Strabane (/strəˈbæn/; from Irish An Srath Bán, meaning 'the white river-holm')[1][2][3] is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

A large hill named Knockavoe, which marks the beginning of the Sperrin Mountains, forms the backdrop to the town.

The regional seat of power was to be the Grianán Aileach until 1101, when it was destroyed by the O'Briens of Thomond, and was then moved to Urney, three miles outside Strabane.

It was during this epoch, in AD 1231, that Franciscan friars established a religious foundation on what is now the old graveyard at St. Patrick's Street, Strabane.

[8] The damage continued throughout much of the 1990s, with bombings and shootings commonplace; Irish Republican paramilitary groups, mainly the Provisional Irish Republican Army, regularly attacked the town's British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) bases.

Many British Army regiments from England, Scotland and Wales served in Strabane at various times during the Troubles in the barracks at the locally named "Camel's hump" beside Lifford Bridge.

Strabane became involved in the Ulster Project International, sending Catholic and Protestant teenagers to the United States for prejudice-reduction work.

[10] At the height of The Troubles, Strabane garnered the dubious distinction of the highest unemployment rate in the industrial world.

[11] In August 2005, a Channel 4 television programme presented by property experts Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer named Strabane the eighth-worst place to live in the UK, largely owing to unemployment.

Sister Mary Carmel Fanning, a retired Catholic girls school principal who had been awarded the MBE for her services to education in 1997,[15] became a director of the group later that year.

[22] In 1958 the Ulster Transport Authority took over the remaining GNR lines on the Northern Ireland side of the border.

In accordance with The Benson Report submitted to the Northern Ireland Government in 1963, the UTA closed the former GNR line through Strabane to Derry in 1965.

[35] Since 1997 Strabane has been part of the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of West Tyrone, held since 2001 by Sinn Féin's Pat Doherty.

Strabane Glen, a steep wooded gorge adjacent to the town, is a designated ASSI (Area of Special Scientific Interest).

[citation needed] Strabane has an Irish-medium nursery, Naíscoil an tSratha Báin, which was founded in 1994,[41] and a Gaelscoil (primary school).

"[43] This may derive from Irish, from the phrase "barr nuachta," meaning "titbit," referring to a tasty piece of news.

Holy Cross is a co-ed bilateral college, which means it offers grammar status education within an all-ability school.

[54] The North West Regional College, which has campuses in Derry, Limavady as well as Strabane, offers a range of vocational and non-vocational courses for post 16 year olds.

[60] In 2014, a mural was painted in Townsend Street with the intention of showing support for the people of Palestine following Israeli military action in Gaza.

It includes a 305.5 metre (1,002 ft) high guyed steel lattice mast, which is the tallest structure in Ireland.