Ulster Folk Museum to be 'reawakened' with £50m investment

A £50m investment in the Ulster Folk Museum has been hailed as a "significant and exciting milestone" which will help to revitalise the 62-year-old visitor attraction.

The outdoor museum houses a large collection of original and replica heritage buildings, showcasing how urban and rural life was lived in Northern Ireland in centuries past.

The "Reawakening Project" aims to enhance visitor facilities at the site in Cultra, County Down, and to bring some collections out of storage and into display.

National Museums NI chief executive Kathryn Thomson said the money would transform the museum which she said had "suffered decades of very limited investment".

The investment is made up of £40m from Stormont's Department for Communities and £10m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund - and it is the single largest the museum has ever received.

Thomson said the investment would "change how people access and connect with our collections".

"It's going to allow us to bring out some of the incredible collections that we have and tell stories that we haven't told here before."

Thomson said that when the project is complete, the museum will not only be a place where people can "learn about our shared heritage, our cultural diversity and how to conserve the environment" but also a somewhere visitors can "put their wellingtons on, roll their sleeves up and get their hands dirty".

It is anticipated the expansion of the museum, which will see new buildings constructed and an array of fresh interactive activities made available, will create more than 20 new jobs and provide an economic boost for the wider economy.

Building work is set to start in 2027 and is expected to be completed by 2029.

Standing at the front of a classroom in the museum's reconstructed National School on Thursday, Communities Minister Gordon Lyons said the investment was both about remembering the past and attracting tourism in the future.

He told BBC NI: "It's important that we invest in heritage and culture. It's important that we tell our stories.

"For 60 years we've been doing that here... and I wanted to make sure that for future generations we could continue to do that."

He said the £50m investment marked "a profound shift in the museum's positioning".

"The reawakening is not just about reinvestment - it's about reimagining the museum's purpose to ensure it thrives for the next 25 years and beyond as a vibrant, relevant and indispensable resource for society."

The £10m contribution from the National Lottery Heritage Fund is the the biggest grant from this fund in Northern Ireland in a decade, according to the department.

The fund's director in Northern Ireland, Paul Mullan, described the investment plan as a "visionary project" which would "reawaken the much-loved Ulster Folk Museum".

He said it would create jobs as well as opportunities for "sharing heritage and craft skills alongside learning experiences for all ages".

The Ulster Folk Museum is a living museum and environmental resource in Cultra, County Down, which first opened its doors in 1964.

The site showcases a mix of traditionally-built and replica buildings - including 19th century homes, businesses and public establishments - some of which were carefully dismantled from their original sites around Northern Ireland and moved to the museum.

These include thatched cottages, a 1837 national school from outside Ballycastle; a 1852 corn mill taken from Straid, outside Ballymena, a blacksmith's forge which was originally based at Lisrace, County Fermanagh and a rebuilt flax mill from the Sperrin Mountains.

The museum also houses a large collection of historical objects which are used to demonstrate traditional skills and preserve stories that have been passed down through generations of people in Ulster.

Also within the grounds of the Ulster Folk Museum is the Ulster Transport Museum which features trains and cars from Northern Ireland's transportation history.

These museums, along with the Ulster Museum and the Ulster American Folk Park, are managed by National Museums NI.