MURDERS, GHOSTS AND BODYSNATCHERS - NEW TOUR

This Halloween weekend the Glenravel Project will start a new tour which will explore the darker side of Belfast’s history. The city centre tour will begin at Castle Junction where all the horrific executions took place and we will look at the gory details behind a few of them. Then we will tell a few of the ghost stories from that area such as the tragedy which occurred in the Lucifer Match Factory and Smithfield Mill before moving on to the old Victorian red light district and exploring what life was really like there. We will look at the popular bar room activity where bets were taken on killing rats with bare teeth as well as some of the ‘dreadful’ crimes which saw some of the areas residents being transported. There will be more murder stories as well as the sad ghost story telling the fate of the Five Mary’s. From there we will move to Academy Street where the lodgings of most of Belfast’s bodysnatchers were situated. We will hear the tales of how the robbed the local graveyards of corpses and why they tore the teeth from the heads. We will then cross to the site of the infamous Hundon’s Entry which was so notorious even the police refused to go in.

The tour guides will be Joe Baker and Michael Liggett who have been involved in local historical studies for the past twenty years. Joe has written extensively on the subject including Old Belfast Ghost Stories and Haunted Belfast to name just two. Michael has written on true local crimes from Belfast Executions through to Belfast Murders. Between the two of them they have produced over two hundred publications relating to the history of Belfast.

They are also two of the most experienced local tours guides having ran city based tours long before many of the tour operators were even established. They were the first to organise tours of the Belfast Prison on the Crumlin Road and conducted the extremely popular Belfast Ghost Hunt there until the building closed for renovations. They have also conducted tours around the old Victorian Red Light District, the historic burying ground at Clifton Street as well as the Belfast Blitz tours.

If interested contact us at our website below as places will be booked up pretty quick especially on Halloween night. The total cost is £7 per person and will include a fascinating DVD looking at our local history. www.toursofbelfast.com