Ulster American Folk Park

Infobox Museum
name = Ulster American Folk Park

---

imagesize = 300
established = 1976
location = Castletown, Northern Ireland
visitors = 165,000 between April '07 and March '08 [cite news|url=http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/news/news-dcal/news-dcal-april-2008/news-dcal-300408-ulster-american-folk.htm
title=Ulster American Folk Park draws biggest numbers ever|publisher=Northern Ireland Executive|date=2008-04-30|accessdate=2008-07-09]
website = [http://www.folkpark.com/ www.folkpark.com]

The Ulster American Folk Park is an open-air museum in Castletown, just outside Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The Park explores the historical link between Ulster and America, focusing particularly on the lifestyle and experiences of those immigrants who sailed from Ulster to America in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Contained within the park are around thirty buildings — some recreations, some painstakingly-restored originals. There are agricultural displays and animals on site, and visitors are offered samples of various local foods such as smoked salmon and bread, freshly-cooked in the cottages that line the route of Park tours.

The park is open throughout the year, excluding some public holidays.

Theme

The museum is themed, with volunteers dressed in period costume, often demonstrating techniques used in day-to-day tasks and occupational skills such as bread making, cooking, arts and crafts, embroidery, spinning, printing and so on. Events are marked which cover the culture of both the New World and the Old World, such as Independence Day and Halloween. Festivals often take place including Saint Patrick's Day, Appalachian, Bluegrass, Irish folk music and dancing demonstrations. Exhibitions are often scheduled to promote cultural awareness, such as "Hands Across the Border".

The "Ulster-American" theme is highlighted by the layout and the information relayed, such as the fact that over two million people left Ulster for North America between the years 1700 and 1900. [cite news|url=http://www.myguideireland.com/the-ulster-american-folk-park
title=The Ulster American Folk Park|publisher=myguideIreland|year=2008|accessdate=2008-07-09]

Sections

Research and Education

The entrance section includes accommodation for up to forty-six people, a restaurant, a visitors' information centre and the Centre for Migration Studies (CMS). The CMS has an attached library and offers, in conjunction with the University of Ulster and Queen's University of Belfast, postgraduate and undergraduate courses, as well as tailored and shorter courses; all of which concern the study of Irish migration from 1600 to the present day. The specialist research library contains some 10,000 volumes, over 50 periodicals, maps, audio-visual material, and a collection of primary source documents (the Irish Emigration Database) which is searchable on computer. The Centre is open to visitors during basic office hours, and closed during public holidays.

Old World

The "Old World" region includes whole streets of original houses, an original printing press, a bank, an old police barracks, the old Castletown National School, and two churches. Central to this region is the boyhood home of Thomas Mellon, judge and founder of the Pittsburgh banking dynasty.

Some of the "two-up, two-down" houses in one of the reconstructed streets in the Park were transported in their entirety from Sandy Row, off the Donegall Road in Belfast, and other buildings have been transported from elsewhere in the province.

New World

Linking the Old and New World sections of the park is the Ship and Dockside gallery, which includes the "Brig Union", a full-size replica of an immigrant sailing ship.

The themed atmosphere continues in the New World area, which features log cabins from Pennsylvania and Boston, and reconstructions of everyday scenes from the lives of newly-arrived immigrants.

Notes

ee also

* Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
* Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
* Ulster Museum
* Scots-Irish

External links

* [http://www.folkpark.com Ulster American Folk Park]
* [http://www.qub.ac.uk/cms Centre for Migration Studies]