Earlier this month saw the We Are Belfast exhibition, displaying photos submitted online to the We Are Belfast photography project.  Here’s the lowdown:

We are Belfast is an exciting new project to create an online image wall made up of photographs of people from Belfast, or places you love in the city. The images will then be used to create an installation at a city centre art exhibition hosted by the red:collective and Redeemer Central on Monday 7th – Wednesday 9th June 2010 @ The Red Barn gallery in Belfast. Do you live in Belfast? Were you born here but now live somewhere else? Want to be part of a new and exciting art project? Then simply upload an image of yourself or a place in Belfast that you love. You don’t have to be great photographer just someone who loves Belfast.

Well I couldn’t resist submitting a photo, so I uploaded the above photo that I took in Muriel’s Cafe Bar on Church Lane, Belfast.  Keith Belfast was nice enough to take me there when we met up for a drink and I really fell in love with its stylish, 1920′s interior and rather strange display of old hats.  According to this Belfast Telegraph review, this is in homage to its previous resident:

Muriel, a milliner and, according to the staff, a ‘Madame’ of certain repute. Damask drapes, chandeliers, velvet seating and dark walls, adorned with silver-framed mirrors, are the order of the day, and there is an open fire upstairs for those cosy, intimate moments.

Downstairs, the piece de resistance is an array of hat paraphernalia that will no doubt grab your attention.

Grab my attention it did, and I couldn’t help taking a few photos despite the dark.  Where else can you while away the afternoon in a bar where you can appreciate vintage hats and wash down a hearty meal with a ‘Milliner’s Mix’ cocktail?  That, I explained when I submitted the photo, is just one of the many reasons I love Belfast.

Well, it’s been almost a month now and I think I’ve just about recovered from my trip to Westport, County Mayo to be able to start writing about it.  It as a fantastic trip but very lively, and the 12 hour, minibus-ferry-minibus journey was a real killer.

I’m going to start with one of my favourite memories from the holiday – an evening out at Ballinrobe Races.  It was cold, wet, I won sod all and I loved it – the atmosphere was a real adrenaline rush and a trip to the horse races is definitely something I’d be up for doing again.

I’ve had a tinker with iMovie to create a (very clumsy) first attempt at an audio slideshow, using the photos I took and a sneaky sound recording I made on my iPhone.  You can watch the film above, or on Vimeo here.  Hope you like it!

All systems go for Thursday departure at 9pm (not 10, Julia). The Bus is fuelled and washed, even. 7 of us travelling – Lynsey, Leanne and Alexandra are flying. I will provide a selection of alcoholic beverages for the journey – that’s why I was trying to get our only TT golfer, Tom to go – so that he could drive and I could get pissed. It’s a cruel world! If you have any booze preferences let me know – otherwise it’s wine, R & W, bottled lager and coke.  If you want to drop luggage off earlier, you can. No bloody Iraqi Superguns or anything illegal. I know it’s not much of a bus, but I don’t want it confiscated…

Oh-kaaay.  Touch wood, I’ll be back next Tuesday!

Whilst wandering about Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, some rather interesting graffiti caught my eye.

What I found most intriguing was this stenciled white elephant on what remains of the North Street Arcade, which burned down in ‘suspicious circumstances’ in 2003.

I’m unsure if it has any significance, or if it is just there for stenciled white elephant’s sake.

I got to see some brilliant live acts as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival over the bank holiday weekend, such as the trumpet-tastic Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Keith Farnan’s incredibly thought-provoking Cruel and Unusual, in which the comedian told the story of his journey from law school in Ireland to the Innocence Project in New York City, where he helped people on Death Row facing execution. Sobering stuff.

On a slightly more lighthearted note, by far my favourite part of the festival was the one that allowed me to shop until I dropped – the Black Market in the large festival marquee on Custom House Square.  Above is a slideshow of the many pretty, handcrafted things that caught my eye.

