Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
Encyclopedia
The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum is situated in Cultra
, Northern Ireland
, about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) east of the city of Belfast
. It comprises two separate museums, the Folk Museum and the Transport Museum. The Folk Museum endeavours to illustrate the way of life and traditions of the people in Northern Ireland, past and present, while the Transport Museum explores and exhibits methods of transport by land, sea and air, past and present. The museum ranks among Ireland
's foremost visitor attractions and is a former Irish Museum of the Year. It is one of three national museums of Northern Ireland.
in 1958, the Folk Museum was created to preserve a rural way of life in danger of disappearing forever due to increasing urbanisation and industrialisation in Northern Ireland
. The site the museum occupies was formally the Estate of Sir Robert Kennedy, and was acquired in 1961, with the museum opening to the public for the first time three years later in 1964. In 1967, the Folk Museum merged with the Belfast Transport Museum, to form the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. The museum's Rail and Road Galleries were opened in 1993 and subsequently expanded in 1996. In 1998, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum merged with the Ulster Museum
and the Ulster-American Folk Park http://www.uftm.org.uk to form the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland.
, 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 run by Eurest Services. Eurest are a sub division of the Compass Catering Service. Regular activities include open hearth cooking, printing
, needlework
, and traditional Irish crafts demonstrations. The allocation of a considerable sum of lottery money has enabled the museum to build a large outhouse in the centre of Ballycultra town. This new structure houses unusual relics from Ulster's past, such as an unusual waffle iron from the mid-19th century, an old 'poteen' distillery from Portmore and the first twin axle bicycle ever seen in Ireland. A little more offbeat is the 'Worlds Largest Sausage', a 17 feet (5.2 m) banger, the creation of Newtownards man Seamus McTavish. All these new developments have aided UFTM in developing a new visitor base and have gained the site international recognition.
Indoors, the Folk Galleries feature a number of temporary exhibitions. These have included They Love Music Mightily, an exhibition featuring contemporary recordings of Irish traditional music
, and Meet the Victorian
s, a "lively and interesting exhibition" focusing on aspects of Victorian life.
The Museum is the holder of Northern Ireland's main film, photographic, television and sound archives. The Museum holds the BBC Northern Ireland
archive of radio and television programmes, and also possesses over 2,000 hours of sound material broadcast between 1972 and 2002 by the Irish language
radio station RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
, from its studios in Derrybeg
, County Donegal
. The museum also maintains an archive of Ulster dialect
s, and a large library containing over 15,000 books and periodicals. The archives and library are open to the public during office hours.
to the modern era. It is the largest railway collection in Ireland. Attractions in the grounds themselves include a model railway operated by the Model Engineers Society of Northern Ireland, and the 120 ton steel schooner Result. Recent additions to the collection include a full set of Stanley Woods
racing memorabilia, and two of his bikes. Also on display is a Rex McCandless
vehicle and an early Formula 1 racing car.
The Irish Railway Collection tells the story of over 150 years of railway history. Steam locomotives, passenger carriages and goods wagons are combined with extensive railway memorabilia, interactive displays and visitor facilities. One of the collection's main attractions is Great Southern Railways
Class 800 locomotive No. 800 , one of the three largest and most powerful steam locomotives ever to be built and run in Ireland. Alongside the Irish Railway Collection are the new Road Transport Galleries which boast a large collection of vehicles ranging from cycles and motorcycles to trams, buses, and cars. One of its most famous attractions is a De Lorean DMC-12
car, the model made famous by the Back to the Future trilogy
, and manufactured by the De Lorean Motor Company
in Belfast. The infamous 'Paper Car' resides in the main auto transport gallery. This ingenious (some say mad) creation is a replica of a Fiat Panda made entirely from old issues of The Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. A cross community effort, this car was a curiosity that made headlines in the 1990s. The car was black and white and red all over, apart from the windows. It was cited as an inspiration for Skoda and their recent Cake advertising campaign.
The museum boasts a permanent Titanic exhibition, documenting the construction, voyage, and eventual sinking of the ill-fated vessel. The ship has long been associated with Northern Ireland, as it was constructed in the Harland and Wolff
shipyards, just a few miles from the museum. The newly refurbished Titanic exhibition, tying in with the Folk museum's 'Titanic Trail' is due to open at the end of May 2011. While the buzz around this tribute to the iconic ship is good, the title of the exhibition is somewhat inelegant: TITANICa. Nevertheless, the new gallery space and experience has been hotly anticipated within the local media. Another exhibition at the Transport Museum is X2: Flight Experience, developed in partnership with Bombardier Aerospace
, owners of the Belfast-based aerospace company Short Brothers
. Also on display at the museum is the Shorts manufactured Short SC.1
, an experimental vertical take-off
aeroplane, only two of which were ever produced. The example in the museum, XG905, crashed in 1963, ending up upside down and killing its pilot. It was, however, repaired and flown again before eventually being preserved by the museum.
