestone and freestone), bleach greens, flour mill, potteries, tile manufactories and of course the cottages themselves where linen was woven extensively.       Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. Previous extract regarding County Tyrone: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 Forthcoming extract regarding County Tyrone: Part 12

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