An abandoned coal mining factory in Coalisland Co Tyrone.

The town of Coalisland evolved from the settlement which grew up around the terminus of the Coalisland Canal. Work on the canal began in 1733, but progress was slow and it wasn’t officially opened until 1787. The push to build a waterway had come from the desire to cheapen the cost of transporting coal from the Tyrone coalfields to Dublin. The canal linked the coalfields with Lough Neagh, via the River Blackwater.

Coalisland mine was the last working coal mine in Northern Ireland and closed in 1970.