Whilst in Belfast I discovered that the Belfast City Marathon was due to take place on the morning of bank holiday Monday 3rd May, so I set my alarm early and headed along the route to see if I could get some snaps of the runners as they streaked past. Above is a sideshow of the (admittedly not great) photos I took. A hearty congratulations to all of those who took part!

Whilst in Belfast, I got to mix a little bit of talk about local business with pleasure by meeting up with the likes of Nico Fell, Alan in Belfast and Keith Belfast and chatting about the amazing potential for some great community websites and ‘hyperlocal’ activity in Belfast.

Black Box Cafe

After a lovely lunch with Alan in the Black Box Cafe (great coffee and good doorstep sandwiches, for the record) Alan did a short video interview with me about how this has worked in the UK, and the things I’ve been getting up to with Digbeth is Good, such as cashpoint opening ceremonies.

Of course, I couldn’t let Alan head back to work without turning the tables, so I did a short audioboo interview with him about where and how he felt hyperlocal websites might work in Northern Ireland.

‘There are a few local websites….but there’s nothing that really just kind of describes everyday life in a small area.  And yet Northern Ireland is full of very small communities, very tight communities that have history and have people who have lived in this house for three or four generations and it would be a shame not to get some of that online and get a wee bit more community spirit going. And I think it’s a possibility.’

That possibility is due to be discussed in a special Hyperlocal Belfast slot at Barcamp Belfast tomorrow (Saturday 22nd May), so go along if you’re in the vicinity for what should be a thought-provoking day of unconference-style fun.  I unfortunately can’t attend because I’ll be milking Bulgarian goats (or something) but my colleague Mike Rawlins has booked his ticket so, ashcloud permitting, will be there!

Although I’ve been to Belfast many times, the last visit was the first time I got to sample the delights of St George’s Market.

I experienced the place in style, dining on the balcony of the St George’s Market Bar & Grill on the first floor, soaking up the atmosphere from above before going downstairs and delving a little deeper.

I was there during Saturday luchtime, but I’ve since been told the best time to visit is a Friday morning, when the place is really bustling with the Variety Market.

However I still got to experience lots of different sights and smells, meet some interesting people and make a new friend.

No-one seemed to take a blind bit of notice of me snapping away with my camera, so I’m guessing this is a popular haunt for photographers.

So if you ever find yourself in Belfast on a Friday or Saturday, be sure to pop down to the markets with your camera.  And if you’ve time for lunch, I can thoroughly recommend the St. George’s Bar & Grill Signature Club Sandwich!

My main reason for choosing the Mayday bank holiday to visit Belfast was to sample some of the delights of the Festival of Fools, ‘the very best of international street theatre’, and it didn’t fail to disappoint.  I managed to catch a short interview with festival organiser William Chamberlain before the action started.

Things kicked off with an opening ceremony from Mogota, a charming troupe who braved the rain to give us a ‘colourful telling of a fairy tale all the way from St Petersburg’.

If I’m honest, I didn’t really keep up with the narrative thread at all, but that was fine because I was too busy laughing at the antics of the large array of characters created by simple costume changes and masks, all voiced by a high-pitched, goblin-like muttering from the very talented girl working the soundsystem.  They were a gem of a find by William Chamberlain.

Firm favourite with the children and lovely ladies (according to him, that is) was Jitterbug Jackson, a rather cheeky chappie performing daredevil tricks with his juggling balls, some cuddly toys and his self-made invention The Umbrelmet.  Here he is performing a juggling piece dedicated to his supposedly many ex-girlfriends:

“You’ll notice how I did quite a lot of dropping there. That symbolically shows you how I dropped many of those girls.”  Yeah, right.

Mind you the kids, unlike his girlfiends, loved him and he got a fair few in on his act.

The sun came out especially for the last day of the festival on Monday, so I wandered down to the Cathedral Quarter to see what was happening.  I must say, I wasn’t expecting to stumble upon a pair of men in just their pants.

