As part of their WAU programme, Famine in Ireland, P6 and P7 visited The Ulster American Folk Park on the 27th February.
They visited the one room cabin which is typical of the type of house that the poorest people would have lived in. The children also visited the larger farmhouse of a “ strong tenant” farmer, where they met Mrs Mellon who gave them pancakes and showed them around her house.
Following the trail, the children visited the meeting house, a soup kitchen and a school house, where historians dressed in clothes appropriate to the era, talked to them about life during and after 1845.
The children enjoyed the dockside, where they boarded a coffin ship and witnessed the horrible conditions on board. They learned how on reaching America, the poor emigrants were often robbed. On leaving the ship, the group was welcomed to “America” by a very friendly man, who stole the teacher’s bag and ran off with it! One of the most interesting buildings was the American merchant’s shop which sold everything imaginable.
