All four extend beyond the city boundaries to include parts of Antrim and Newtownabbey and Lisburn and Castlereagh districts. Belfast City Council is responsible for a range of powers and services, including land-use and community planning, parks and recreation, building control, arts and cultural heritage. Belfast Metropolitan College ("Belfast Met") is a further education college with three main campuses around the city, including several smaller buildings.

Join in the festive cheer in Belfast – explore the magic of Christmas with twinkling market stalls and sparkling illuminations. Get a flavour for Belfast with tours to its top food and drink spots, from cosy dining and gin jaunts to off-the-beaten-track surprises. From bobbing along in an inflatable water zorb to paddling on a two-person kayak – take to Belfast’s River Lagan for an adventurous and adrenaline-filled time. Visit the Titanic Memorial Garden, and tour one of the city’s most iconic landmarks – all for free. Grab your mates and tuck into a feast of amazing street food, craft beer, great wines and artisan cocktails. Founded in 1951, this is one of Belfast’s top spots for picnics, walking and outdoor 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 iconic Titanic Belfast visitor experience stands tall on the same spot that the world’s most famous sinking ship was built.
  • Educational institutions in Belfast include Queen’s University at Belfast (founded in 1845 as the Queen’s College), the University of Ulster at Belfast (1849), and Union Theological College (1853).

Industrial expansion, sectarian division

Guinness is served on tap in the beer tents, while The Errigle Inn and The Pavillion (sometimes called the Big House) bars on nearby Ormeau Rd are popular haunts for prematch tipples and postmatch celebratory toasts. Northern Ireland has a rich sporting heritage, and watching one of the local professional teams in action is an exhilarating way to kick off a night on the town. At the same complex, Banana Block is an innovative commercial and community events space in a former linen mill. 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.

Crumlin Road Gaol

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. While some local feeder and return marches have a history of sectarian disturbance, in recent years, events have generally passed off without serious incident. It has grown from its original August Féile on the Falls Road, to a year-round programme with a broad range of arts events, talks and discussions.

The Blitz and post-war development

On the east side, a branch of the Ulster Bank is built behind the classical portico of a former Methodist church dating from 1846. The Baroque revival City Hall was finished in 1906 on the site of the former White Linen Hall, and was built to reflect Belfast’s city status, granted by Queen Victoria in 1888. Of the much larger Victorian city a substantial legacy has survived the Blitz, The Troubles and planning and development. Of the various markets, including those for the sale and shipping of livestock, from which it taxi numbers belfast derives its name, only one survives, the former produce market, St George’s Market, now a food and craft market popular with visitors to the city. Next to the former the Harland & Wolff Drawing Offices (now an hotel), stands the "cultural nucleus to Titanic Quarter", Titanic Belfast (2012) whose interactive galleries tell the liner’s ill-fated story.

The city’s name is derived from the Gaelic Béal Feirste (Mouth of the Sandbank or Crossing of the River). A castle, probably built there about 1177 by John de Courci, the Norman conqueror of Ulster, seems to have survived until the beginning of the 17th century. Though the site of Belfast has been occupied since the Stone Age, its modern history began in 1611 when Baron Arthur Chichester built a new castle there. Harland and Wolff, the chief shipbuilding firm in the city, built the luxury liner.

Tour Belfast’s architectural centerpiece, City Hall

In 1997, unionists lost overall control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history, with the Alliance Party holding the balance of power. Her duties include presiding over meetings of the council, receiving distinguished visitors to the city, representing and promoting the city on the national and international stage. Formerly known as Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education, it specialises in vocational education. But the presence of 18 selective grammar schools in Belfast is a further feature of post-primary education in Belfast that distinguishes it from that of comparable cities in Great Britain where academic selection was abandoned in the 1960s and 70s. Primary and secondary education is divided between (Catholic) Maintained Schools and (non-Catholic/ "Protestant") Controlled Schools. 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.

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. Next door, its successor, Marks and Spencers, is housed behind the red sandstone, Florentine Gothic, facade (1869) of a rival linen business that was burned out in the Blitz.

Don’t miss exploring the SS Nomadic, the last remaining White Star Line ship in the world, which is included with a museum ticket and is docked right outside. The journey culminates with a deep dive into the RMS Titanic, whose ill-fated Atlantic voyage in 1912 eventually crippled the city’s top industry. 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!