News & Press

2026

A row of white mannequins modelling garments in the Ashes to Fashion exhibition at Ulster Museum

Ashes to Fashion exhibition opens

27.02.2026

After months of anticipation, the Ulster Museum has officially opened Ashes to Fashion, its first major fashion and textile exhibition in 15 years.

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An art curator dressed in a black top and tan skirt stands in the centre of five white mannequins modelling fashion items from the Ulster Museum collection. Front left is a chunky wool cardigan, front right is a black blazer with large pink shoulder detail like a rose. Slightly in the distance to the left of the curator is a blue and black hoodie outfit and in the distance to the right is an all white draped dress. The face of the fifth mannequin peers over the curator's shoulder.

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Ashes to Fashion: Ulster Museum exhibition will celebrate a collection reborn

09.02.2026

A devastating fire at Malone House, caused by two firebombs planted during the Troubles in 1976, completely destroyed the Ulster Museum’s entire costume and textile collection. The tragic incident has become the starting point for a major new exhibition opening at the museum on 27 February.

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News

Communities Minister ‘reawakens’ the Ulster Folk Museum with £50m in funding

22.01.2026

The funding will support the delivery of the Reawakening project – a pivotal opportunity to improve the Ulster Folk Museum’s facilities, enhance access to collections and strengthen the museum’s role in helping people connect with their heritage.

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2025

Inside an old times US Post Office. Lots of wood and parcels on shelves, a white sign says US Post Office in black. A red material banner with Merry Christmas letters stitched on it is hung from each corner of a wooden counter stall.

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From Ulster to America: The making of modern Christmas

22.12.2025

Ulster American Folk Park explores the origins of our festive traditions

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A group of older people who founded Ireland’s first urban Gaeltacht at Shaws Road in Belfast with two representatives from the Ulster Museum flanking them.

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How Do You Create a Community? The Inspiring Story of Ireland’s First Urban Gaeltacht Comes to the Ulster Museum

12.12.2025

The Ulster Museum presents ‘How Do You Create a Community? The Inspiring Story of Belfast’s First Urban Gaeltacht’, an exhibition developed in partnership with Spórtlann na hÉireann’s GaelStair project, that explores one of the most remarkable linguistic and cultural revivals in modern European history.

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A group of 16 people, some seated, some standing, inside a museum store. The storage racks are in the background.

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Makers selected for contemporary craft exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland and Ulster Museum

09.12.2025

New, contemporary craft works inspired by the collections of National Museums Scotland and National Museums NI will be displayed in a collaborative exhibition, opening at the National Museum of Scotland in summer 2027, then at the Ulster Museum in early 2028. 

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The main focus of the picture is on a report titled 'Trans-Inclusive Culture'. The book cover is coloured blue and pink-purple and is in the hands of a woman wearing silver rings and has pink nails, as she flicks through the document. You can make out a woman in a black and white dress sitting in the background of the picture..

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National Museums NI joins partnership backed by Art Fund to advance trans inclusion

19.05.2025

The University of Leicester's Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) has established a partnership supported by Art Fund – the national charity for art – with leading UK museums, galleries and heritage organisations to support a bold and ambitious step change in the capacity and confidence of the UK’s culture sector to advance trans inclusion.

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2024

Chief Executive of National Museums NI, Kathryn Thomson, dressed in a black jumpsuit, shakes hands with Princess Anne as she receives an awards. Princess Anne wears a tan coloured blazer, neck scarf and gloves.

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National Museums NI recognised by Princess Royal Training Awards

29.11.2024

Now established as a prestigious and sought-after accolade, this year’s Princess Royal Training Awards attracted 127 applications from across the UK and Ireland with 52 winners - National Museums NI being one of them.

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Communities Minister Gordon Lyons & Kathryn Thomson, Chief Executive of National Museums NI

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Communities Minister commends engineering heritage at museum visits

15.11.2024

Communities Minister Gordon Lyons has visited the Ulster Folk Museum and the Ulster Transport Museum. As part of the visits, Minister Lyons viewed the latest exhibit in the impressive transport collection.

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Voices of '74: Ulster Museum unveils powerful oral history project

25.10.2024

The online project draws on the importance of oral history to document the memories and experiences of the past, in order to encourage conversations about the future

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2023

The back of a person standing looking at a Peruzzi painting on a blue painted wall with down lighting

News

Christmas Gift to the Nation

12.12.2023

Rare painting by the Italian artist Peruzzi - the only surviving work by the artist in the UK - goes on display at the Ulster Museum. The Nativity dates back to the 16th century and was acquired by National Museums NI in 2022.

Three people dressed in dark clothes in a grassy area with trees in the background and two of them are standing near signs that promote an environmental and biodiversity message - 'meadow in progress' and 'let it bee'.

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CEDaR unveils 10-year business plan to combat environmental and biodiversity crisis

4.12.2023

CEDaR is the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording and is a longstanding partnership between National Museums NI, DAERA, NIEA and the recording community in Northern Ireland.

Costumed guide at the Ulster Folk Museum holding a pitch fork on the farm during a learning programme for schools. Seven school children dressed in white t-shirts all have their backs to the camera, as they're interacting with the guide.

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Ulster Folk Museum awarded the national Heritage Education Trust Sandford Award for the first time

10.11.2023

Ulster Folk Museum has been awarded the prestigious Sandford Award which recognises the high standard of our educational programme for schools.

2022-2019

Conservation Fellow at the National Gallery seated restoring Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi's The Nativity.

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Ulster Museum to be gifted Peruzzi’s The Nativity

24.12.2022

The incredibly rare sixteenth century work has been acquired by National Museums NI, in Christmas gift to the nation.

Attendees at an event held today at Ulster Museum.

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Human Rights Day: Conflict textiles pieces acquired by National Museums NI

9.12.2022

Transnational textiles representing the personal experiences of those affected by conflict, including within Northern Ireland, taken into Ulster Museum's collection.

a man and two women beside a christmas tree

News

Art Unwrapped is back for its fifth consecutive year

9.12.2022

The annual ‘gift to the city’ will be on display at Ulster University’s new Belfast Campus.