BELFAST

In the Northern Irish capital, the healing and uniting powers of music and art are being used to reconcile the past, look to the future and bring communities together

- RICHARD FRANKS

Half Bap Recording Studios, Commercial Court

“I remember this area in the 1970s, it was a riot — quite literally, at times,” says Dolores Vischer as we stroll along Bedford Street in Belfast’s Linen Quarter, on the southern edge of the city centre. “I say literally because I remember The Clash turning up for a gig across the street from here in 1977, only to be turned away as the venue thought the rowdy punk rock band from England would attract trouble.

“It was true — they did,” she adds as we reach our first stop: the Ulster Hall music venue. “But only because the gig was cancelled.”

I’m on a music tour of Belfast with blonde-haired local music aficionado and Creative Belfast Tours guide Dolores, who’s wearing a punkish black leather jacket and corduroy flat peaked cap. Earlier, she’d described how she’d once played the drums with British punk band The Strangers. During their 1979 gig, she’d climbed on stage and persuaded the drummer, the late Jet Black, to let her play along to their hit Peaches. “He said he needed the toilet anyway, so he let me have a go.”

Crowds drinking at The Duke of York in Commercial Court;

Dolores’s music tours on foot and by bus predominantly showcase some of Belfast’s homegrown talent. Among them is the city’s original pop star, the late Ruby Murray, whose contribution to the city is celebrated with a plaque inside the Ulster Hall. In the 1950s, when she was at her musical height, Ruby broke the record as the artist with the most singles in the UK’s official Top 20 chart simultaneously — five. She held on to this until Ed Sheeran released his Divide album in 2017. “I say to most people: if you’ve heard of her, it’s likely from Cockney rhyming slang,” Dolores says, referring to the fact that ‘Ruby Murray’ is a term for curry that has become ubiquitous in the UK.