Belfast Walking Tours

Belfastwalkingtours.com offer a wide selection of walking tours of all areas of Belfast and different themes (see comments below) that encapsulate the history and development of city and its people. We can bespoke tours for corporate and community groups, visitors to Belfast as well as educational tours for schools and universities. Visit Belfast Visit Belfast Business Events #discoverbelfast Linen Quarter BID Cathedral Quarter BID, Belfast Titanic Quarter

Belfast Street Art 🐿️ This giant grey squirrel was painted for 'Hit the North' Street Art Festival 2023 by ROA, a graffiti and street artist from Ghent, Belgium. It is on the gable wall of the former Irish News building in Donegall Street. ROA has created works on the streets of cities across Europe, the United States, Australia, Asia, New Zealand and Africa. ROA generally paints wild or urban animals and birds that are native to the area being painted. ROA usually uses a minimal colour palette, such as black and white. "The animals are matched to their location, with rats in New York City and elephants in Bangkok. There are dark and funny messages, the beauty of both life and death, universal metaphors, inside jokes, and occasional violence, but always in ways that honour the animals and the spaces where they are painted."

The pupils of St Teresa's Primary School, Glen Road, Belfast talking about their feelings and emotions in 1968

"Wheels of Progress " Under the cross-harbour and railway bridge at Corporation Street, there is a thought-provoking public art piece by artist Peter Rooney, called ‘Wheels of Progress’ which explores the history of migration to and from Belfast. It is a series of large old black and white photographs on metal and vinyl. These old pictures (which were donated to the artist by https://lnkd.in/dTuwMqbU), inside frames shaped like car mirrors (looking back in time), show real people who have left Belfast over the years. On the other side of the road, some of the columns in what is now Corporation square car park are decorated with passport and luggage stamps from around the world. The stamps contrast with the old photographs in an attempt to illustrate the transfer from old to new. Where one side of the road marks people who have left the city the other represents where they went. There is a copy of an actual postcard to Ellen Baker, 23 Garmoyle Street, Sailortown. Some of the photographs also reflect what life was like in Belfast's old 'Sailortown' District. Over the years many people left Belfast for countries around the world. Where the photos in rear view mirrors suggest loss, the colourful passport stamps suggest gain from a new life in a new home. The exotic locations on some of the stamps also show how much easier it is to go across the world since the development of air travel. Some of the more obscure stamps include Benin, the Maldives, Guyana, Togo, St Lucia and Cuba. To us the name 'Wheels of Progress', which was installed in 2004, is also both ironic and sarcastic as it suggests 'progress' is associated with 'leaving' Belfast and the art piece is under a road/bridge which devasted and separated a whole community of people that once was 'Sailortown' where at around 5000 lived and worked. Unfortunately, there are no inscriptions to better explain who these real people (at the location although there is a display board about the Baker family in St Josephs) are and the meaning of Peter Rooney's artwork. #Belfast

In Belfast we always find something to laugh about. This clip of Mrs Ruth McCrum from the BBC archives (1987) of 'That's Life' is sure to make you smile 😂

Belfast-born poet Michael Longley has died today at the age of 85. The President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said he regarded him "as a peerless poet" and that he would be recognised as one of the greatest poets Ireland had ever produced. Longley was born in July 1939 and lived in the city until his death, which was announced today. He went to school at Royal Belfast Academical Institution before studying at Trinity College Dublin, where he became immersed in poetry. You will find his poetry etched into the glass dome of Victoria Square Belfast overlooking the paneramic landscape of his beautiful city of Belfast. RIP

An incredible aerial shot of one of the greatest cities in the world… #wearebelfast 💙 📸 - Colin Williams

"Tell it to someone who cares." This fantastic mural by Shane Sutton Art depicting a glacial iceberg melting has been designed to highlight the climate emergency and how it's impacting our sea levels and in particular Belfast's vulnerability to rising seas. The bus was just passing as I took the photo! Friends of the Earth has partnered with Seedhead Arts to draw attention to the stark reality of climate breakdown to commission this though provoking artwork A climate group recently unveiled a map that shows which parts of Belfast are vulnerable to rising seas. In its ‘Coastal Risk Screening Tool’, a sliding scale allows users to see what is called ‘Land Projected To Be Below Flood Level’ in any given year. When moved to 2050, the map shows in red how large parts of Belfast, particularly around Sydenham in East Belfast and the Sailortown area, will be, according to the group’s estimation, ‘below water level’ (See photo 3) The mural is located between Lidl and a High Street car park, an area at high risk to rising water levels. #Belfast

Dockers Corner, Sailortown, Belfast From the mid 19th century this corner (Dock Street / Garmoyle Street) in Belfast's old Sailortown district was known as "Dockers Corner". Thousands of Deep-Sea-Dockers and unemployed workers attended Dockers Corner twice daily to be 'Schooled' for casual work discharging and unloading cargos ships. This happened right up until 1963. The pub at Dockers Corner is now known as "Seatons of Sailortown" named after a well known female footballer from the area In the 1960s and 1970s, there were around 2500 dockers, deep sea and cross channel, working in the port of Belfast; they came along Corporation Street dodging the cows that had escaped on their way to the markets, down Ship Street, Fleet Street, Dock Street. In the mid 1980s it all changed, evolution brought with it computerisation and mechanisation; a new way of loading and unloading cut the workforce, cranes lifted the cargo on and off the ship, great metal containers from around the world https://lnkd.in/eJmMxN_y

The Rise sculpture, Belfast's biggest piece of public art (123ft tall) was unveiled in 2011. The sculpture officially known as the 'RISE' but is better known to all by its colloquial names - the 'THE BALLS ON THE FALLS' or 'THE WESTICLES' is coming up to its 14th birthday this year. It is a representation of a new sun rising to celebrate a new chapter in the history of Belfast, its conceived as a ‘symbol of unity and welcome' and links two distinct Belfast communities The Falls Road (St James area) and Donegall Rd (The Village area). The RISE is visible to thousands of pedestrians, motorists and even air passengers who are travelling via George Best Belfast City Airport and all who see it get an equal view. The structure was designed by Nottingham artist Wolfgang Buttress and is made up of two spheres (globes), one inside the other, which ‘hover’ above the Westlink on the Broadway roundabout interchange. The weight of the sculpture (65 ton) had to be considered when planning as approximately half a million vehicles travel under it each week. The inner sphere represents the sun rising over the city and the outer sphere represents the sun's halo, while the angled steel supports protruding up from the base are to represent the reeds of the nearby Bog Meadows Nature Reserve and as a heritage reminder of the bogs that once extended more widely across this low lying area before it was developed. Rise cost a total of £486,000 with NI based business M Hasson and Sons Ltd from Rasharkin fabricating the sculpture, and GRAHAM construction superviseing on site. ☀️'if you are going to rise you might as well shine' ☀️