Bedroom

This simple two room cottage is very typical of the Ulster-Scots cottages of the 17th century; with one main room for living and cooking; and a bedroom.  Furnishings were hand-made and simple.  The light was often poor, particularly in the darker winter months, and a tax on windows in Ireland led to the expression “daylight robbery”.

Almost twenty Presidents of the United States have descended from Ulster or Ulster-Scots emigrants – amongst them Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st US President who served from 1881 to 1885. Arthur, a vocal abolitionist, successfully tackled corruption, tariff reforms, control of immigration and reconstruction of the American Navy.  When he died just a year after leaving the White House, it was said that “Chester Alan Arthur had come of a stock made for eminence”.

That stock was Ulster-Scots, descended from the Scottish Campbells and MacArthurs who later settled in the Cullybackey area of County Antrim, principally in the townlands of Corbally and Dreen.  It was the President’s father, William Arthur, a Baptist minister, who emigrated to North America before 1820.