Strangelings were followed by what was my favourite act of the festival Mimbre – three female acrobats who created a gentle, thoughtful yet beautifully simplistic narrative with just a strange sign and some stuffed suitcases.

There was something very touching about their performance, which included elements all seasoned travellers will be familiar with, such as packing, picnics, warm welcomes and fond farewells.

Any subtle emotions stirred by Mimbre were well and truly blasted out of the water by Turbo Jonez, who seemed to hail from my homeland of South Wales and had traveled over, “On the Stagecoach.  One love.”

Turbo Jonez declared that he was going to sort any Troubles “on the lino” and things went gloriously downhill from there.

The Festival of Fools was, in short, a rich and varied festival that brought some amazing local and international acts to the streets of Belfast for everyone to enjoy for free over the bank holiday.  Which makes it pretty dumbfounding that the festival is under threat due to cuts in funding, but it seems that’s the current state of play:

…it is our sad duty to inform you, the great unwashed, that we have had our funding cut by one of the Powers That Be. So, be prepared for repeated requests to Take Action. You will be asked to sign petitions; to send letters to politicians; and, as ever, to give us your money. If you think the Festival of Fools is worth it, please give us your support.

They certainly have my support, for starters – the acts I saw as part of The Festival of Fools were the highlights of my weekend and the main reason I went in the first place. For Belfast to lose what is a brilliant cultural highlight really would be a crime.

I arrived in Belfast very early on the morning of Thursday 29th April and walked straight off the bus into the Belfast Welcome Centre just as it was opening.  I was delighted to discover that there was not one, not two, but three (3!) festivals taking place during my stay in the city – The Festival of Fools, the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and the tail-end of the 10th Belfast Film Festival.

My first Film Festival fix was Then And Now: An Index on Censorship – a panel discussion at Queens Film Theatre with Margo Harkin (Mother Ireland, Bloody Sunday: a Derry Diary), James Flynn (Producer, H3) and Mark Cousins (The First Film, Director), chaired by Prof. Bill Rolston.  The discussion, part of a programme run by Index on Censorship, was most interesting when it touched upon issues of self censorship and how we often automatically edit our own expressions without even realising or questioning it.

I got to meet Alan in Belfast afterward, who had time for a coffee after his  interview with Mark Cousins about his film The First Movie before that evening’s screening (above).

Tempted as I was by The First Movie, I quite fancied the Film Festival’s screening of the first episode of the cult 60′s series The Prisoner in the First Church of Christ Scientist, designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, better known for creating The Prisoner’s location Portmerion Village in North Wales.

I got a little lost on the way but recognised the place as soon as I saw it, having visited Portmerion before it was easy to spot the bright white church, like something straight from the Italianate village.  The pretty courtyard confirmed my suspicions.

After the nostaligic treat (“I am not a number, I’m a free man!”) there was a discussion about the importance of architectural heritage in Belfast, which touched upon issues such as how important pieces of architecture can be used in what is a ‘shrinking city’.  This was visualised starkly in the Forum for Alternative Belfast’s map ‘The Missing City’:

This map shows the area of Belfast walkable within 20 minutes of the city centre.  It illustrates starkly, in red, the empty sites….This is what we mean by the ‘Missing City’.

The emptiness represents the impact of the loss of 130,000 people from the city and its impact on schools, shops, parks, dance halls, cinemas and city vibrancy.

The map sets out, quite starkly, the challenge for the city and government agencies over the next 20 years.

Unfortunately there isn’t an image of the map available online but trust me, it has more red on it than one of my old school essays.  The Forum for Alternative Belfast seem to be working hard to address these challenges, asking questions such as:

What if we could fill up our empty land and revitalise our central city?

What if I could live in the city?

What if I could walk to school?

what if we could create and manage the city?

What if we could fill up abandoned land and look properly at the structure of our city?

What if we could start to fix our broken city and reconnect its parts?


What if we could learn from other citities?

How might Brummies answer that last question, I wonder?