Self-guided Visits
You may wish to take your class to the Museum for a self-guided visit. Let us know when you are coming and we will book you in.
Resources for Post-Primary Schools
The Museum can provide a wide range of resources and activities to complement classroom work in history, technology and design and learning for life and work. In addition to our galleries and exhibitions, and our main collection of 10,000 objects, we also have a handling collection of approximately 500 objects which can be used by pupils and teachers to increase understanding of many topics including:
- technological change over time
- social life and leisure
- working lives
- First World War
- Second World War
- propaganda and advertising
- home life and women’s lives
- political change
- using and understanding evidence
- the history and development of Downpatrick
- children’s lives over time
- newspapers.
The Museum also has a very extensive photographic archive of over 50,000 images. Many of these are available (either as prints, copies or digital images) to study and are particularly useful for the following areas:
- the history of Downpatrick
- farming and rural life
- social life and leisure
- costume
- towns and villages in Down
- working life
- rich and poor
- sport and games
- schooldays
- Newcastle and the Mournes
- Dundrum and surrounding areas
- political change
- the Gribben collection features photographs of Loughinisland, Seaforde and surrounding areas from the 1910s to the 1950s and includes some rare images of Irish Volunteers and political demonstrations in the period 1913-1914.
Please contact us to discuss how your pupils might make use of our collections and historic building in ongoing work or specific projects.
