Day 11 & 12: County Tyrone and Belfast
Yesterday, we spent the day in County Tyrone. We spent most of our day at the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies and the Ulster American Folk Park!
The Mellon Centre is one of nine heritage services with Libraries NI, and was named for Thomas Mellon, who was born in County Tyrone and immigrated to America as a child, and later grew up to found the bank Mellon Financial. His family’s home is one of the few buildings in the folk park that is not only original but in the original location.
We discussed Irish diaspora, both past and present, and some key common characteristics. For example, Ireland had a roughly even gender balance of migrants leaving Ireland, whereas the rest of Europe’s migrants were mostly men. This was because, for women, the two biggest employment opportunities were in domestic service and the textile industry.
We also learned about the ritual of departure for the Irish. As the Irish had incredibly low rates of returning once immigrating, many communities held an American or Living Wake. This transferred the idea of a deceased person leaving the world of the living and forever staying in the world of the dead to the idea of an immigrant leaving the old world for the new world and not returning. It was an acceptance that they wouldn’t see their friend or family member again, and celebrating and spending time with that person before they were gone forever.
We did also discuss the collection and the concept of neutrality in libraries and museums. The staff freely admit that their collection is skewed towards the Northern experience, though all of the other regions of Ireland are covered. This also means that there is a higher rate of Protestant views and experiences available, which also has to do with there being higher literacy rates among the Protestant Irish during the big waves of emigration.
Going into the Ulster American Folk Park was interesting. The park is divided into three sections: the Old World, the Journey, and the New World. In the Old World, we got a glimpse of what life was like prior to leaving Ireland. We saw a weaver’s cottage, and both Protestant and Catholic churches, and a forge, and a one-room cabin, and farm houses, and more.
In the Journey, we saw businesses that would help prepare for the trip overseas, such as the Chemists, and the Grocer’s, before entering a replica ship where we could see what it was like to live on board while crossing the Atlantic. Then you arrive in the New World!
After the Folk Park, we went into the town of Omagh to their public library, which also houses the Omagh Bomb Archive. On August 15, 1998, at 3:10 PM, a bomb went off in the town, killing 29 people (to include a woman who was seven months pregnant with twins) and injuring hundreds of others. It will be 21 years this August, and those who set the bomb have still not been found and tried. The archive was created spontaneously after months of collecting items--perhaps mostly inadvertently. The archive includes printed e-mails, books of condolences, Christmas cards, pressed flowers, newspaper articles, recordings of news footage, and more. This is one way that the town is able to process and heal from tragedy, as well as educate future generations and preserve the memory of those who were lost.
When we arrived back in Belfast, we went to see the Scottish Opera perform “The Magic Flute”. It was wonderful: the cast was brilliant, the costumes were phenomenal, the music beautiful... The plot is a bit weird (and at times non-existent) but it was a marvelous experience!
Then today is our last day in Belfast, and a free day. A day of last places to see, and last things to do. A friend and I went back to the Ulster Scots Centre to utilize their databases for family history. Alas, we hit several roadblocks, one of the most prominent being that the Records Office in Dublin--where all of the records went up until 1922--was a casualty of the Irish Civil War and those records were lost. We’re both hoping a little more digging might yield results someday! We made one final trip to St. George’s Market before coming back to the dorms to prepare for a potluck.
Tomorrow, we leave for Galway for a new set of adventures!
