sentences:  It is one of the main towns in the area of Mid-Ulster.It was founded around 1620 when the townlands in the area were leased by an English ecclesiastical lawyer, Dr. Alan Cooke, from the Archbishop of Armagh, who had been granted the lands after the Flight of the Earls during the Plantation of Ulster.It was one of the main centres of the linen industry west of the River Bann, and until 1956, the processes of flax spinning, weaving, bleaching and beetling were carried out in the town.