Strabane

Strabane stands where the Mourne and Finn meet to form the Foyle in western Ulster. A settlement existed before the early seventeenth-century Plantation of Ulster, when the surrounding district was allocated to Scottish undertakers led by James Hamilton, Earl of Abercorn. The town received a royal charter in 1613 and grew around a castle built by Abercorn.

Strabane's position on the Foyle connected its inland hinterland with the sea and supported its growth as a market centre. The Plantation reshaped landholding and settlement in the district, linking the town's development to the wider upheaval of conquest and colonisation in Ulster.