- Belfast
Belfast’s Hidden Entries & Secret Alleyways
Step off Belfast's high street into the city centre, and you'll find gaps between buildings barely wide enough for two people to pass.
Albert Bridge / Entries plaque, Belfast/CC BY-SA 2.0
These are the Belfast Entries, a network of alleyways that has connected shops, homes and back doors since the 1600s. Most visitors to Northern Ireland walk straight past them on the way to somewhere else. Staying at Second Nature Belfast puts you close enough to slow down, turn down one of these lanes, and find pubs, murals and stories the main streets never show you.
What Are Belfast’s Hidden Entries?
An entry is a narrow passage that once ran between High Street and the parallel lines of Ann Street and Waring Street, giving merchants a back route between shopfronts, warehouses and homes. Belfast City Council lists dozens across the city centre, though a short walking tour of the cluster near High Street covers the ones with the richest stories.
The History Behind Belfast’s Secret Alleyways
Belfast's entries predate the grand Victorian buildings around them, with several tracing back to the 1600s, when the city was a cluster of merchant houses. As Belfast industrialised through the 18th and 19th centuries, the lanes filled with tanneries, print shops and some of the oldest Victorian and pre-Victorian period pubs in Belfast. It isn't a tidy history, the Belfast Blitz flattened several entries in 1941, and others stayed sealed for decades before reopening.
Exploring Belfast’s Hidden Entries from Second Nature Belfast
Commercial Court
Commercial Court sits off Waring Street, home to the Duke of York and a run of cobbled ground painted in umbrellas and murals. The street art here has grown organically over two decades, turning a working yard into one of the city centre's most photographed corners.
Winecellar Entry
Off Lombard Street, Winecellar Entry holds White's Tavern, trading since 1630 and generally reckoned Belfast's oldest bar. Low ceilings, open fires, and a name that still describes the trade first done here.
Pottinger’s Entry
Also written Pottingers Entry, this lane links Ann Street to High Street through an arched entrance that doubles as a busking spot. The Morning Star, a Victorian pub tucked inside, has been pouring pints since the 1800s.
Joy's Entry
Sometimes spelled Joys Entry, this lane takes its name from the Joy family, including Francis Joy, founder of the Belfast News Letter, and his grandson Henry Joy McCracken, a leader of the United Irishmen executed in 1798. Two pubs sit inside today, but the entry's weight is historical, reform was drafted a few doors from where you're standing.
Wilson’s Court
Wilson's Court once ran between High Street and Ann Street and printed the Northern Star, the radical paper that gave the United Irishmen their voice before soldiers destroyed its presses in 1797.
Crown Entry and others
Crown Entry, Sugarhouse Entry, Cole's Alley, College Street Mews and Patterson's Place round out the cluster, each a little different in character. Castle Arcade, running from High Street to Castle Lane, is wider and lined with old photographs of the entries as they looked a century ago.
Belfast’s Entries Today
Belfast City Council's Belfast Entries Project has spent recent years repairing, lighting and commissioning artwork across these lanes, without smoothing away what makes them feel old. New street art sits alongside the original stonework, including a portrait of Olaudah Equiano, the writer and abolitionist who spoke against slavery in Belfast in 1791. The entries look better cared for than they have in decades, but still read as working passages, not a museum piece.
Sugarhouse entry, Belfast by Rossographer, CC BY-SA 2.0
Winecellar entry by Connall, CC BY-SA 2.0
Graffiti, Crown Entry, Belfast by Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0
How to Explore Belfast’s Hidden Alleyways from Second Nature
From Second Nature Belfast, it's a flat walk into the city centre, and the entries sit close enough to treat as a short walking tour rather than a single stop. Start at High Street, work through to Ann Street and Waring Street, and stop wherever a pub door looks older than the street around it.
Why Go Beyond Belfast’s Main Tourist Attractions?
Belfast's main sights tell you what the city wants to be known for. The entries tell you what it actually was, a working port town in Northern Ireland where reform, print and trade all happened a few feet from the high street. That version rewards slowing down, not a checklist.
Discover Belfast's Hidden Entries for Yourself
Most people staying in Belfast never turn down these lanes. Spend one afternoon of your stay on them, and the city centre stops being a list of landmarks and starts being a place with edges, printers, pubs and old arguments still visible if you know where to look. Second Nature Belfast puts you close enough to find out.
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Belfast’s Hidden Entries & Secret Alleyways
Discover Belfast’s hidden entries and secret alleyways, from historic passageways to tucked-away gems, and uncover the stories behind the city’s lesser-known routes.