Situated at Cultra near Holywood, the Ulster Folk Museum is one of Europe’s most prestigious ‘national’ open-air museums; ran by National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI).
The Museum is on the former Kennedy estate at Cultra.The Kennedys had moved to Ulster from Ayrshire in the 1660s, settling at Ballycultra. They bought the estate from the Hamiltons a few years later, and married into the Stewarts of Ballylawn in Donegal (who later moved to County Down and bought Mount Stewart).
The open-air folk museum opened in 1964 and has reconstructed a traditional
landscape with dozens of old dwellings from all over Ulster. Two in particular are from an Ulster-Scots background - the Coshkib Hill Farm (north Antrim) and the Ballyveagh thatched house (Mournes). Both these houses were well-known in their communities as ‘kailey’ houses where neighbours gathered for a ‘guid nicht’s crack’. There is also a T-plan Presbyterian Church, or ‘Meeting-House’, from County Tyrone.
The Transport Museum at the same site, on the opposite side of the road, has exhibits and exhibitions which tell the story of many Ulster-Scots innovators such as tractor entrepreneur Harry Ferguson.
The Ulster Dialect Archive at the museum has invaluable collections relating to the varieties of language in Ulster, particularly Ulster-Scots.The archival collections and research library of the museum are open to visitors by appointment (office hours only).
