visit-belfast.com visit-belfast.com Welcome to the Belfast Visitor Guide 2014, your passport to a vibrant, cultural and ever innovative city as it presents another momentous year packed with festivals and fun. We hope you enjoy our city and we European cinema, contemporary invite you to make it your Belfast. Soak dance, the crème de la crème of local up its lively atmosphere, stroll along cuisine or avant-garde puppetry that’s its fine Victorian streets, enjoy the your thing, Belfast will have a suite of range of world-class visitor attractions festivals to suit your tastes in a host of and indulge in a café, restaurant and state of the art, al fresco or Victorian entertainment scene that can rival any venues across the city, so don’t miss city in Europe. Most of all, we invite you our events section in this guide to get a to enjoy the experience of visiting a city few must see dates in your calendar. that truly welcomes you. Less than an hour from the world This year is filled with arts, music, famous Giant’s Causeway and the youth and craft festivals month by Mountains of Mourne, Belfast is a month, giving you an excuse for a night gateway city to a land of legends, so out in the city every week of the year. whether you’re here for the weekend Whether it’s comedy, maritime history, or you have the opportunity to linger community arts, carnival parades, a little longer, a trip to Belfast this year bluegrass music, song writing, promises memories to last a lifetime. Belfast 2014 / 3 Belfast… one of the UK’s top 5 city destinations as voted in the 2013 TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Destination Awards. Visit Belfast 8-10 Donegall Square North Belfast BT1 5GB Northern Ireland Tel: +44 (0)28 9023 9026 Fax: +44 (0)28 9024 9026 Email: [email protected] Tourist Information Tel: +44 (0)28 9024 6609 www.visit-belfast.com Designed by McCadden in Belfast Tel: +44 (0)28 9024 2228 Disclaimer The information contained in this Guide is given in good faith on the basis of the information submitted to Visit Belfast and McCadden by the promoters of the venues and services listed. Visit Belfast and McCadden cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information in this guide and accept no responsibility for any error or misrepresentation. All liability, disappointment, negligence or other damage caused by the reliance on the information contained in this guide, or in any company, individual or firm mentioned, or in the event of any company, individual or firm ceasing to trade, is hereby excluded. © Visit Belfast 2013. A selection of images supplied courtesy of Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Tourism Ireland Limited. 4 / Belfast 2014 visit-belfasvisit-belfast.com 06 History & Heritage 08 Titanic City 14 Art & Culture 16 SS Nomadic 18 Architecture 21 Crumlin Road Gaol 22 Music City 26 Events & Festivals 32 Gastro Delights 34 Shopping 36 Nightlife 38 Sports & Activities 40 Family Fun 42 Tours The Quarters 44 Titanic Quarter 45 Gaeltacht Quarter 46 Cathedral Quarter 47 Queen’s Quarter Beyond Belfast 48 Lisburn 49 North Down 50 Newtownabbey 51 Antrim 52 Gateway City Useful Stuff 54 Welcome Centre 55 Travel Tips 56 Accommodation 70 Maps & Access Belfast 2014 / 5 Alternative Belfast Ulster City Hall Belfast also has a rich musical This imposing Portland stone heritage, giving birth to the and copper-domed building was likes of Van Morrison, Stiff Little completed in 1906 as a symbol of Fingers, and Therapy?, as well Belfast’s new city status granted by as being the hometown of the Queen Victoria. Uncover the history famous McPeake family. The city’s while exploring some of its finest musical legacy continues to thrive features on a free 45 minute behind through a programme of diverse the scenes tour. The splendour and and popular annual festivals, grandeur displayed so proudly and the acclaimed Ulster Orchestra, created so magnificently by the traditional Irish music sessions as craftsmen of Belfast in the interiors of well as in Belfast’s more modern City Hall, could be seen reflected in the music venues. public rooms on board Titanic. visit-belfast.com visit-belfast.com 6 / Belfast 2014 visit-belfasvisit-belfast.com History & Heritage Belfast has a unique and world famous history and heritage that is apparent in everything from our music festivals to our architecture and much more besides. A city amply supplied with libraries, former shipyards, also worth looking museums, universities, cathedrals, out for is the Linen Quarter, just south cobbled streets and red brick of Belfast City Hall, where the world’s Victorian terraces, it’s a must see great linen manufacturers once stood destination for history fans. making the city’s name so synonymous with linen production Belfast was known Origins as Linenopolis. Some of the old mills Although settlement in the Belfast themselves can still be seen in the north area dates back to the Bronze