Carrickfergus Museum and Civic Centre

A nice little place to visit if you’re in Carrickfergus. Home to the civic centre and also tourist information, it’s handy to nip by for any advice or leaflets on tourist attractions around the country. There is a nice little museum — it is small but interesting, and best of all it’s free! The shop is nice too to buy little gifts or souvenirs. There is also a café, which I didn’t try, but it looked nice. Worth a visit.

Phew, what a mouthful! Despite sounding extremely posh, the Museum and Civic Centre isn’t really, Encompassing a café, registrars office, art gallery, offices for council departments, a tourist information and a museum, this building really is rather odd.
I remember the Knight Ride, which was a tour around the ceiling in a giant helmet, taking you through different exhibits on Carrick’s history. Unfortunately, this was closed down several years ago, and the building has since been made into this civic centre. Sadly.
Upon entering the civic centre, the large, open plan area is mainly a café, with a few of rooms for the other aforementioned uses. The first room on the left is the tourist information centre — a large, bright space with plenty of information (you’ll be glad to here), guides and gifts.
Beyond this is the ‘museum’, or rather an exhibition displaying the history of Carrickfergus, right from its naming (which apparently was done by King Fergus and means ‘Rock of Fergus’) to the 20^th Century, and everything in between. There’s a couple of interactive elements — one of a map of the town in 1560, and another map reading one. As well as a huge red fire brigade dating back to 1908, there are plenty of exhibits detailing everything from war to trade, from coins to food and drink. It’s certainly a good history lesson on all things Carrick related.
Perhaps the most interesting snippet of information that I discovered was the huge influx of people to Carrickfergus between 1951 (when only 8,500 lived there) and 1998 (when 38,000 was the population). It just really begs the question, «what on earth were they thinking?!» Ahh, who knows. Carrick isn’t all that bad…

Located at the far end of the Carrickfergus Civic Centre, unfortunately it is probably easily overlooked by those not au fait with Carrick!
I used to pop in to have a sandwich made up when I worked in the area, and they were always quick, fresh & good value — much better than the Subway across the town!
As well as fresh sandwiches/​salads, they tend to offer several different cooked options like pies & soups.
As previous reviwer stated, it has comfy seats & decent coffee (also does a selection of home-​made desserts). Worth a visit if you’re in the area.

This place wouldn’t be for everyone as the café is set in the middle of a fairly large space and could possibly feel a bit empty. When I was there it had a few people in it, and lots of comfortable seating. The coffees are good and reasonably priced. Family members have eaten there and been pleasantly surprised by the quality and price of the food. Worth a visit as it’s good value for money and a bright, spacious place to spend an hour with the paper.