Cultra
Cultra is a residential suburban area adjacent to Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, part of Greater Belfast. It is also the name of an electoral ward of North Down Borough Council. It is comfortably one of Northern Ireland's most affluent areas...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) east of the city of Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
. It comprises two separate museums, the Folk Museum and the Transport Museum. The Folk Museum endeavours to illustrate the way of life and traditions of the people in Northern Ireland, past and present, while the Transport Museum explores and exhibits methods of transport by land, sea and air, past and present. The museum ranks among Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
's foremost visitor attractions and is a former Irish Museum of the Year. It is one of three national museums of Northern Ireland.
History
Created by an act of parliamentAct of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
in 1958, the Folk Museum was created to preserve a rural way of life in danger of disappearing forever due to increasing urbanisation and industrialisation in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. The site the museum occupies was formally the Estate of Sir Robert Kennedy, and was acquired in 1961, with the museum opening to the public for the first time three years later in 1964. In 1967, the Folk Museum merged with the Belfast Transport Museum, to form the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. The museum's Rail and Road Galleries were opened in 1993 and subsequently expanded in 1996. In 1998, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum merged with the Ulster Museum
Ulster Museum
The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial...
and the Ulster-American Folk Park http://www.uftm.org.uk to form the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland.
The Folk Museum
The Folk Museum houses a variety of old buildings and dwellings which have been collected from various parts of Ireland and rebuilt in the grounds of the museum, brick by brick. 170 acre (0.6879662 km²) are 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, cropsCrop (agriculture)
A crop is a non-animal species or variety that is grown to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, fuel or for any other economic purpose. Major world crops include maize , wheat, rice, soybeans, hay, potatoes and cotton. While the term "crop" most commonly refers to plants, it can also include...
, livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
, and visit a typical Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
town of the time called "Ballycultra", featuring shops, churches, and both terraced and larger housing and a Tea room run by Eurest Services. Eurest are a sub division of the Compass Catering Service. Regular activities include open hearth cooking, printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
, needlework
Needlework
Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework...
, and traditional Irish crafts demonstrations. The allocation of a considerable sum of lottery money has enabled the museum to build a large outhouse in the centre of Ballycultra town. This new structure houses unusual relics from Ulster's past, such as an unusual waffle iron from the mid-19th century, an old 'poteen' distillery from Portmore and the first twin axle bicycle ever seen in Ireland. A little more offbeat is the 'Worlds Largest Sausage', a 17 feet (5.2 m) banger, the creation of Newtownards man Seamus McTavish. All these new developments have aided UFTM in developing a new visitor base and have gained the site international recognition.
Indoors, the Folk Galleries feature a number of temporary exhibitions. These have included They Love Music Mightily, an exhibition featuring contemporary recordings of Irish traditional music
Music of Ireland
Irish Music is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th, and into the 21st century, despite globalizing cultural forces...
, and Meet the Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
s, a "lively and interesting exhibition" focusing on aspects of Victorian life.
The Museum is the holder of Northern Ireland's main film, photographic, television and sound archives. The Museum holds the BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland is the main public service broadcaster in Northern Ireland.The organisation is one of the three national regions of the BBC, together with BBC Scotland and BBC Wales. Based at Broadcasting House, Belfast, it provides television, radio, online and interactive television content...
archive of radio and television programmes, and also possesses over 2,000 hours of sound material broadcast between 1972 and 2002 by the Irish language
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
radio station RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta , abbreviated RnaG, is the Irish-language radio service of the public-service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. The station is available on FM in Ireland and via satellite and on the Internet.- History :...
, from its studios in Derrybeg
Derrybeg
Doirí Beaga is a Gaeltacht village and townland in the civil parish of Tullaghobegly in County Donegal, Ireland. It includes a Roman Catholic church, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta regional studios, a Gaelic Athletic Association club and a golf club.-References:...
, County Donegal
County Donegal
County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
. The museum also maintains an archive of Ulster dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s, and a large library containing over 15,000 books and periodicals. The archives and library are open to the public during office hours.
The Transport Museum
The Transport Museum houses an extensive transport collection, and endeavours to tell the story of transport in Ireland, from its early historyHistory of Ireland
The first known settlement in Ireland began around 8000 BC, when hunter-gatherers arrived from continental Europe, probably via a land bridge. Few archaeological traces remain of this group, but their descendants and later Neolithic arrivals, particularly from the Iberian Peninsula, were...
to the modern era. It is the largest railway collection in Ireland. Attractions in the grounds themselves include a model railway operated by the Model Engineers Society of Northern Ireland, and the 120 ton steel schooner Result. Recent additions to the collection include a full set of Stanley Woods
Stanley Woods
Stanley Woods Dublin, an Irish motorcycle racer famous for 29 motorcycle Grand Prix wins and winning the Isle of Man TT races 10 times in his career. He was a past pupil of The High School, Dublin. Stanley started racing in 1921 on a Harley Davidson...
racing memorabilia, and two of his bikes. Also on display is a Rex McCandless
Rex McCandless
Rex McCandless was a former motorcycle racer, designer and constructor from Northern Ireland.Born in Hillsborough, County Down, McCandless had been a successful motorcycle racer prior to the Second World War. During the war, he worked in the aviation industry...
vehicle and an early Formula 1 racing car.
