Ulster American Folk Park facts for kids
| Daonpháirc Uladh-Mheiriceá (Irish) Ulstèr Merikay Fowk Pairk (Ulster-Scots) |
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| Established | 1976 |
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| Location | Castletown, Northern Ireland |
| Visitors | 112,916 (2019) |
The Ulster American Folk Park is a cool outdoor museum near Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It has more than 30 buildings you can explore! The museum tells the amazing story of how many Irish people moved away over three centuries.
You'll see guides dressed in old-fashioned clothes and watch people doing traditional crafts. The museum mostly focuses on those who left Ulster for America in the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s. This museum is part of the National Museums Northern Ireland group.
Many of the buildings at the museum are real, old homes that have been moved and fixed up. They are connected to local families. The park was built around the Mellon House. This was the birthplace of Thomas Mellon, a famous Irish-American banker and lawyer. His family started the Mellon banking company. This house and its smaller buildings are still in their original spot.
You can even try tasty samples of old Irish and American pioneer foods! Imagine fresh soda bread and pumpkin pie, all made on old hearths and griddles. The museum also shows off old farm tools and has lots of farm animals. The park is open most of the year, but it closes on some public holidays.
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Fun Activities and Events
You can watch people show how things were done long ago. They demonstrate skills like blacksmithing (working with metal), candle-dipping, embroidery (fancy sewing), spinning (making thread), printing, and cooking over an open fire.
The museum always has exciting events and special shows that connect to its collections. In recent years, they've had big international exhibitions. One was Fighting Irishmen from New York, which showed how Irish people influenced boxing. Another was Warriors of the Plains from the British Museum. This show taught visitors about the Native American people of North America.
The museum celebrates special days from both the New World (America) and the Old World (Ireland). These include U.S. Independence Day, Halloween, Easter, and of course, Saint Patrick's Day. If you love music, there's a three-day Bluegrass Music Festival every September! It celebrates the mix of music from different cultures.
The museum's main building has a cafe and a shop. It also has a special exhibition called Emigrants. This show tells the story of people moving from Ireland to America. After seeing it, you can start your journey around the outdoor museum. There's free parking available too!
Exploring the Old World
The "Old World" part of the museum feels like stepping back in time in Ireland. You can walk through streets with original houses, an old printing press, a bank, and even an old police station. There's also the old Castletown National School and two churches.
The most important building here is the boyhood home of Thomas Mellon. He was the judge who started the famous Mellon banking family in Pittsburgh. Some of the small, two-story houses on these streets were actually moved here, piece by piece, from Sandy Row in Belfast. Other buildings came from different parts of Northern Ireland.
Journey to the New World
To get from the Old World to the New World, you walk through the Ship and Dockside gallery. Here, you'll see the Brig Union. This is a full-size copy of a sailing ship that immigrants used to travel to America.
The feeling of history continues in the "New World" area. It has a recreated old American street with a tinsmith's shop and the original inside of a general store from Virginia. Beyond the street, you start a frontier journey. You can stop at the Fulton stone house from the 1720s. This house was carefully taken apart in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and rebuilt right here!
Other original frontier houses in the park include a log house from the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania. There's also the 1830 home of Richard McCallister from West Virginia, which was moved from Cabell County. You can also see a brick plantation house built by Francis Rogan in the early 1800s near Nashville, Tennessee.
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