Dresses for Irish Dancing
Dress for Irish dancing began to appear late in the nineteenth century, but at that time a wide range of styles was available. The intention was to create a style unique to Ireland, and Celtic embroidery designs made an important contribution to this. Dress styles were the subject of some debate ...

Irish "Colleen"
Annie Kyle from the Ards peninsula, Co. Down. Annie Kyle was a very skilled embroideress. Towards the end of the First World War, she was selected to represent the linen industry in a demonstration presented at John Lewis, Croydon, near London (c1917). The young women who worked on this project ...

Eel Fishing
These modern fishermen are following a way of life on the Lough which is centuries old, combining traditional knowledge with modern technology including ‘sat nav’. River Blackwater, county Tyrone, May 2007.    Preparing a line for eel fishing c 1915, the same techn...

Education
How well do you know your ‘Three Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic?  Children at the National Schools certainly did.  And presumably, when they learned to spell accurately, they could enjoy the joke too! The National School system was established in 1831 to provide basic...

Religion
Today Sunday remains a day of worship, but it is also a time to relax and enjoy ourselves.  Not so in nineteenth and early twentieth century Ulster.  Sunday observance was generally strict.  A story is told of a man who, on Sunday morning began shaving without realising the day. Re...

Birth, Death & Marriage Traditions
The great wealth of historical, religious and cultural traditions that observe birth, death and marriage within the family and the wider community are well represented in the museum’s collections.There are accounts of matchmaking and courtships, traditional beliefs surrounding weddings and ...

Festivals & Celebrations
The year’s round of changing seasons and of major festivals is studied and celebrated by the museum through its popular events programme and displays. March 17, St Patrick’s Day, is now widely celebrated throughout the world, and is included in the museum’s programme. Historica...

Medicine
Illness and health are enduring concerns, and in the past many families held traditional remedies in the form of cures and charms. Cures are generally based on plants, while charms are a more mystical method of curing. Information about these is included in the museum archive.The history of forma...

Story Telling
Storytelling is still a very important pastime in many parts of Northern Ireland, and before the invention of television and cinema, it was even more common. Storytelling lets people explore and establish boundaries for a complex range of relationships between individuals and with the environment...