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Ulster-American Folk Park Review

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Ulster-American Folk Park

Address: Mellon Rd., 10 km (6 mi) north of town on A5, Castletown, Omagh
Phone: 028/8224-3292
www.nmni.com

Category: Museum Village
Location: Omagh

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Fodor's Review:

Several miles north of Omagh is the big attraction of the region: the excellent Ulster-American Folk Park re-creates a Tyrone village of two centuries ago, a log-built American settlement of the same period, and the docks and ships that the emigrants to America would have used. The centerpiece of the park is an old whitewashed cottage, now a museum, which is the ancestral home of Thomas Mellon (1855-1937), the U.S. banker and philanthropist. Another thatched cottage is a reconstruction of the boyhood home of Archbishop John Hughes, founder of New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral. There are also full-scale replicas of Irish peasant cottages, Pennsylvania farmhouses, a New York tenement room, immigrant transport ship holders, plus a 19th-century Ulster village, complete with staff dressed in 19th-century costumes. Other exhibitions trace the contribution of the Northern Irish people to American history, and there is a center for migration studies with an excellent research library and an Irish emigration database. The park also has a currency exchange, crafts shop, and café, as well as a 38-bed residential center. Last admission is 1½ hours before closing.

Cost: £4.50
Open: Apr.-Sept., Mon.-Sat. 10:30-6, Sun. 11-6:30; Oct.-Mar., weekdays 10:30-5

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