MUSEUM & FOLK PARK
Derryglad Folk & Heritage Museum, just outside Athlone in County Roscommon. This quaint, family-run museum is a hidden gem! My husband and I stumbled upon this spot a few years ago and were fortunate enough to meet the owner Charlie. This museum has been a real labour of love for Charlie and his family, and it offers a great insight into 19th century Ireland.
MUSEUM
The National Famine Museum, located in Strokestown Park, Co. Roscommon, offers an incredibly moving self-guided tour, shedding light on the experiences of those connected with Strokestown Park Estate and the wider Irish community during the Famine.
MUSEUM
I would mark the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum as an absolute must for anyone visiting Ireland with an interest in Irish history and Irish emigration. It’s highly interactive and full of an abundance of information. I’ve visited and performed at the museum several times, and have seen both my two-year-old daughter and my fifty-year-old sister in law enjoy it immensely.
If you’re not able to visit the museum in person, look out for their online events.
MUSEUM & FOLK PARK
The Ulster American Folk Park, just outside Omagh in County Tyrone, is one of my favourite museum’s in Ireland. Telling the story of Ulster people’s emigration to North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. Through a Living History experience, you can wander through traditional farmhouses, step on-board the full-scale emigrant ship and see traditional craft demonstrations by costumed guides.
MUSEUM
The Museum of Country Life in County Mayo is perhaps my favourite of all the national museums in Ireland. It exhibits the way of life of rural Irish people between 1850 and 1950, and is in the grounds of Turlough Park House, which in itself is a beautiful place to visit.
MUSEUM & SHIP
The Dunbrody Famine Ship is an authentic reproduction of an 1840’s emigrant vessel, which can be visited in person in New Ross, Co. Wexford. It offers a moving interactive experience, leading you through the journey of an Irish emigrant in 1845.
MUSEUM & ORIGINAL WORKHOUSE
Found in the northern Donegal village of Dunfanaghy is this original workhouse, now acting as a heritage centre and cafe. The exhibition highlights the famine’s effects on the local community and tells the story of ‘Wee’ Hannah, who survived the Workhouse’s hardships as a young girl.
TRADITIONAL FARM & FOLK PARK
This is a simply wonderful experience for the whole family. Muckross Traditional Farms is a working farm of old in every sense. My husband and I helped bake bread, milked a cow and met some beautiful Irish wolfhounds. It will give you a wonderful appreciation of what life was like in an Ireland of the 1930s and 1940s.
MUSEUM
The Titanic Belfast Museum really lives up to it’s reputation. You will easily spend an entire day here and you’ll learn so much, not only about the Titanic, but about the lives of it’s passengers and the history of Belfast.
TRADITIONAL FARM & FOLK PARK
My entire family had a great day out here in the Ulster Folk Museum in Belfast City, County Antrim. The site is devoted to illustrating the rural way of life in the early 20th century, and visitors can stroll through a recreation of the period’s countryside complete with farms, cottages, crops, livestock, and visit a typical Ulster town of the time called “Ballycultra”, featuring shops, churches, and both terraced and larger housing and a Tea room.
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