Belfast

Their route brought them down the Falls Road and into what are now remnants of an older Catholic enclave around St Mary’s Church, the town’s first Catholic chapel (opened in 1784 with Presbyterian subscriptions), and Smithfield Market. Meanwhile, road schemes, including the terminus of the M1 motorway and the Westlink, demolished a mixed dockland community, Sailortown, and severed the streets linking the Shankill area and the rest of both north and west Belfast to the city centre. The Greater Shankill area, including Crumlin and Woodvale, is over the line from the Belfast North parliamentary/assembly constituency, but is physically separated from the rest of Belfast West by an extensive series of separation barriers—peace walls—owned (together with five daytime gates into the Falls area) by the Department of Justice. To the north, it stretched out along roads which drew into the town migrants from Scots-settled hinterland of County Antrim. In 1997, unionists lost overall control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history. Beginning in 1970 with the Falls curfew, and followed in 1971 by internment, this included counterinsurgency measures directed chiefly at the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Tour Belfast’s architectural centerpiece, City Hall

The Titanic Belfast museum, rising from the grounds of the Harland & Wolff shipyard, is much more than a maritime showcase. Museums and tours nourish history buffs, while enthusiastic hikers can find nature on the city’s doorstep. Sign up to receive inspiring ideas, events and offers which showcase the best of Belfast and Northern Ireland! Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter is the city’s buzzing, creative soul, where Belfast’s vibrant cultural life bubbles visibly to the surface. In South Belfast, modernity collides with tradition, creating a vibrant atmosphere enriched by a dynamic cultural scene. Discover iconic landmarks like Belfast Castle, explore wildlife at Belfast Zoo, or delve into the past at Crumlin Road Gaol and Clifton House.

Check out the art at CS Lewis Square in East Belfast

It is "the largest integrated transport facility on the island of Ireland" with bus stands, railway platforms, and facilities for taxis and bicycles. Bus services in the city proper and the nearer suburbs are operated by Translink Metro, with services focusing on linking residential districts with the city centre on 12 quality bus corridors running along main radial roads, The Ulster Hospital, Upper Newtownards Road, Dundonald, on the eastern edge of the city, first founded as the Ulster Hospital for Women and Sick Children in 1872, is the major acute hospital for the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust.

From the 1760s, profits from the trade financed improvements in the town’s commercial infrastructure, including the Lagan Canal, new docks and quays, and the construction of the White Linen Hall which together attracted to Belfast the linen trade that had formerly gone through Dublin. The compilers of Ulster-Scots use various transcriptions taxi belfast of local pronunciations of "Belfast" (with which they sometimes are also content) including Bilfawst, Bilfaust or Baelfawst. At the same time, new immigrants are adding to the growing number of residents unwilling to identify with either of the two communal traditions. Their descendants’ disaffection with Ireland’s Anglican establishment contributed to the rebellion of 1798, and to the union with Great Britain that followed in 1801—later regarded as a key to the town’s industrial transformation. While chartered as an English settlement in 1613, the town’s early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians.

What famous ship was built in Belfast?

Despite the DUP’s derailment of devolved government in protest, local business leaders largely welcomed the new trade regime, hailing the promise of dual EU-GB access as a critical opportunity. Significant projects included Victoria Square, the Cathedral Quarter, Laganside with the Odyssey complex and the landmark Waterfront Hall, the new Titanic Quarter with its Titanic Belfast visitor attraction, and the development of the original Short’s harbour airfield as Belfast City Airport. Northern Ireland’s peace dividend since the 1990s, which includes a marked increase in inward investment, has contributed to a large-scale redevelopment of the city centre. These include a new deepwater quay to accommodate, in addition to larger cruise liners, an expansion the port’s capacity for offshore wind turbine assembly and installation. In recent years Harland & Wolff, which at peak production in the Second World War had employed around 35,000 people, has had a workforce of no more than two or three hundred refurbishing oil rigs and fabricating off-shore wind turbines.

Learn more with a museum visit

(According to the 2021 census, 15.5% of people in the city have some knowledge of Irish, 4% speak it daily). Since 2001, buoyed by increasing numbers of tourists, the city council has promoted a number of cultural quarters. Such figures, however, do not include all those living in severely overcrowded conditions, involuntarily sharing with other households on a long-term basis, or sleeping rough in hidden locations. This is against a background (in 2023) of 2,317 people (0.67% of residents) presenting as homeless, many of whom are in temporary accommodation and shelters. New townhouse and apartments schemes are being developed for the city’s quays, and for Titanic Quarter. But retail footfall in the centre is limited by competition with out-of-town shopping centres and with internet retailing.

Catch a ride on a hop-on hop off  bus tour

From there, spend some time exploring the free museum before strolling through the gardens. When the weather’s on your side (invariably difficult to predict, irrespective of the time of year you visit Belfast) take a hike up Cave Hill, which rises a humble 368m above the low-lying city. As the late Northern Irish poet Seamus Heaney once opined, “The end of art is peace” – a sentiment the Belfast black taxi tour echoes. On long summer evenings, retreat to the beer gardens at The Thirsty Goat or The Dirty Onion (patio heaters and awnings included). Filming locations for the blockbuster fantasy series are littered across the country, and major scenes were shot in Belfast studios, so visitors to the city can also travel to the places where fictional Westeros once became a reality.

• Discover an oasis of calm in bustling Belfast – a delightful mix of Victorian charm and natural beauty.
• It’s home to the city’s Botanic Gardens and also No Alibis, Northern Ireland’s only independent crime fiction bookshop.
• Celebrate local life with a lively year-round calendar of events
• Belfast Castle is a relatively modern building, having been built by the third Marquis of Donegall in 1862 in what was his deer park.
• The Belfast landmark, Cave Hill, rises up behind the castle and if you are up for a walk, we highly recommend taking the time to walk to the top of Cave Hill for spectacular views over Belfast Lough and towards the Mournes – on a clear day.
• What is sometimes referred to as the Catholic equivalent of the Orangemen, the much smaller Ancient Order of Hibernians, confines its parades to nationalist areas in west and north Belfast, as do republicans commemorating the Easter Rising.

Celebrate local life with a lively year-round calendar of events Discover a wilder, greener side to Belfast with walks, cycles and fabulous local food. Centuries of history combined with memorable experiences – what will you discover first? Two unique cities just two hours apart by train – discover Ireland’s ultimate city break.