Experience Belfast

25/05/2026

20/05/2026

20/05/2026

I was 65 on Saturday night. What a present, Anto Brennan the Sculptor, presented me with his ‘Mini Me’ version of me on Saturday night. Anto did the Rory Gallagher statue outside the Ulster Hall. He’s great is Anto but he didn’t quite capture me because as you know, I’m far better looking in real life! There is another thought, maybe one Arthur is enough. What if the “Mini Arthur” becomes possessed in the style of a tacky 60s horror flick? Scary, scary thought, I need to calm down. Anto does these on demand, they make a brilliant pressie for a special occasion.

10/05/2026

Today inside the First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street in Belfast. It is opened each day by my friend Raymond O’Regan, a historian or to be exact a Catholic historian. Everyone in Belfast is defined by their perceived ethnicity and the easy identifier is perceived religious affiliation, most Irish tend to be Catholic.

Raymond closes it each day so he can attend Mass at St. Mary’s Chapel on Church Lane, built in 1783. He used to leave a yellow laminated sign on the door, “Back Soon, Away to Mass at St Mary’s” but it was getting tatty so the good people of the church made him a new one.

St Mary’s was largely funded by the Presbyterians so this co-operation is nothing new. First Church is my favourite place in Belfast. It’s a beautiful space but what it represents is of far greater import. One of its members, Thomas McCabe, successfully opposed the formation of the Belfast Slave Ship Company. How many other towns or cities can say the same? It’s a place of openness and inclusivity. They were at it today, those pesky Presbyterians facilitating a service by an order that were once Catholics but are no longer part of the official church. The video features the Church minister. Brian Ammons who Raymond calls, ‘Fr Brian’.

I have no religious beliefs, I am a sceptic but I know decency when I see it. We are all points of light, we make decisions to shine and light brings life.

23/04/2026

It’s a massive Happy Birthday to Young Raymond O’Regan who is 79 years young today. He can be a cantankerous wee bollix but he is also one of the kindest human beings I’ve ever known. Here he is pictured at the First Presbyterian Church which he has opened for well over 20 years.

10/04/2026

I’m on quite a few Facebook groups about the past. I have an interest as I’m trying to make a living providing walking tours on it. The picture and the quotation are taken from a few years ago.

“My granny was a half-timer in Jennymount mill Belfast. When she was 10 she went to school a half day then worked in the spinning room at the mill up to her knees in water. She died at 80 in 1975 but it’s still hard to believe. She had virtually no childhood no playtime”

For most ordinary people, ‘The Good Old Days’, weren’t that good, they were a struggle to survive. I’m tired of the false sentimentality around the past used as a political panacea for people scared of change and the future. Hundreds of women died each year in Belfast during childbirth. This was before the NHS. That would have been the same in Manchester or Pittsburgh. Childhoods were taken, to be exploited to produce wealth.

Raymond made the point that at the end of World War II, the UK owed trillions in today’s values but still found money for Education, the Welfare State and the NHS. If there’s a will there’s a way. As we hurtle further along towards a new feudalism, we need a reset so society works in the interests of its citizens not a few obscenely rich people.

I visit the past, I don’t want to live there and I don’t want to return there. There has to be a better way.

09/04/2026

The first four Hidden Belfast tours as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival sold out quickly. We’ve added an additional date, Friday 1 May at 2pm. Follow the link to book:

https://cqaf.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873683131

06/04/2026

I found this from a few years back when I was on the North Antrim Coast with a tour group at the beautiful little village of Cushendun. It’s now part of the ‘Game of Thrones’ tour but it’s always had a special place in my heart because it’s exquisite and it’s also home to Randall a character straight out of Father Ted.

I first encountered him at his ‘hotel/bar’ 20+ years ago. I was attracted in by the hand written sign: “No children, I don’t like them!” and once inside I watched as a young German student asked if he could get a drink to which Randall replied, “It’s a feckin’ bar, what do you think?” The bar itself had not been touched decor wise since the 1950s and was stocked with books.

Randal’s rudeness masked a keen mind and a moral person essentially trying to do good in the world. Like many with experience of human nature, he was disenchanted but still clinging to the positive. The bar has long since closed but on it’s approach by the harbour wall stands a sculpture Randall had made of Johann, his goat, the last to be culled during the last ‘foot and mouth’ outbreak. Randall was 78 the last time I met him so there’s always that concern that one day I’ll be passing and Randal will have gone. A sure sign that he is still with us is his goat. Look closely, the goat is wearing a High Visibility Jacket which is very much Randal. There’s a lot of stunning scenery on the coast but none better than a goat in a Hi Vis jacket.

27/03/2026

Sold out in around an hour. As I told Raymond, “There’s a big market out there for a cantankerous wee bollix and a specky, baldy idiot!” We’ve found our niche, riches must surely follow.

22/03/2026

Spotted in IKEA and I’m wondering if the songwriter John O’Neill gets anything. I think not. Interesting that a song recorded in an entry in Belfast should become such an ingrained part of the cultural landscape in Ireland and the UK. For anybody outside these islands, I’m referring to Teenage Kicks by the Undertones. At the time it was recorded, Belfast was a hate filled hole, few bands came and we were left to the mercies of show bands and Irish Country. When bands did come, my God were we grateful and then along came punk rock.

Belfast has always been isolated geographically, culturally and politically. In the 1970s there was a distance from ‘normal’ that we felt and which seemed to belittle us. That far behind the times, we didn’t even have that marker of progress, a McDonalds so when bands came it meant something. I wasn’t a real ‘punk rocker’, I couldn’t afford to be. A single mother on benefits with 6 kids, money would never stretch to a leather jacket but I loved it and loved that sense of anything being possible and it was. Suddenly they were on Top of the Pops, urchins like me singing about picking girls up in cars when you knew they’d never had a car in a million years.

How times have changed. The world and all the multi nationals have come to Belfast. That sense of being apart from the rest has finished and we rush head long into a homogenised world. Like every modern city, we even have our own he**in addicts now. I’m walking around with my brother John who is in his 50s but will always be my kid brother. We’re talking memories and people. Mid conversation, I say, “We’re really old now.” He agrees.

teenagedreams punk