Mid Ulster extends a warm welcome to you. Embrace everything it has to offer. You will encounter our giant spirit everywhere you visit, so let us help you explore some of the best ways to experience it all.
*Please note that these Experiences are only open to Tour Operators and Group Trip Organisers and require a minimum number for bookings.
Find unforgettable experiences
Embrace it. Live it. Taste it. Mid Ulster is packed with exciting and unforgettable experiences. Get the most from your time here by participating in as many of our unique ways of life as possible. Combine tradition and adventure. History and discovery. Life and art.
Journey through Mid Ulster’s long history at a Bronze Age site or one of our historic houses. Go stargazing beneath pitch-black skies that are as breathtaking now as they were to our ancestors 5,000 years ago. Live our rural heritage with the help of Lough Neagh fishermen, and the hill farmers and sheep dogs of the Sperrin Mountains, then taste the fruits of their labour at our local eateries. See it all. Experience everything Mid Ulster has to give you — and instantly understand how it inspired some of the greatest Irish literature of all time.
Gaze into space with your ancestors
Let life’s everyday stresses float away — our Stars and Stones experience will put their miniscule place in the universe into perspective. Start your day at the ancient Beaghmore Stone Circles, a complex of early Bronze Age cairns, megalithic features and seven stone circles. The structures — dating from around 3,000BC or earlier — are thought to have been of astronomical importance to our ancestors. Make an early start to watch the sunrise over the stone circles.
Just a mile or two along the road is the OM Dark Sky Park and Observatory, where you can gaze in wonder at the very stars that might have inspired the stone circles. The stillness and clarity of Northern Ireland’s first Dark Sky Park gives you the perfect environment to explore meteors and moon craters, other planets and distant galaxies.
Seamus Heaney Experience
Seamus Heaney is one of the world’s best-known and most loved poets, and one of the greatest Irish writers of all time. He was born and raised on the Heaney family farm of Mossbawn, near Castledawson, in rural County Derry, Northern Ireland. In his Nobel lecture, Heaney described his childhood as ‘an intimate, physical, creaturely existence… in suspension between the archaic and the modern’.
Let Seamus Heaney’s distinctive voice guide you through the exhibition at HomePlace as you get to know the people and places that inspired him. Atmospheric video projections and touchscreen displays sit alongside precious items donated by the Heaney family.
Then venture out to Open Ground, a series of five locations which held great significance for Seamus Heaney. Discover how each of these places, so much a part of Seamus Heaney’s formative years, influenced the rich legacy of his literature.
Lough Neagh
Go out on the water to experience the magnificent expanse of water that is Lough Neagh. Some 800 billion gallons and 151 miles² of water create the largest lake in the UK and Ireland. That’s plenty of space (and plenty of water) to create some pretty special experiences.
Take a pleasure cruise around the lough or a trip to an island. Charter a boat with a Lough Neagh fisherman to get a guided tour and first-hand experience of this traditional way of life. Soak up the local history and heritage at the many ancient sites along the loughshore, or make a splash with some high-octane water sports activities. However you spend your time on Lough Neagh make yourself at home among a diverse wetland and aquatic ecosystem that is home to tufted ducks, great crested grebe, sedge warblers, salmon, eels, pollan and dollaghan trout.
Get a flavour of the real Mid Ulster
Our lush landscape and thriving waterways give Mid Ulster an abundance of delicious produce - and we’d love to share some with you. Many of the best food producers in Northern Ireland are here, which means that their mouth-watering local ingredients and home-grown produce often go directly to the eateries where you’ll be dining during your visit.
Our Fed and Watered experience guides you round some of the best food and drink on offer in Mid Ulster. The perfect spot for breakfast, lunch at one of our many superb cafes and bistros, then fine dining or traditional cooking for dinner. Look out for local specialities on the menu, such as the world-renowned Lough Neagh eels. And don’t forget to round off the day by sampling the legendary hospitality at one of our traditional bars.
Follow three sisters from childhood tragedy to the big house
Discover the stories of the three Molesworth sisters and their connections with three of Mid Ulster’s historic homes. Dublin-born Henrietta, Louisa and Elizabeth Molesworth were all aged younger than 17 when a fire tore through their London home in May 1763. The girls' mother, Lady Molesworth, two of their sisters, an uncle and six servants died. Their father Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, had died a few years earlier, so the sisters were orphaned.
Learn how the three surviving Molesworth sisters overcame that horrific trauma and how their adult lives became intertwined with the stories of some of Mid Ulster’s most impressive houses: Killymoon Castle, Lissan House and Springhill. You’ll explore the history of these magnificent period properties through one family’s personal stories of triumph after tragedy as part of our Three Sisters experience.
Boasting the darkest sky in the heart of ancient Ulster, you can spend the evening and night at the foothills of the Sperrin Mountains, by the edge of Davagh Forest and the Beaghmore Stone Circles. Wrap yourself in a blanket of stars overhead and imagine your place in all of this.
