Ulster American Folk Park
The museum tells the story of emigration from Ulster to America in the 18th & 19th centuries and provides visitors with a "living history" experience on its outdoor site
The Ulster American Folk Park
Distance from Hotel 34 miles Journey Time 50 mins
Welcome to the Ulster American Folk Park, an open-air museum in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The museum tells the story of emigration from Ulster to America in the 18th & 19th centuries and provides visitors with a "living history" experience on its outdoor site. Costumed demonstrators go about their everyday tasks in the traditional manner in authentically furnished Old and New World buildings.
The Ship and Dockside Gallery features a full-size reconstruction of an early 19th century sailing ship of the type which carried thousands of emigrants across the Atlantic and a major indoor exhibition "Emigrants" complements the outdoor site. The Centre for Migration Studies can assist those who wish to find out more about emigration history and the way of life of emigrants and settlers.
Emigration History
Emigration from Ireland to America - a brief historical background
Large-scale emigration from Ireland to North America began in the 1720s and throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century involved many thousands of settlers, mainly from Ulster, who sought land and a new way of life on the Appalachian frontier. These early pioneers were predominantly Presbyterian and became known in their adopted country as the Scotch Irish.
Interrupted only by the American War of Independence (1775-83) and the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815), the great tide of emigration continued into the nineteenth century as America began to attract immigrants from all parts of Ireland. Historians have estimated that on the eve of the Great Famine (1845-9) there were as many as half a million Irish in the New World.
The Great Famine, as is well known, resulted in a mass exodus from Ireland as starving and destitute people sought refuge in the ever-expanding industrial cities of the eastern United States. The exact numbers will never be known but it is believed they may have been in excess of 1.5 million.
The Ulster American Folk Park tells the story of these emigrants and their everyday lives through the reconstruction of original and replica buildings.
Some of the emigrants' greatest achievements lay in the field of commerce. Particularly successful were the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, who came originally from Camphill in County Tyrone. Judge Thomas Mellon (right), founder of a vast industrial empire, emigrated as a five-year-old boy with his parents in 1818. Much of the early development of the Folk Park was based on the detailed accounts contained in his autobiography, which vividly describes life in rural Tyrone and frontier Pennsylvania in the early years of the nineteenth century. His experiences are typical of many emigrants, and it is fitting that his boyhood home should provide the centrepiece of the Ulster American Folk Park.
Over the past twenty years the Park has grown rapidly and is now the largest museum of emigration in Europe. It stands as a permanent symbol of the many links which have been forged down the centuries between Ireland and America.
History
Established in 1976, as Northern Irelands contribution to the American bicentenary, the Folk Park has been constructed around the original homestead of Thomas Mellon, who as a 5 year old boy had emigrated with his parents to Western Pennsylvania. The Mellon family, and in particular Dr T Matthew Mellon, initiated the restoration of the Mellon homestead which was completed in 1968. Further development took place in the 1970's, when Dr Matthew T Mellon and Mr Eric Montgomery OBE were instrumental in the establishment of the Ulster American Folk Park, which portrayed the emigrant trail to America.
Since its opening in July 1976 the Park has grown rapidly and with the addition of a number of original exhibit buildings, the museum now represents the broad spectrum of 18th and 19th century emigration from Ulster to America.
On 1st October 1998 the Ulster American Folk Park joined with Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, Armagh Museum & Ulster Museum to form the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland (MAGNI) and plans are currently being prepared to develop a National Museum of Emigration.
For more information visit their website: www.folkpark.com