A new €22 million Peace Campus has officially opened in Co Monaghan.
The four-storey community building in the heart of Monaghan town has taken four years to build.
It will provide a cultural and heritage centre, youth facility and shared community space for people in this border region.
The Monaghan Peace Campus received significant funding from the EU's Peace IV programme, which is a cross-border initiative to support peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland.
It will be a shared space for cross community and cross-border activities.
It is hoped the new facility will bring people together to address issues of separation and division which impacted Monaghan communities during times of conflict.
One feature of the campus will be an exhibition space dedicated to the Ulster Scots identity and tradition.
Ulster Scots refers to the migration of people from the lowlands of Scotland into Ulster from 1606.
The Ulster Scots Agency, set up under the Good Friday Agreement, is responsible for protecting and developing the language, heritage and culture of the Ulster Scots.
CEO Ian Crozier has said the Peace Campus is "significant" because it is the first time that the Ulster Scots identity will be recognised and celebrated in a public building in the Republic of Ireland.
The exhibition will explore the language, music and culture of Ulster Scots.
Mr Crozier said that Ulster Scots is an identity associated with a minority population in Monaghan and that the exhibition would open that up to the entire community.
While most Ulster Scots people here would be from the Presbyterian faith, Mr Crozier said that they are "inextricably linked but not exclusively so".
"One of the very interesting things about places in the border counties, because of the preponderance of mixed marriages over the last hundred years or so, there are many people who live in the border counties who belong to the Catholic community who have an Ulster Scots heritage as well, because they have a parent, a grandparent or a great grand parent who actually comes from the Ulster Scots tradition".
He said the exhibition will help those people in the Ulster Scots community to understand their identity and to recover that.
"But also for the people who have never considered themselves as Ulster Scots to think 'Oh that's actually part of who I am.' Because identity isn't about binary, I'm this or I am that, you can be bits of different things," he said.
Local woman Angela Graham comes from the Ulster Scots tradition in Monaghan.
"Being Ulster Scots is an integral part of me, just part and parcel of who I am. Culture, music, poetry, gardening, language," she said.
She said that words used across the county come from Ulster Scots.
"Even ordinary words like 'redding up' (cleaning up), or 'clart' (messy person), 'neb' (nose) or 'oxter" for under your arms. My favourite word of all of them and I use it all the time, the word 'wee'. It’s just the most fantastic wee word in Ulster Scots," Ms Graham said.
The impressive building provides a new home for the town's library, which will be open from 13 May.
The county museum is also relocating to the Peace Campus from its former premises in the town.
Curator Liam Bradley said that they are in the process of moving more than 50,000 objects and artefacts to the new museum and it is hoped it will open its doors to the public later this month.
The museum will be opening with an exhibition called 'Bordering Realities: Monaghan People and Stories'.
"It's essentially about the identity of lines, borders all around us, how we interact with them, how they affect us. And the question we ask people when they come in is, do the borders in your life define you or do you define your borders?" said Mr Bradley.
The exhibition will include some artefacts including customs and border posts and look at how life went on in Monaghan during The Troubles.
It also has a section dedicated to some of Monaghan's more famous sons and daughters from modern times, including boxer Barry McGuigan, rugby star Tommy Bowe, actor Caitríona Balfe and comedian Ardal O'Hanlon.
He said that it is hoped that visitors who are not from Monaghan will leave the exhibitions and experience at the Peace Campus with a better idea of what it's like to be from Monaghan and from the border area.
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The project has cost €21.7 million in total, with €14.4 million of that funded by the EU's Peace IV programme.
That funding is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.
Monaghan County Council CEO Robert Burns said that it was a space for communities in the county and across the border to come to.
He said that there were about 3,500 square meters of space outside for performance and exhibition, and the same amount inside.
Mr Burns said this space was accommodating not just the new library and museum, but also a number of "adaptable community spaces", a media suite, podcast studios and youth spaces.
The project also received funding from Monaghan County Council, the Department of Rural and Community Development in Ireland and the Department for communities in Northern Ireland.
Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys opened the Peace Campus.
"Like many towns along the border, Monaghan was hugely impacted by the Troubles. And when you think that next week we are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, a terrible atrocity at the time.
"So when you see a state-of-the-art building like here today, it just shows you how far we have come," she said.
