Things you didn't know about... County Tyrone

Stone me—County Tyrone's got history

County Tyrone is jam-packed with prehistoric and Celtic remains. There are about 1,000 standing stones, evidence of the Stone Age people who passed through County Tyrone. One of the most impressive is the Neolithic site of Beaghmore, which has not one but seven stone circles. The site was only discovered by peat cutters in the 1940s.

Dennis Taylor was born in County Tyrone

Taylor is the snooker player who famously won the nail-biting 1985 World Championship, beating the previously invincible Steve Davis on the final black of the final frame. The man from County Tyrone is also famous for his trademark upside-down, oversized glasses.

County Tyrone has the Best sausages

County Tyrone's Cookstown is famous for its sausages, which soccer legend George Best used to promote at the height of his footballing career with Manchester United. In the ads Best proclaimed that Cookstown bangers are, you guessed it, "the Best sausages".

County Tyrone gave us Cricket...

...Jimmy Cricket, that is. The comedian known for his special brand of family humour was born into a large family in Cookstown, County Tyrone. He cut his comedy teeth working as a Butlins Redcoat, then as a Bluecoat for Pontins holiday camps, and on the northern club circuit. The County Tyrone comic is best known for his catchphrase, "And there's more..."

Testing the mettle of local trees

A celebrated tree on the banks of Lough Neagh, County Tyrone, was said to bring good fortune to those who hammered a coin into its trunk. Sadly, the practice was not so lucky for the poor tree—it eventually died of metal poisoning.

County Tyrone has a Flann club

The writer Flann O'Brien, born Brian O'Nolan in County Tyrone on 5 October 1911, was one of the great wits of his generation. He wrote a long-standing column for the Irish Times under the pen name Myles na Gopaleen (Myles of the little horses).

His novel At Swim-Two-Birds is said to be the last novel Joyce read. Publishers rejected his next work, The Third Policeman, a surreal murder mystery set around a police station with a narrator who turns out to have been dead all along. It was finally published in 1967, a year after his death, and is today hailed as a comic masterpiece.