In-city. Belfast (FCO, 2003).pdf

EVENTS IN BELFAST

CONTACTS

Belfast stretches out along

the banks of the River

Lagan. Covering 115 square

kilometres, it is much larger

than any of Northern

Ireland’s four other cities.

BELFAST, CAPITAL OF NORTHERN

IRELAND is a vibrant, prospering city,

home to 282,000 people. Surrounded by

green hills and craggy peaks, Belfast is

located where the River Lagan ﬂows into

Belfast Lough, a sheltered inlet of the

Irish Sea. A thousand years ago it was

known in ancient Irish as Béal Feirste,

‘the sandy ford across the mouth of

the river’.

The Foreign & Commonwealth Ofﬁce

King Charles Street, London SW1A 2 AH

www.fco.gov.uk

Left: Belfast is a city of festivals and celebrations.

Amazing firework displays often light up the night sky.

Below: Belfast folk know how to have a good time.

The city has been described as “Europe’s friendliest

regional capital”.

Northern Ireland Tourist Board

59 North Street, Belfast BT1 1NB

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9023 1221

Fax: +44 (0) 28 9024 0960

www.discovernorthernireland.com

Bottom: Tourists and locals alike crowd onto the

streets at festival-time.

The Ulster Folk and

Transport Museum contains

one of the world’s best

collections of vernacular

architecture and historic

transport, from cornmills

and sawmills to railways,

trams, buses and bicycles.

There is also an exhibition

about the ill-fated liner,

Titanic.

Belfast Welcome Centre

47 Donegall Place, Belfast BT1 5AD

Tel: +44 (0) 28 9024 6609

Fax: +44 (0) 28 9031 2424

Email: info@belfastvisitor.com

www.gotobelfast.com

IN - CITY BELFAST

Once a quiet ﬁshing village, Belfast

blossomed into a thriving city during

the Industrial Revolution of the 18th

century. Its linen manufacturing,

engineering and shipbuilding industries

prospered and the population increased

dramatically. Queen Victoria granted

Belfast full city status in 1888. By the

time the great liner, Titanic was launched

by Harland & Wolff in 1912, Belfast had

the world’s biggest weaving mills and

tobacco factories, the most extensive

ropeworks ever built, and the world’s

greatest shipyard.

Northern Ireland Assembly

Parliament Buildings,

Stormont, Belfast BT4 3XX

www.niassembly.gov.uk

Northern Ireland Executive

www.northernireland.gov.uk

INcity Belfast is produced by the Foreign &

Commonwealth Ofﬁce for distribution through

British Embassies, High Commissions and Consulates.

Visitors and office workers

relax outside City Hall

in the heart of Belfast.

The lawns surrounding

this famous building are

lined with monuments.

Although traditional industries declined

following the Second World War and

civil unrest and terrorist activity added

to Belfast’s social and economic

problems, since the 1990s Belfast has

enjoyed a remarkable renaissance.

March

Belfast Film Festival at various venues

across the city.

www.belfastﬁlmfestival.org

St Patrick’s Day Festival with street

carnival and ‘live music’.

www.belfastcity.gov.uk/events

June

Shankill Community Festival featuring

a wide variety of community-based

events.

outside the UK with or without acknowledgement,

except for sale or advertising purposes.

Published by the Foreign & Commonwealth Ofﬁce.

Printed by Abba Litho Sales, London.

March 2003

Order No: 2072

July

International Rose Week , a great ﬂoral

spectacle at Sir Thomas and Lady

Dixon Park.

www.parks.belfastcity.gov.uk

BELFAST BOASTS SOME MAGNIFICENT

ARCHITECTURE, both Victorian

(1837–1901) and Edwardian (1901–1910).

The City Hall (1906) is regarded as one

of the ﬁnest Classical Renaissance

buildings in Europe. It dominates the

buzzing downtown area and is the focal

point of civic entertainment, rallies and

celebrations.

April

Titanic Made in Belfast — exhibition

celebrating Belfast as the largest

shipbuilding port in the world.

www.belfastcity.gov.uk/events

Front cover: Inside City Hall — a ﬁne monument to

Belfast’s civic pride.

August

Feile an Phobail, West Belfast —

Europe’s largest community arts

festival. www.feilebelfast.com

Gay Pride, a celebration of Belfast’s

gay community.

Belfast City Speed Festival, celebrating

Northern Ireland’s contribution to

the world of motorsport.

Back cover:‘Masquerade’, one of many theatrical

productions enjoyed in Belfast.

The sumptuous interior of

the Grand Opera House

has been fully restored to

its former glory. Its

audiences enjoy world-class

performances of opera,

drama, musicals, ballet and

comedy.

May

The Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival,

featuring music, literature, comedy

and visual arts. www.cqaf.com

Balmoral Show, town meets country in

Ireland’s major agricultural/food

event. www.balmoralshow.co.uk

Lord Mayor’s Show, colourful Lord

Mayor’s show takes place in the city

centre with something for everyone.

www.belfastcity.gov.uk/events

All photographs are courtesy of the Northern Ireland

Tourist Board.

