Emigration

This fascinating centre tells the often tragic story of Irish emigration in a most vivid way and also commemorates the departure of the Titanic from Cove on its final voyage.

Not a traditional museum, it has reconstructions of what life was like in an emigrant ship and is located in the train stations which was the their last stop in Ireland.

The Ulster American Folk Park tells, in a vivid and entertaining fashion, the parallel stories of emigration from Ireland and the discovery of the American West.

Split into two sections, covering the Old and New World’s, the lives of these pioneers are brought to life, with all their hardships as well as in some cases their eventually creation of new and successful lives for their families.

With a growing population locked in poverty and almost entirely dependent on the potato for sustenance, Ireland was by the mid 19th century something of a disaster waiting to happen.

Nobody however could have predicted the extent of the catastrophic famine that hit the people of Ireland when the potato crop repeatedly failed. It would change Ireland for centuries.