As Trefor M. Owen points out in his introduction, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum was set in motion in 1958, its first director, George B. Thompson, was appointed in 1959, and Alan Gailey joined as a research officer in 1960. In 1975 Gailey became a keeper of non-material culture and succeeded Thompson as director in 1986, serving for ten years in that capacity. The trustees of the museum solicited these essays from Gailey’s former colleagues and authors working in similar areas of folklife studies. The ensuing collection constitutes an excellent reprise of many of the subjects which Gailey investigated during his career and encouraged in the development of the museum as an important research centre.