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heritage · Saturday 22 August 2026 · 10:00am to 5:00pm 
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade
At Ulster American Folk Park · 2 Mellon Rd, Omagh, Co. Tyrone BT78 5QU
At Ulster American Folk Park · 2 Mellon Rd, Omagh, Co. Tyrone BT78 5QU
The Ulster American Folk Park marks the UNESCO International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition with a weekend of talks and costumed interpretation exploring Ulster’s own historical links to the slave trade. Running Saturday, 22 August 2026 and Sunday, 23 August 2026 at the museum’s Omagh site, the programme traces how Tyrone emigrants and their descendants became entangled in the slave economy of the American south, and how that history is remembered today.
At the Dockside Gallery, costumed interpretation recalls Mary Anne McCracken, the Belfast abolitionist who distributed handbills urging Ulster emigrants not to profit from slavery once they reached America. Elsewhere on site, the Rogan House, a reconstructed Tennessee plantation dwelling built by a family who left Co. Tyrone, is the focus of curator-led discussions about the enslaved people who lived and worked there, and their lives after emancipation in 1865. Staff explain how everyday products such as tobacco, sugar and cotton tied local economies to the slave trade even though Ulster itself had no plantations. The talks run across both days from 10am to 5pm and are included in general admission, so visitors can combine them with the rest of the open-air museum, including the reconstructed Ulster street and the emigrant ship exhibit.
The Folk Park is signposted off the A5, about two miles north of Omagh town centre, with free parking on site for cars and coaches.
The Folk Park is one of the biggest heritage attractions in Omagh, and the museum’s wider Stories of Us anniversary programme runs through the same weekend. There is more to see and do across Co. Tyrone if you are making a day of it.
Heading to Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh? Tyrone has plenty more to see. Read the Omagh area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.
In town for Ulster American Folk Park? These Dublin tours book out in summer.