Jamesy and I enjoyed our recent tour of McConnell's Distillery so much we decided to make a regular thing of it and try a few more Belfast tours! I've always wanted to try Alternative Ulstours, so we booked on to their Spirits of Belfast tour.
Growing up in Belfast in the Seventies, Halloween will be forever associated with memories of stabbing yourself in the hand while attempting to carve out a raw turnip into a lantern, the smell of candles burning into said turnips, and costumes based on bin bags and sweaty plastic false faces. Oh, and indoor fireworks. We weren't allowed the real ones, for obvious reasons.
Thompsons Dock will be the stage for a sound and light show this weekend. But if you can't make the show, you should still take time to explore the dock - it's the largest original relic of the Titanic.
A few weeks ago I was talking to the team at the new McConnell’s Distillery and they very kindly offered me a tour! I am partial to an Irish whiskey or three, and so is Jamesy, so we decided that this would make an excellent busman’s holiday and headed up to the distillery’s new home in Crumlin Road Gaol!
The old Corporation Gas Showroom has been given a new lease of life and is now the home of the Golden Thread Gallery. I went down to the official opening to take a look...and I got a bonus view of the old Police Station!
A look at the history of the Belfast Workhouse and how the city was affected by the famine in 1845-46, followed by the typhus epidemic in 1847 and the cholera epidemic in 1849.
Our grannies’ grannies lived in interesting times. While the main political issue in Belfast leading up to World War I was definitely Home Rule, the campaign for equal votes led some women to launch attacks on Unionist homes and public properties.
There will undoubtedly be a lot written about the Ulster Workers’ strike this year, as we mark its fiftieth anniversary. I was interested in looking at it from a civilian perspective, because that’s what we do at DC Tours. [...]
Two names on the Titanic Memorial at Belfast City Hall have asterisks against them - John Horgan and Thomas Hart. But what are the asterisks for? I did a bit of digging and here's what I found out.
If you have any interest in Belfast architecture you will have heard of Sir Charles Brett (1928-2005), whether as the author C.E.B. Brett, or Charlie Brett. He was a fascinating figure, a solicitor who was variously a politician, historian, artist, journalist, writer and conservationist.
We have a new statue in Belfast! It stands in Lombard Street and commemorates Frederick Douglass, the American author, anti-slavery campaigner and early champion of women’s rights.
The only public memorial to victims of the troubles in Belfast was defaced by graffiti last year. After six months nothing had been done to restore it, so we cleaned it up ourselves.