Ulster American Folk Park

March 18, 2008

Tuesday March 18 we headed for Ballymena Northern Ireland to visit friends. This was my 5th time to go and Nolan's 6th time. Usually we are going to do mission work, but this time it was just to hang out and enjoy Ballymena and the surrounding area. But of course we were hoping to run into some of the kids from the Dunclug Estates, where we have done mission work for 5 years

Because we did so much over spring break, I decided to split up the blog into parts. The first being the Ulster American Folk Park.

The first day we walked around Ballymena. The second day we decided to go on an adventure to Omagh. Omagh was where the last bombing in the Troubles took place. U2 often makes references about it in their concerts. But instead of visiting a memorial, we went to the Ulster American Folk Park...recommended by the tourism agency. The park was set up as real-life town in the 1800s in Ireland. You could walk through homes and farms with live animals. In each place there was a person dressed in 1800s attire to give you some brief history. Then the park took you to the "New World", where it showed the history of how the Irish people journeyed to America. This was interesting to Nolan and me, being that both of our ancestery comes from Ireland. In fact, I even saw my maiden name on a sign. Overall this tourist adventure was worthwile and we thoroughly enjoyed it! I think we just felt some kind of connection because we thought about our ancestors taking this journey at some point in their lives.