The Grand Opera House nearby is

Northern Ireland’s premier theatre.

Its extravagantly opulent gold and

crimson interior is almost upstaged by

the ornate Crown Liquor Saloon across

the street. Gilded mirrors, glazed tiles,

and the world’s only gas-lit webcam

make it Belfast’s favourite pub!

October

Hallowe’en, carnival parade and

ﬁrework display.

November/December

Cinemagic — World Screen Festival for

young people. www.cinemagic.org.uk

Christmas Craft Fair for unusual

Christmas gifts at the King’s Hall.

www.kingshall.co.uk

May/June

Belfast City Summer Festival,

culminating in the Belfast Carnival

Parade at the end of June.

October/November

Belfast Festival at Queen’s — Ireland’s

largest arts festival, at a range of

city venues.

www.belfastfestival.com

The huge £91 million

Odyssey complex, seen

here under construction.

It contains the largest

indoor arena in Northern

Ireland where a wide range

of events are staged,

including indoor athletics,

boxing championships and

rock concerts.

On the river, the £750 million Laganside

redevelopment project is one of the most

ambitious in the UK with hotels, ofﬁces,

riverside apartments, new bridges and

the Waterfront Hall, a concert and

conference venue. Laganside’s dominant

attraction is the Odyssey complex, home

to the W5 interactive discovery centre,

a 10,000-seat arena, cinema, restaurants

and bars.

The Waterfront Hall,

Belfast’s foremost

conference and concert

venue, was recently world-

wide runner-up in the

Association of Conference

Centres’ Apex Awards.

Conferences are one of

Belfast’s greatest tourist

growth areas.

The city’s many corporate overseas

investors beneﬁt from competitive costs,

good communications and well-educated

staff, while tourism contributes more

than £114 million annually to Belfast’s

economy.

Shopping streets like Royal

Avenue have huge malls and

arcades offering top

international retail names.

One of the UK’s biggest

department stores planned

for the city centre will help

to keep downtown Belfast

buzzing with shoppers.

Belfast City Council is the largest of

Northern Ireland’s 26 local government

authorities. It provides a huge range of

services, from leisure centres and parks

to waste recycling. The Chief Executive

is responsible to a Council of 51

members who are elected every four

years and reﬂect the city’s diversity of

political and religious afﬁliations.

The city holds no fewer

than 13 annual arts events

and the Belfast Carnival

Parade is one of the most

popular events on the

calendar.

BELFAST PEOPLE love to celebrate,

and so enjoy the many entertainment

and sports festivals. Most famous of

the 13 annual arts events is the Belfast

Festival which has been a showcase of

outstanding international talent for

more than 40 years. Féile an Phobail

in West Belfast claims to be Europe’s

largest community festival. The

Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is at

the cutting edge of contemporary arts.

Traditional Irish dancing is

as popular as ever.

OVER 3,000 UNIVERSITY GRADUATES

enter the labour market every year.

Queen’s University Belfast, founded

in 1845, and the newer University of

Ulster are both top-class international

institutions. Queen’s, with 18,500

students, is one of the Top 20 UK

universities out of 170 independently

assessed on teaching and research.

St Anne’s Cathedral was

partly completed and opened

in the 1890s, but only

finished almost a century

later. Inside are some

wonderful mosaics, including

one with over 150,000

pieces.

BELFAST IS A CITY OF NEIGHBOURHOODS,

where most families live in houses with

gardens rather than apartments. Many

areas, such as Stranmillis, Cherryvalley,

Knock, around Queen’s University and

the Lisburn Road, have a ‘village’

atmosphere.

Belfast nightlife ranges from

throbbing dance clubs to

more intimate pubs where

drinkers enjoy the soothing

sounds of traditional Irish

ballads.

In a city which seems to have a church on

every corner, St Anne’s Cathedral in the

heart of the trendy Cathedral Quarter

is the biggest. St Malachy’s Church can

only be described as a ‘castle’, with its

pink turrets and ceiling like an upside

down wedding cake. Belfast Castle, built

in 1870, rises from the rugged splendour

of Cave Hill Country Park, under a crag

known as Napoleon’s Nose.

Musical tastes in the city are more varied

than most, and country and western,

rap, blues and jazz as well as classical

attract large audiences. The Belfast-

based Ulster Orchestra is thought of as

one of the ﬁnest in the British Isles and

enjoys an international reputation. It is

often to be heard at the Ulster Hall and

at prestigious events such as the Last

Night of the Proms in London.

The original Tudor-style red

and yellow brick building of

Queen’s University was

Lanyon, Belfast’s great

architect of the Victorian

Age. Since it was founded in

1845, the university’s

estate has grown to more

than 300 buildings.

The city is proud of its many libraries.

