Belfast City Hall.

Visiting Belfast has been an important part of this trip’s itinerary ever since my mom and I watched Belfast (2021). The film, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, was nominated for the Oscars for Best Picture in 2021. It starred Catriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan, two actors that my mom and I absolutely adore. The heart and soul of the film and the powerful story that it told were completely captivating, and the history of Belfast as a city gave us more than enough reason to mark it as one of our top places to visit.

Belfast is a two hour train ride from Dublin, and traveling by train is my personal favorite way to travel. I was able to pull out my travel journal, my personal writing journal, my earbuds, and zone out on the Irish countryside rushing past my window. Yes, I know I had my journals out, but really, where’s the fun in actually writing in them when you can look at the amount of cows in people’s backyards and farms?… yeah, procrastinating is somewhat of a staple of being a writer. (I actually did do some writing and had a bit of a break through with my novel’s world building – I swear, trains are magical.)

Two hours later, all three of us stood outside of Lanyon Place train station, officially in Northern Ireland. We had a Black Cab tour at 2:15PM, which was still a couple hours away, giving us the freedom to wander to lunch and take in the small part of the city that we found ourselves in. Navigating to City Hall was a convenient thing to do, since our cab would be picking us up on a street right next to it. Along with our cab’s pick up spot, City Hall was surrounded by restaurants and shopping areas, which made it a great place to kill time, and find something good to eat!

Google Maps was nice to us and decided to load on our limited connection to any sort of network, and it was easy to decide on a burger joint called Tribal Burger. The atmosphere was welcoming and a bit modern, almost like an independent burger store in Los Angeles. The food was fast and delicious, and we spent a good chunk of time sitting there, eating and discussing our plans for the day. After our Black Cab tour, we would be heading to the Titanic Museum, which was erected in Belfast because of the fact that the Titanic was built in Belfast.

After our lunch, we headed out to explore the City Centre area that we found ourselves in. We checked out the nearby Tim Horton’s (which is a Canadian donut and coffee shop, its only European locations being around Belfast) and found that they didn’t have our favorite kind of donut, which was quite disappointing. The disappointment was mostly from Jamie, but I won’t lie and say that it wouldn’t have been awesome to have a glazed chocolate donut. To make up for our lack of donuts, we went to a chocolate shop that we had passed.

While Jamie took my mom around the store to find the perfect chocolate, I had a lively and lovely conversation with a woman having a hot chocolate with her adorable golden retriever. We talked about our dogs, and I found myself missing my dogs very much. I saw neither of my dogs in the sweet, calm golden retriever in front of me; none of Lily’s attitude, nor any of Thor’s affectionate lack of braincells. Even so, she filled my quota of dog pets for the day, and I walked out of the chocolate shop feeling very satisfied.

It was just about time for our tour, which was only a two minute walk from the chocolate store. Just as we got there, our tour guide/cab driver called out, “Jennifer?” and we loaded into his spacious, six seater taxi. I fiddled with our camera as we waited for our driver to return to the cab (he was talking to a fellow Black Cab driver, animatedly speaking while blowing smoke out of his nose), flipping through the photos I had taken in order to adjust back to the feeling of being a tourist. The door of the taxi slid open loudly, and our driver began to explain the purpose of the tour we were on.

The history of Belfast is a very important and intense one. The tour is one that explains both sides that Belfast has been split into: the Protestants and the Catholics. Our driver – who wouldn’t be giving us his name until the end of the tour as not to give away whether he was Protestant or Catholic – explained the two sides without any bias, often describing the more renowned names of these times as, “one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist.”

A prominent name that we took a good portion of time discussing was Stephen “Top Gun” McKeag. He is a prime example of our driver’s “one man’s hero…” statement. McKeag was a part of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. They were Protestant, and they combated the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The group was responsible for more than 400 deaths, and McKeag was associated with at least 12 deaths, although his paramilitary associates claimed that the number was higher. To the Protestant community, he is deemed a hero; to the Catholic community, he is a terrorist.

We discussed McKeag in detail while at his mural, a mural dedicated to him in the lower Shankill area of Belfast. The mural was put up in 2016, and had lots of backlash, but is still up to this day. It depicts McKeag against a blue sky with the words “Remember with Pride” written above him. The two communities are, to this day, at odds, and this mural is only one of the few examples of that. The mural is also known as Belfast’s Mona Lisa, due to the fact that the eyes of McKeag on the mural will follow you no matter where you go, an ominous reminder that he watches the community, even in death.

After we visited this mural, our driver took us to a vastly different place: West Belfast’s Peace Wall. We visited the Shankill side of the wall, where the Dalai Lama and former U.S President Clinton signed. Our driver produced markers for Jamie to sign the wall with while he explained the history of the many Peace Walls across Belfast.

The Peace Walls were made to keep the two communities separated after the British government found that having soldiers on guard 24/7 was not enough to stop the violence. The walls went up in people’s backyards, separating neighborhoods into the two defined sections. When Jamie came back with the markers, they were passed off to my mom and I so we could join the many people that wrote their names and messages upon the brick and steel.

There were a few more stops after the Peace Wall where our driver continued to get into the nitty gritty of the Belfast Troubles. He told us the facts of the Troubles, and continued to make clear that “one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist.” The violence that was done by both sides was and is unforgivable, but nothing is black and white. Our driver drove that point home. (No pun intended.)

After the tour, our driver, who we found out was Protestant, dropped us off at the Titanic Museum. He was truly a 10/10 driver — I’d love to give you his name, but I was sworn to secrecy so that any future Black Cab rider who may perhaps get him would not know the truth of his background. If any of you find yourselves in Belfast, definitely give the tour a go. It’s a great way to learn the history of the city in just 90 minutes.

The Titanic Museum was our second stop of the day. It is a beautiful building, shiny and silver and surrounded by water, which felt just a little bit mean. I had no idea what to expect when going into the museum, but what I found was a gorgeous, open room interior with the Titanic Experience wrapped around the center hall.

The Titanic Experience at the Belfast museum was long, but enjoyable. It had lots of information, and the layout of all this information was either very aesthetically pleasing or a bit overwhelming. My mom and I approached the experience with half of a critical eye, but that’s due to her working in theme parks and attractions and me loving those same things. Jamie enjoyed it overall because of the kid’s activities sheet that was available, although the dolls that we were prompted to find across the exhibit were a bit difficult to spot now and again.

My favorite part of the exhibit – as odd as it is going to sound – was the ending. They had made a light show reflecting the story and existence of the Titanic, including a model of the ship suspended in the air, visible from each of the three wide, spiraling stairwells that led down towards the exit of the exhibit. The walls of the open room were projection screens that held imagery associated with the voice overs of Titanic passenger letters. The voice overs were accompanied by beautiful instrumental music, giving the entire demonstration a cinematic feel. The entire show was about ten minutes long, and I loved every second of it.

It was a museum that was definitely worth the visit. Although simple, it dove deeply into the building of the Titanic and its passengers. We didn’t read all of the information, due to how vast it was, and how crowded the exhibit was, but the amount that we got to was informative and intriguing. It was an immersive experience that gave heart and soul to those on the ship and the ship itself.

It was a more relaxed day than our tour to the Cliffs, but just as fun and informative. We headed back to the train station, stopping at a restaurant called Auntie Annie’s for dinner. There was also a live performer there, who I wouldn’t have noted if it weren’t for him singing Good Riddance by Green Day and Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver and causing the entire restaurant and bar to sing with him. It felt like a movie scene, surrounded by so many different people eating and drinking and singing songs that resonated with your soul. It was the perfect end to our visit to Belfast.