Great Southern Railways
The Great Southern Railways Company was an Irish company that from 1925 until 1945 owned and operated all railways that lay wholly within the Irish Free State .-Formation:...
Class 800 locomotive No. 800 , one of the three largest and most powerful steam locomotives ever to be built and run in Ireland. Alongside the Irish Railway Collection are the new Road Transport Galleries which boast a large collection of vehicles ranging from cycles and motorcycles to trams, buses, and cars. One of its most famous attractions is a De Lorean DMC-12
De Lorean DMC-12
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a sports car originally manufactured in Dunmurry, a suburb west of Belfast, Northern Ireland by John DeLorean's DeLorean Motor Company for the American market in 1981-82. Most commonly known as the DeLorean, it was the only model produced by the company which would go into...
car, the model made famous by the Back to the Future trilogy
Back to the Future trilogy
The Back to the Future trilogy is a comedic science fiction adventure film series written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, directed by Zemeckis, produced by Amblin Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The main plot follows the adventures of a high school student Marty McFly and...
, and manufactured by the De Lorean Motor Company
De Lorean Motor Company
The original DeLorean Motor Company was a short-lived automobile manufacturer formed by automobile industry executive John DeLorean in 1975. It is remembered for the one model it produced — the distinctive stainless steel DeLorean DMC-12 sports car featuring gull-wing doors — and for its brief and...
in Belfast. The infamous 'Paper Car' resides in the main auto transport gallery. This ingenious (some say mad) creation is a replica of a Fiat Panda made entirely from old issues of The Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. A cross community effort, this car was a curiosity that made headlines in the 1990s. The car was black and white and red all over, apart from the windows. It was cited as an inspiration for Skoda and their recent Cake advertising campaign.
The museum boasts a permanent Titanic exhibition, documenting the construction, voyage, and eventual sinking of the ill-fated vessel. The ship has long been associated with Northern Ireland, as it was constructed in the Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries is a Northern Irish heavy industrial company, specialising in shipbuilding and offshore construction, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland....
shipyards, just a few miles from the museum. The newly refurbished Titanic exhibition, tying in with the Folk museum's 'Titanic Trail' is due to open at the end of May 2011. While the buzz around this tribute to the iconic ship is good, the title of the exhibition is somewhat inelegant: TITANICa. Nevertheless, the new gallery space and experience has been hotly anticipated within the local media. Another exhibition at the Transport Museum is X2: Flight Experience, developed in partnership with Bombardier Aerospace
Bombardier Aerospace
Bombardier Aerospace is a division of Bombardier Inc. and is the third-largest airplane manufacturer in the world. It is headquartered in Dorval, Quebec, Canada.- History :...
, owners of the Belfast-based aerospace company Short Brothers
Short Brothers
Short Brothers plc is a British aerospace company, usually referred to simply as Shorts, that is now based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1908, Shorts was the first company in the world to make production aircraft and was a manufacturer of flying boats during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s...
. Also on display at the museum is the Shorts manufactured Short SC.1
Short SC.1
|-See also:-Bibliography:* Barnes, C.H. with revisions by Derek N. James. Shorts Aircraft since 1900. London: Putnam, 1989 . ISBN 0-85177-819-4.*Illingworth J. K. B. and Chinn H.W. . London: HMSO, 1969. Retrieved: 11 December 2007....
, an experimental vertical take-off
VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing aircraft is one that can hover, take off and land vertically. This classification includes fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors...
aeroplane, only two of which were ever produced. The example in the museum, XG905, crashed in 1963, ending up upside down and killing its pilot. It was, however, repaired and flown again before eventually being preserved by the museum.
See also
- History of rail transport in IrelandHistory of rail transport in IrelandThe history of rail transport in Ireland began only a decade later than that of Great Britain. By its peak in 1920, Ireland counted 5,500 route kilometers...
- History of Ireland (1801-1922)
- Culture of Northern IrelandCulture of Northern IrelandThe culture of Northern Ireland relates to the traditions of Northern Ireland and its resident communities.Elements of the culture of Ireland, the culture of Ulster and the culture of the United Kingdom are to be found.-Heritage:...
- Culture of IrelandCulture of IrelandThis article is about the modern culture of Ireland and the Irish people. It includes customs and traditions, language, music, art, literature, folklore, cuisine and sport associated with Ireland and Irish people today. However, the culture of the people living in Ireland is not homogeneous...
Other museums
- Beamish MuseumBeamish MuseumBeamish, The North of England Open Air Museum is an open-air museum located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, County Durham, England. The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early...
- County Durham, England - Black Country Living MuseumBlack Country Living MuseumThe Black Country Living Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings, located in Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The museum occupies a urban heritage park in the shadow of Dudley Castle in the centre of the Black Country conurbation...
- Dudley, England - List of transport museums
- Ulster MuseumUlster MuseumThe Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial...
- Belfast - St Fagans National History MuseumSt Fagans National History MuseumSt Fagans National History Museum , commonly referred to as St Fagans after the village where it is located, is an open-air museum in Cardiff chronicling the historical lifestyle, culture and architecture of the Welsh people...
- Museum of Welsh Life, Cardiff, Wales.