Belfast Troubles Tour: Political Murals & Peace Walls

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Free cancellationExcellent quality

1/29

Duration2h 40m–3h

GroupUp to 16

LanguagesEN

Mobile ticketAccepted

Walking Through Belfast's Divided Streets: A Guide to the Murals and the Stories Behind Them

You walk from Belfast City Hall through political murals on both the Falls Road and Shankill Road, stand at the Peace Walls that divide communities, pass through security gates, and examine sites of collusion and conflict. The tour weaves history, theatrics and lived experience into a narrative that ends at a 1783 church, revealing a hidden radical tradition that contradicts the standard story of division. A local guide provides context and personalised recommendations throughout.

2h 40m–3h

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Belfast's history and Troubles

Start at Belfast City Hall
Pause at Mary Ann McCracken statue
Walk to Linen Hall Library
Explore Donegall Place street signs
View Spirit of Belfast sculpture
See Finucane Solicitors office
Visit Divis mural and tower
View International Wall murals
Pass through security gates to Shankill Road
See loyalist murals on Shankill Road
Examine Belfast Peace Walls
Return through security gates to Falls Road
Pass Republican Memorial Garden and Bobby Sands mural
View Harland and Wolff cranes skyline
Pause at St Mary's Church
View Albert Memorial Clock
Walk through Belfast's Entries passageways
See Frederick Douglass statue on Lombard Street
End at First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street

The Experience

You step out from Belfast City Hall — a Victorian statement in stone, built in 1906 when the city was shipping the world's vessels and rope — and within minutes you're walking toward West Belfast's working-class streets. That shift from opulence to the margins is deliberate. The Troubles Tour: Walls and Bridges doesn't start with a timeline or a lecture. It starts with your feet moving through the geography of division itself, and a guide who uses original songs and lived experience to explain what you're actually seeing as you walk past it.

The tour crosses into the heart of the conflict through the International Wall on the Falls Road — a constantly changing open-air gallery of political murals that once served as a counter-narrative to mainstream media. Your guide reads between the lines, showing you not just what's depicted but what's deliberately absent. Then you pass through bolted security gates — a physical border between communities — and enter the Shankill Road, where loyalist murals tell an entirely different story of identity and loss. The Peace Walls themselves, 16 metres high and topped with mesh to stop petrol bombs, stand as a stark reminder of how recently this division was literal and necessary. You'll have time to photograph and examine them closely.

What makes this different from a standard history walk is the theatrics and the connections your guide draws. You'll stand at the Finucane Solicitors building on Castle Street — an unremarkable office that holds one of the Troubles' most disturbing unresolved chapters. You'll pass the Bobby Sands mural and the Republican Memorial Garden. You'll see the Harland and Wolff cranes dominating the skyline, a reminder of when Belfast was among the world's most productive cities. But the tour doesn't end in West Belfast. It loops back through hidden Entries — narrow historic passageways threading through the city centre — and lands at the First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street, where everything you've encountered connects to a hidden radical tradition that contradicts the standard narrative of division.

The final stop reveals a Belfast most visitors never see: a congregation that made stands for civil and religious freedoms when it carried real risk, and a connection to Frederick Douglass that links the abolitionist to the city's own struggle for justice. It's a conclusion that reframes the entire walk. The tour takes 2–3 hours, includes a local guide with personalised recommendations, and is not suitable for children under 14 due to graphic content and adult themes. You'll need at least a moderate level of fitness and a high level of English to follow the guide's storytelling.

What’s included

Your day includes a professional local guide with lived experience, visits to political murals on both sides of the divide, time at the Peace Walls with detailed explanations, passage through security gates separating communities, and stops at landmarks including Belfast City Hall, the International Wall on the Falls Road, the Shankill Road murals, the Finucane Solicitors building, St Mary's Church, the Albert Memorial Clock, and the First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street. Personalised recommendations from your guide are included throughout.

Good to know

Moderate physical levelPets welcomePublic transport nearby

Operated by Experience Belfast

Is this one for you?This tour suits anyone wanting to understand the Troubles through direct encounter with the places and symbols that shaped the conflict, rather than through a classroom narrative — the guide's lived experience and theatrical storytelling do the work of making the history legible as you walk.