Letterbrat facts for kids

Letterbrat townland in 2009

Letterbrat is a small area of land, like a neighborhood or village, located in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It's part of a larger historical division called the barony of Strabane Upper and a church-related area known as the civil parish of Bodoney Upper. Letterbrat covers about 708 acres, which is roughly the size of 535 football fields!

What's in a Name?

The name Letterbrat comes from the Irish language. It might mean a few different things:

• Lathair Beith could mean "Place for birch trees."
• Litir brat might mean "hill of the cloaks."
• Leiter brat could mean "wet sloping land of the brats/mantle."

It's interesting how old names can tell us about what a place was like long ago!

A Look at the Past

We can learn about Letterbrat's history by looking at how many people lived there.

• In 1841, there were 222 people living in 41 houses.
• Just ten years later, in 1851, the population had dropped to 182 people living in 32 houses. This kind of change often happened in Ireland during those times.

Ancient History and Monuments

Letterbrat is home to a very old and important historical site.

• It has a Portal tomb, which is a type of ancient burial monument.
• Imagine huge stones, often weighing many tons, carefully placed to form a chamber, usually with a large capstone on top.
• These tombs were built by people thousands of years ago, long before written history! They are like giant puzzles left by our ancestors.
• This specific tomb is a "Scheduled Historic Monument," which means it's protected because it's so important to history. Its exact location is H4715 9156 on a special grid map.

Rocks and Quarries

Letterbrat also has a place called Letterbrat Quarry.

• A quarry is where people dig out rocks and minerals from the ground.
• At Letterbrat Quarry, they dig up very old, grey rock that is rich in quartz.
• Quartz is a common mineral, often clear or white, and it's very hard. The rock from this quarry is used to make things like road stone, which helps build our roads.
• The quarry also has a thick section of rock called porphyry.
• Porphyry is a type of igneous rock, which means it was formed from cooled lava or magma. It often has larger crystals scattered within a finer-grained rock, making it look a bit like chocolate chip cookie dough!