City in County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Belfast
The Titanic's birthplace also gave the world the pneumatic tyre, a city with two giant yellow cranes and a gas-lit pub that is still the grandest drinking den in Ireland.
Key information
- County
- County Antrim
- Nation
- Northern Ireland
- Population
- about 345,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Titanic, shipbuilding, linen, murals, the Good Friday Agreement
- What locals are called
- Belfastians
- Famous people
- George Best, Van Morrison, C. S. Lewis, Kenneth Branagh
- Football clubs
- Linfield, Glentoran, Cliftonville, Crusaders
About Belfast
The city named after a sandbank
Belfast comes from the Irish Béal Feirste, usually translated as the mouth of the sandbank ford. The sandbank sat where the River Farset meets the Lagan. The Farset now runs underground, but it gave its name to High Street's old waterway and to Belfast's earliest settlement. The town stayed small until the 17th century, when Protestant settlers arrived and the Chichester family built up the port. Then came linen, and the place never looked back. Belfast was granted city status in 1888 by Queen Victoria and became the capital of Northern Ireland when the state was created in 1921. At the height of the linen boom it was nicknamed Linenopolis. The Belfast Ropeworks was said to be the biggest rope factory in the world.
Two yellow giants and one famous ship
You can see Samson and Goliath from half the city. These two yellow gantry cranes at Harland and Wolff stand 106 and 96 metres tall and were built in 1974 and 1969. They are named after the biblical strongman and giant, and they are the unofficial skyline of Belfast. The cranes arrived decades after the yard's most famous ship. Harland and Wolff built the RMS Titanic on its slipways, which now lie beside Titanic Belfast. She was launched on 31 May 1911, and the crowds came to watch her slide into the Lagan. The ship sank on her maiden voyage in 1912, and Belfast has spent the century since remembering her. Titanic Belfast, shaped like four ship prows, opened in 2012 on the centenary. The shipyard's old Paint Hall is now a film studio. Game of Thrones was shot around Belfast, and the city has made the most of it.
Inventions, scientists and a pub with snugs
In 1888 John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish vet living in Belfast, developed the pneumatic tyre for his son's tricycle. Cycling, and then motoring, were never quite the same. Lord Kelvin, the physicist who gave his name to the temperature scale, was born here in 1824. Queen's University, founded in 1845, has been turning out clever people ever since. For a more relaxed bit of heritage, step into the Crown Liquor Saloon on Great Victoria Street. It is a Victorian gin palace with gas lamps, tiled walls, carved wood and private snugs where you can draw a curtain and shut the world out. The National Trust owns it, and Nicholson's, part of Mitchells & Butlers, runs it.
Murals, peace walls and a hard-won handshake
Belfast was at the centre of the Troubles, which ran from the late 1960s until the 1990s. Its murals and the so-called peace walls, high barriers still dividing some neighbourhoods, tell that story. Many visitors see them on a black taxi tour, with a driver who lived through it. The Good Friday Agreement was reached in Belfast on 10 April 1998, and it set out the way Northern Ireland has been governed since. The city has changed a great deal since then. The Cathedral Quarter is full of music venues and restaurants, St George's Market fills up at weekends, and the waterfront has been rebuilt. Cave Hill, which looks over the city, has a profile known as Napoleon's Nose. The hill is said to have inspired Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, with its sleeping giant.
Ulster fries, baps and a bakery on every corner
The Ulster fry is the city's signature breakfast: bacon, egg, sausage, and then soda farls and potato bread, fried in the same pan. Soda farls are triangles of bread raised with bicarbonate of soda, and they are nothing like a normal slice of toast. Belfast baps are another local product. These are crusty, floury rolls, perfect with sausage or bacon. Add a cup of strong tea and you have a breakfast that sets you up for the day. The city also has a well-earned reputation for its pubs, live traditional music sessions and the dry humour that turns up in any conversation. Expect to hear the word wee a lot.
Football firsts and a city that loves its sport
Cliftonville, founded in 1879, is the oldest football club in Ireland, and the Irish Football Association was founded in Belfast in 1880, making it one of the oldest governing bodies in world football. Linfield, Glentoran and Crusaders have been rivals for generations, and Linfield's Windsor Park is also the home of the national team. George Best, born in the city, turned out for Manchester United, won the European Cup in 1968 and was named European Footballer of the Year that year. Belfast City Airport was renamed George Best Belfast City Airport in 2006. It sits in Sydenham, about three miles from the city centre. Rugby fans head to Ulster's ground, ice hockey fans follow the Belfast Giants, who were founded in 2000 and played their first season in 2000–01, and Gaelic games are played at clubs throughout the city.
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