The Linen Hall Library, dating from

1788, is one of the oldest subscription

libraries anywhere. The Belfast Central

Library and Public Records Ofﬁce NI are

also reference sources of international

standing. It is said together they contain

more than 160 kms of shelving!

Belfast’s citizens have been

described by one columnist

as “the most honest,

cheerful, friendly and well-

mannered people in the

British Isles.”

While the population is almost equally

divided between indigenous Protestants

and Catholics, Belfast is also home to

thousands of people of Asian origin,

mainly Cantonese-speaking Chinese,

Indians and Pakistanis. Jewish people

have always been prominent in the

commercial and cultural life of the city,

and there are increasing numbers of

Muslims and people of other faiths.

The Albert Memorial Clock,

one of the city’s best-known

landmarks, was designed

by J W Barre. Its famous

‘leaning tower’ has been left

unaltered by recent

refurbishment.

INVENTIVE GENIUS and engineering

excellence once earned Belfast the title

‘City of the Tyre, Tractor and Titanic’.

That spirit of enterprise and innovation

endures and today’s Belfast is better

described as ‘City of Technology, Trading

and Tourism’.

Carnival-time comes to

Belfast, a place where

young and old alike love

to celebrate.

Of Belfast’s numerous museums and

galleries, the Ulster Museum is a

treasure house of art and artefacts from

every period and every part of the

world. Here, works by the city’s most

famous painters, Sir John Lavery and

William Conor are on display. The

Lisburn Road has art galleries catering

for every taste and there are museums

specialising in everything from policing

and local history to wastewater.

THE NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY

was established following the historic

Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Power

was devolved to the people through 108

democratically elected members of the

Assembly, based at Stormont, one of

the city’s most famous landmarks.

The Assembly’s Executive Committee,

consisting of a First Minister and Deputy

Minister and ten other Ministers, were

appointed on a proportional basis.

The Secretary of State for Northern

Ireland remained responsible for matters

not devolved to the Assembly, including

policing, security policy, prisons,

criminal justice and international

relations. The Assembly and Executive

have been suspended since October 2002

and the Secretary of State has assumed

responsibility for the direction and

control of Northern Ireland

departments.

Malone House, an elegant

19th century mansion in

South Belfast, houses the

Higgin Art Gallery.

Belfast at night, a dynamic

cosmopolitan city with

unique Northern Irish charm.

SURROUNDED BY COUNTRY parks

teeming with wildlife, and nearly 50

neighbourhood parks, playing ﬁelds and

playgrounds, Belfast is one of Europe’s

greenest cities. Indeed, it boasts all of

Ireland’s famous 40 shades of green.

Pneumatic tyres were developed by

John Boyd Dunlop in his workshop

in May Street in 1888 and the Dunlop

name is still one of the world’s 50 most

recognisable brands. Incredibly, in a

neighbouring workshop, Harry Ferguson

devised the hydraulic tractor system

which revolutionised world farming.

And history’s most famous ship, Titanic,

which sank on her ﬁrst voyage across

the Atlantic in 1912, is remembered

by the many visitors who follow the

‘Titanic Trail’ through the city.

The Botanic Gardens,

close to Queen’s University,

provide a tranquil and

colourful haven in the midst

of the city.

FROM ATHLETICS TO SOCCER, Belfast

is famous for its sporting champions.

Nowadays ice hockey at Odyssey Arena

attracts almost as many spectators as

soccer or Gaelic football. Windsor Park

is home to the Northern Ireland

international football team and where

many Irish League club games are

played. Gaelic games are played at

Casement Park. As well as venues

for rugby, hockey, squash, netball,

basketball, tennis and bowls, there are

no fewer than ten golf courses within

the Belfast boundary!

The modern Castle Court

shopping centre in Royal

Avenue.

Majestic Stormont stands

at the top of a 1.6 km

avenue bordered by

parkland. It was designed

to house the Northern

Ireland Parliament.

Rose lovers delight in the summer Rose

Week when Belfast International Rose

Garden displays a half-million blooms of

every shade and shape, conﬁrming why

Northern Ireland has been a world

centre of rose expertise for generations.

The colourful Botanic Gardens with its

magniﬁcent Palm House and Tropical

Ravine brings the exotic to the city,

while Cave Hill Country Park with its

spectacular views and nesting falcons, is

a favourite haunt of wildlife enthusiasts.

Golf-players have no

shortage of courses on

which to practise their

‘swing’. There are ten

courses within the city

boundary.

New technology to develop electronics,

computer software, medical equipment,

textiles and aerospace components has

been harnessed by Belfast’s many

modern businesses. Health services,

distribution, public administration,

business services, manufacturing,

education, tourism and transport are

the main areas of employment.

The Giant's Ring is a

mysterious site estimated by

some to be 4000 years old.

From the embankment there

are splendid views across the

Lagan Valley towards the

Belfast Hills.

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