
Brownlow House in WW2
We’ve previously looked at the wider history of Brownlow House, Lurgan and mentioned its role as the Headquarters of American troops stationed in Northern Ireland during World War 2.
With the opening of the Brownlow HQ WW2 Exhibition in the basement of Brownlow House it is worthwhile visiting to learn more about the American soldiers sent to Northern Ireland.
WW2 American troops
More than 120,000 GIs were sent to Northern Ireland following the United States entry into the war in 1941. This included men from:
- V Army Corp – setting up its HQ at Brownlow House, Lurgan
- 34th Infantry deployed throughout counties Antrim and Tyrone
- 1st Armoured Division, ‘The Old Ironsides’, set up its HQ at Castlewellan, Co Down
This first wave of Americans trained throughout the summer of 1942 before deployment to the battlefront of North Africa in the Autumn.
The second wave began to arrive in mid October 1943 and included:
- the 2nd US Infantry Division
- the 5th Infantry Division
- the 82 Airborne Division
- the 8th Infantry Division
- XV Corp (which was based at Brownlow House)

Brownlow House WW2 Remembered
Brownlow House includes two separate WW2 exhibitions –
- an upstairs command room (once visited by Dwight D. Eisenhower). This was used to plan for the D-Day landings and the invasion of North Africa
- Brownlow HQ is a WW2 Exhibition in the basement of the building that tells the story of the American Soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland and particularly in Brownlow House using a range of displays and video guides
Brownlow HQ provides an excellent overview of the WW2 era and the ongoing plans for Operation Overlord. Together with the main house tour this is a gem of an exhibition that provides much of interest to all visitors.
The Brownlow HQ WW2 exhibition is open to the public from 10:00am to 3:00pm Monday to Saturday at no charge (though donations are welcome) with the Brownlow House tea room well open for lunches or a morning/ afternoon coffee.
Full tours of the building are available by appointment for small to large groups, with an experienced tour guide on hand to provide the full history of this magnificent building.
See More on Operation Overlord:
World War 2 Normandy – Utah Beach
WW2 Normandy and Utah Beach may be an unusual setting for Belfast Entries but we thought it would be worthwhile following up on Operation Overlord and deployment of some of those American troops based in Northern Ireland during World War 2
If you enjoyed this article…
If you like our posts please help us to grow our readership by sharing any posts that you like using the social media sharing icons at the foot of each post.
Please Consider a Small Donation
Belfast Entries is a husband & wife hobby website featuring articles on our shared history, memories and entertaining stories of our past. To help us meet rising website hosting costs please click the coffee cup below to learn how to make a small donation. Please note that every contribution is valued and that we will not contact you directly in order to respect your privacy.
Donations this month 8 🙂
We had 6 donations last month
What are others reading now?
Cost of Living Crisis
Given the current cost of living crisis that will impact so many in coming months we have added a page signposting organisations that may be able to offer support. We have no relationship with these organisations and cannot offer financial advice but we hope that some of the links may prove useful.
Ancestry Antrim Arthur Chichester artist Belfast Belfast Entries Belfast Family belfast roots Carrickfergus Castle Cemetery Church Clifton House County Antrim County Down Department Store Donegal education. family tree Famous Folk Forgotten folk Genealogy Ghost graveyard Historical places History Hotel Ireland Irish Census Records Irish Family Irish genealogy irish roots Mary Ann McCracken Operation Overlord Otto Jaffe People Philanthropist Places to see Poor House Public Health Reformer Sailortown St Patrick Titanic Tourism United Irishmen
Copyright Notice
Belfast Entries posts & photos are our intellectual property and copyrighted to us. Where we use photos that do not belong to us, it is because we believe them to be in the public domain or shared under a Creative Commons licence with appropriate attribution. None of our content or images can be used without our consent. Note that a link to our Copyright & Takedown notice is included in the website footer on all pages.