Age, and west of the city, including Conway its status as a major industrial centre Mill which houses artists’ studios, a dates back to the 17th century. It was museum, and a holistic healing centre. granted city status by Queen Victoria in Visitors today can experience some of 1888, and for a brief period in the early the artisan industry of modern Belfast 20th century, Belfast overtook Dublin at Lawrence Street Workshops or as the largest city in Ireland. College Green Brewery, or sample local There are over 500,000 people living home grown and culinary produce from in the greater Belfast region today, of across Northern Ireland at St. George’s many ethnicities and religions, as the Market at the weekends. city enters its newest phase as a multi- cultural, cosmopolitan European city Political that still retains the friendliness of a Belfast, of course, has a more recent village and the ease of access of a town. political history, and there are a variety of mural tours that you can go on Industrial Heritage to see the street art around the city. Some of the industries which allowed However while sections of the peace Belfast to flourish in the 19th century, wall and some overtly paramilitary such as rope making, ship building, murals do still exist, the murals in Libraries, museums, and the artisan production of linen, tea Belfast are increasingly reflecting the and lemonade, are still very much in City’s history and culture in keeping universities, cathedrals, evidence today. with Northern Ireland’s focus on peace, cobbled streets and red While it’s hard to miss the modernity and celebration of our brick Victorian terraces. innovative, rapidly developing Titanic shared future. Quarter on the site of one of Belfast’s Belfast 2014 / 7 8 / Belfast 2014 visit-belfast.com Belfast’s Titanic Quarter is steeped in the rich history and tradition of the city’s shipbuilding heritage. Much of what the Titanic Quarter stands on is reclaimed land, built on top of the Belfast harbour where ships were launched into Belfast Lough and on out to sea. Belfast 2014 / 9 Enjoy a panoramic eagle’s eye view of the actual slipways on which both the Titanic and the Olympic once rested. Shipping News What the media have been saying about Titanic Belfast: “Impressive” Washington Post “A colossal tribute to Titanic” Irish Times “Simply awe-inspiring at each step” Huffington Post 1 10 / Belfast 2014 visit-belfast.com 2 3 1 Titanic Slipways 2 Ocean Exploration Centre, Titanic Belfast 3 Harland & Wolff Drawing offices 4 Atrium, Titanic Belfast 4 5 5 Kit Sculpture Alongside the Titanic and Olympic the slipways, Titanic Belfast truly is an enormous Arrol Gantry was erected to slipways, where these Harland and unmissable experience which brings prepare for the construction of Titanic Wolff ships were launched, and history to life in an unforgettable way and Olympic, the largest ships in the Titanic’s impressive Edwardian Dock and is completely unique to Belfast. world. Visitors must ascend a replica & Pumphouse, sit spectacular new It has welcomed a record number of one of the huge pillars of the Arrol high tech developments for the city: of visitors from all around the world Gantry to embark on the Shipyard the BMC campus, the Northern Ireland and has garnered glowing reviews in Ride - an electronic dark ride that Science Park, and the internationally international and local press. uses special effects, animations and acclaimed film studio utilising Harland It’s not hard to see why: on full-scale reconstructions to recreate & Wolff’s former paint hall, home to the entering, visitors will learn about the the reality of shipbuilding in the early Games of Thrones film set. The jewel thriving industries and exciting design 1900s. There’s not much time to catch in the Quarter’s crown, however, is the innovations that led to the creation of your breath, as you’re greeted with state-of-the-art Titanic Belfast building RMS Titanic - the largest and most a panoramic eagle’s eye view of the which represents an architectural luxurious ship in the world before actual slipways on which both the triumph for the city and is the world’s passing through the original Harland & Titanic and the Olympic once rested. largest Titanic visitor experience. Wolff shipyard gates to continue their The window is fitted with state-of- Housed in an iconic, 6-floor, 9-gallery journey. Next stop is the Arrol Gantry the-art glass containing electrodes building, the ‘hulls’ of which are the - during the second half of 1908, two that switch from the normal view to exact height of Titanic when she sat on new giant slipways were built and the a superimposed image of the Titanic Belfast 2014 / 11 Titanic Memorial Garden Sited in the grounds of Belfast City Hall, Thane, Belfast’s Titanic Memorial was created by renowned sculptor Thomas Brock, perhaps better known for the Imperial Memorial to Queen Victoria outside Buckingham Palace.