Experience Belfast

03/09/2026

New Blog on the dark art of tourism here:

Belfast's Peace Walls — still standing, still dividing. A local guide who lived through the Troubles explains why walking to the Walls beats a bus or taxi tour every time.

16/07/2026

12 miles from Belfast, 20 minutes by train, and around six degrees in winter. Helen's Bay is Belfast's open secret for cold water swimmers. Check out my blog:



https://experiencebelfast.com/cold-water-swimming-belfast/

28/06/2026

Saturday night and the town is swarmed. Memories of drinking nights, navigating to bars that offer safe harbour from menacing empty streets. At Central Station, I’m engulfed by a group of younger people around 8 in total. The lads are trying to soothe a situation between the girls by saying things like, “Calm the f**k down!” One girl storms off, the others let her go and when one eventually catches up you can taste the toxicity between them. I walk on. I walk to the Ulster Hall to see Bill Burr. My phone is put in a pouch so I’ve used a screen .

Bill is angry, he is astute and very funny imo. He normally plays arenas but advertised a pop up gig during the week and miraculously I secured the second last ticket right at the back. I’m looking forward to it. I don’t know a lot about Bill save that he’s from Boston but with that, his red hair (now departed) and anger, I suspect he has a fair chunk of Irish heritage.

He doesn’t disappoint. ‘When is America going to stop being the schoolyard bully demanding other kids’ lunch money?’ He skewers our hypocrisy, mentions the Tuam babies. He’s also incredibly screwed up, more so than me and I thought I was major league. He’s managed to turn this into a career, sanctuary in a spot light as opposed to sanctuary in drugs and alcohol.

Reluctantly I’ve to leave a little early to catch a train. I skim around a group of lads exiting a bar. Drink has been taken, a phrase reminiscent of court reports. This is not a joyful, fun inebriation, it’s tense and frustrated, one of the lads is muttering, ‘For f**k’s sake’ repeatedly under his breath. The tension mingles with the humidity, static and charged. For a lot of people, Saturday night’s were never fun.

A few year’s ago on a tour, I described Belfast as ‘hard’. An American psychologist on the tour responded that when she heard that phrase she interpreted it as ‘disfunctional’.

I walk on skirting some drunks slumped on the ground and find sanctuary on the train. It is littered with the debris of previous celebratory passengers, crisps and cans littered on the ground like the syringes near Kelly’s Cellars or the human beings I’d just walked past.

15/06/2026

Myself and Raymond O’Regan pictured yesterday at First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street. In his hand, Raymond holds his sign announcing to the world that the church is closed whilst he goes to mass each day at St Mary’s. His old sign was a bit dilapidated and the people at First Church made him a new one like the good Protestants they are.

All my tours finish at the church which is my favourite place in the city. It’s a beautiful space but what it represents is even more important; humanity and rationality over prejudice. Thomas McCabe from the church successfully opposed the formation of the Belfast Slave Ship Company. Members set up schools, libraries and hospitals in the late 1700s when Belfast was once the ‘Boston or Athens of the North.’ The Church describes itself as liberal, ‘new light Presbyterians’. The fundamentalist despise the Church and its members because fundamentalists trade in binary certainties. The older you get the more you realise, ‘There are no easy answers’.

We’re looking our age in the photo. Raymond’s mobility is not what it was and my fine, fly away hair has …flown away. Raymond still has a full head of hair. I find this deliberately provocative. A few weeks back, someone offered me a seat on a bus! I was affronted but it was an act of kindness.

This day last week in Belfast a pogrom was enacted; people of colour were attacked, houses and cars burnt. We live in some dark times but there are always points light. From thousands attending an anti racism rally on Saturday, to a cantankerous historian who will not be defined by his conditioning to a kind person on a bus giving up a seat to a bald, old git. The light will out.

https://experiencebelfast.com/blog-catholic-historian-protestant-church/

10/06/2026

Excited to share my first blog looking at things to do outside the main tourist trail. The first focuses on Belfast Castle - hopefully it works:

https://experiencebelfast.com/blog-hidden-belfast/

Castles with views to rival the Bay of Naples, gardens full of cats, and a bus from the city centre. Belfast has been hiding this from you.

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.