Ulster Folk and Transport Museum ‘perfect’ for hut

Ulster Folk and Transport Museum ‘perfect’ for hut

20 November 2024

THE Ulster Folk and Transport Museum is being suggested as the “perfect home” for a replica First World War Armstrong hut currently located in Downpatrick.

Newry, Mourne and Down Council is looking for a new home for the hut which is in the Down County Museum’s courtyard.

The local authority is seeking a suitable organisation to remove and relocate the timber hut to ensure it can continue to be accessed by the public and Rowallane councillor Terry Andrews believes the Cultra museum is the perfect setting for the unique piece of living history.

Last week, the local authority agreed to seek expressions of interest for the hut and will listen to interested parties.

Preference will be given to parties able to find a purpose for both the hut and its contents and Cllr Andrews believes that given the hut’s historical significance, it should be relocated to the Folk and Transport Museum.

The hut mirrors those which had been in place at Ballykinler camp and when it was officially opened, it was hailed as a major new tourist attraction at the museum, with the replica made possible with support from the European Union.

Council staff worked on the hut recreation for three years, assisted by the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at Belfast’s Queen’s University, gathering about 100 stories of people who occupied the huts. 

They were first built to house 4,000 Belfast men training with the 36th (Ulster) Division for active service on the Western Front, including at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.

The huts later housed 1,800 republican internees who were arrested all over Ireland during the Irish War of Independence in late 1920 and 1921, with the soldiers in 1914 and the internees in 1921 given the same beds, made from three planks, with four army blankets to sleep on.

The original 60ft by 20ft timber huts, clad with corrugated iron, housed evacuees from Malta, American GIs and German prisoners of war during World War Two and also sheltered Hungarian refugees in 1957, after the Russian invasion of Hungary. 

The last huts were dismantled in 2012 when local man Andrew Carlisle recorded how one was built and saved hundreds of artefacts from the sand underneath and donated them to the Downpatrick  museum. 

Local historian Philip Orr’s book, published by the museum entitled ‘Ballykinlar Camp, The First 70 Years’, was an inspiration to staff to recreate an Armstrong hut in the museum’s courtyard, in order to tell the human stories of its many occupants, engaging world-wide with families of soldiers, prisoners, evacuees and refugees formerly at the World’s End Camp. 

Cllr Andrews said the Armstrong hut was always going to be a temporary fixture at the museum as the structure would have a limited lifespan.

Planning permission to erect the hut was also time-bound due to the heritage of the museum site, but Cllr Andrews said it’s future would be in good hands at the Cultra museum.

“I can think of no better place for the hut,” said Cllr Andrews.

“The Folk and Transport Museum is the perfect home for the hut and its story would be opened up to a regional, national and international audience.”

Cllr Andrews said while the hut will have a legacy through its removal to another site within the council area and the artefacts it houses could be used in future as part of the Downpatrick museum’s collection, if this is not possible, the Folk and Transport Museum should be considered a serious option.

The successful organisation appointed to remove the hut will be a not-for-profit entity or registered charity and have good governance structures in place and have the full support of its board or membership to acquire and maintain the hut and placed on a site for a minimum of 20 years.

The closing date for expressions of interest in December 9 and the hut must be removed by the end of March.