THE FOLLOWING NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL FLAGS REPRESENT JUST SOME OF THE COUNTRIES WHERE TYRONE FRASER OFFSPRING HAVE WANDERED TOO County Tyrone is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, the other five are the counties of Antrim,  Down, Armagh, Fermanagh and Londonderry. The union of the six counties of Northern Ireland was formed in 1922. County Tyrone is also part of the nine counties of Ulster. The Island of Ireland  has four ancient provinces, Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught. Together they have 32 counties which stretch from Ulster in the north to Munster in the south to Connaught in the west and Leinster in the  east. The main industry of Ireland is farming and the island produces some of finest beef, pork, lamb and dairy produce in Europe. Tourism is fast becoming a major industry and Ireland has an abundance of loughs, rivers, river esturies,canals and mountains, most of which have been sung about at one time or another. All of these offer the visitor an unmatched variety of holiday options. Heavy industry is mainly located around the two capital cities, Dublin in Southern Ireland (Eire) and Belfast in Northern Ireland (United Kingdom). Some of the problems Ireland has today began back  in the 16th & 17th centuries when settlers arrived from the mainland of England, Scotland, Wales and even Europe. This era was known as the plantation period, a period of civil unrest throughout all of  Ireland, when the armies of King James where engaged in battles with the Kings of Ireland, which ended with the Irish Kings leaving Ireland for France never to be heard of again, this is known in Irish History as "The Flight of the Earls". In the mid 1800's the potato blight arrived in Ireland causing a wide spread famine. Families could not survive as the potato was the main ingredient used  widely in all dishes prepared and eaten. Farms and business suffered badly, farmers were not able to sell their produce and therefore had no money to pay rents to the landowners. This resulted in landowners  physically forcing or evicting families from farms because rents were unable to be paid. It is thought that the term 'the bailiffs are coming' originated around this period. This sadly was a time of great  hardship in Ireland and it was the start of a mass exodus to the colonies with large numbers of people leaving Ireland never to return.   I came across these maps while researching my family history and thought they may be useful to someone out there. The first  one shows the Emigration Ports used by our ancestors when leaving the Island of Ireland. I assume only the people and families that resided in the Province Ulster and the peripheral areas with the rest of Ireland would have used these exits. This map shows the Plantation of Ireland as at 1610 and the layout of the Scottish Baronies. You can see that the northern half of  Tyrone has been carved up into four main baronies. 1) Strabane, bordering with 2) Dungannon, and 3) Mountjoy, on the east. and with Portlough on the northwest. 4) Portlough, would cover the Castlederg area adjacant to Donegal

The Irish music played on this website has been downloaded from http://www.fionasplace.net/Irishmusic.html