The dress, which belonged to Belfast woman Peggy McAuley, was made from silk scavenged from a parachute mine or off-cuts siphoned from an RAF factory.

Peggy, who married Reg Seivor, a US soldier based in Castlewellan in 1944, was among 1,800 women who wed some of the 300,000 GIs based in Northern Ireland between 1942 and 1944 preparing for operations in North Africa and Normandy.

Her make-do-and-mend wedding dress, which would have been worn by more than one bride, is on display along with her veil and original photograph.

WWII enthusiast and collector Gary Campbell, whose aunt was a GI bride and who moved to Pennsylvania in the early 1940s, said: “When we consider the World Wars, people tend to think of the guns and bombs aspect more so than the social side. But it is just as interesting and relevant as the other side of things.”

The exhibition at War Memorial Museum on Talbot Street, beside Belfast Cathedral, is open from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

Lesley-Anne Henry For the Belfast Telegraph

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