BELFAST INSIDER
This week in Belfast ☀️
👋 Hello Belfast,
Right then. Quite a week.
Plans are in top gear for the Fleadh in August, and new music venues are popping up all over the city to handle it.
We take you inside the new Lidl pub and it's exactly as mad as it sounds, plus there’s a Nigerian food business in Ballymena now on the radar.
Let’s get into it →
THE DIGEST: Belfast in Brief
Only the good news, promise.
🎻 Belfast Is About to Turn Into One Giant Trad Session
The Fleadh stopped feeling like a festival announcement a while ago and the latest plans for the highly anticipated event are getting pretty wild.
New approvals just granted mean music won't just be happening in pubs and concert halls alone but also in empty and underused spaces across the city.
The alleyway behind M&S in the city centre is getting turned into a late-night music venue and a long-empty warehouse on Donegall Street is becoming an outdoor performance space.
Live music marquees have also been planned beside a temporary campsite in Titanic Quarter as the city readies to welcome over 700,000 visitors.
For one week in August, Belfast is treating every spare corner as a potential stage.
The funny thing is that most of us complain that the city centre dies too early.
Come August, we might be begging for a bit of peace and quiet.
This will be a citywide takeover.
💬 What's the strangest Belfast location you've ever ended up hearing live music?
🍻 Inside The Lidl Pub In Dundonald
The world's first Lidl pub is now open.
Not in Berlin.
Not in London.
But in Dundonald.
The Middle Ale has officially opened beside Lidl's store, meaning you can now buy milk, a cordless drill, and a pint within roughly the same five-minute journey.
The best part isn't even the pub itself.
It's the reason it exists.
Because of Northern Ireland's licensing laws, Lidl couldn't easily get the permissions it wanted. So instead of opening a traditional off-licence, it ended up opening an actual pub.
Only here could bureaucracy accidentally create a new local.
It's already attracting curious visitors who seem equally interested in the novelty and the beer.
Local vlogger Travel Northern Ireland was among the first through the door and has shared a full review.
📺 Watch the review here.
💬 Be honest. Are you stopping for a pint after the weekly shop?
🎓 Queen's Is Having Quite the Victory Lap
If you know a Queen's graduate, prepare yourself.
They're having a very good month.
Forget the rankings for a second.
The number Belfast parents will care about is this: 93% of Queen's graduates are in work or further study within 15 months.
That's according to the latest figures released alongside another piece of good news for the university.
Queen's has now reached its highest-ever position in the QS World University Rankings, climbing into the world's top 175 universities.
For a city that sometimes undersells itself, here's another reminder that one of the UK's most respected universities is sitting right in the middle of the University Quarter.
Belfast doesn't always shout about its wins.
This one is worth shouting about.
💬 What's your strongest memory of Queen's? A lecture, a night out, or an encounter at the Holylands?
🏪 LOCAL BUSINESS SCOOP
Office Block Conversions
Former Halifax building at Gasworks to be converted into a care home
There's quite some repurposing of old or abandoned buildings across Belfast right now.
The old distinctive Halifax building in the Gasworks, is becoming a 156-bedroom nursing home.
Also, the former DFE headquarters at Netherleigh in East Belfast is being converted into residential care and 36 assisted living apartments.
On the hospitality side, Lindsay House on Callendar Street is becoming a 76-bedroom hotel with a ground-floor bar and restaurant.
Another smaller building on Rosemary Street is making way for a 30-bedroom boutique hotel and café.
Four buildings in the city turning into hotels, nursing homes, care facilities. None of them are offices anymore.
How does that make you feel?
Do you see a pattern emerging?
💬 Which empty building in Belfast do you most want to see given a second life?
💰 There's £5m Heading to Derry and Strabane Businesses. Here's How to Get It
If you run a small business in the Derry and Strabane area, this one's worth five minutes of your time.
The newly formed Derry Strabane Local Economic Partnership has opened two grant schemes this week.
The Business Transformation Grant is offering between £5,000 and £25,000, covering up to 70% of eligible costs.
Think new equipment, workshop upgrades, solar panels, improved premises, or technology that helps your business grow.
The Enterprise Partnership Fund is offering up to £15,000 for more experimental ideas.
The sort of funding that can help a business test something new before committing serious money to it.
Both schemes are open now.
These things tend to close quietly and quickly.
If it applies to you, or someone you know, the link is worth clicking today rather than next week.
💬 If you secured a £25,000 grant tomorrow, what's the first thing you'd spend it on?
Your Weekend Lineup
🎟️ WHAT’S HAPPENING:
Your guide to what’s on across Belfast & Northern Ireland
Thursday 25 June
Friday 26 June
Saturday 27 June
Sunday 28 June
Monday 29 June
Tuesday 30 June
Wednesday 1 July
💛 COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
🥘The Belfast Woman Who Proved You Don't Need a Big Organisation to Make a Big Difference
Last week, we told you about 23-year-old Ruchira Rangaprasad.
A young woman who without any initial funding or organisation made the headlines for her good initiative to cook and deliver over 200 meals to affected families during the recent riots through a network of volunteers.
Ruchira has taken it a step further and has now raised £16,000 to support charitable organizations in Northern Ireland.
Ruchira and co-organiser Orla happily announced this via Instagram and beneficiary organizations include: Soul Train, TSC Ireland, Diverse Youth NI, Flourish NI and the Anika Collective, she will also be helping communities and organisations learn how to fundraise for their own goodwill projects through what she calls her Supper Club Workshops.
Indeed some of Belfast's biggest stories don't start in boardrooms or council chambers some start in a small kitchen with someone deciding to do something.
💬 What's the smallest act of kindness you've seen create the biggest impact?
🍽️ FOODSPOT OF THE WEEK
🥢 Qate Kitchen, Ballymena
@qatekitchen #belfast #northernireland #nigerianfooddeliveryuk #supportsmallbusinesses #NigerianFood
There's a small Nigerian food business in Ballymena that's quietly gone viral.
43,000 likes.
5,000 shares.
A TikTok comment section full of people asking where to find them.
And there's a decent chance you've never heard of them.
Qate Kitchen is serving jollof rice, egusi soup, peppered snails, puff puff, and ofe nsala. Proper West African home cooking, the kind that doesn't usually get the visibility it deserves outside of major cities.
The internet has clearly noticed.
The question is whether Northern Ireland has caught up yet.
If you want to find out, the easiest way is a WhatsApp message to find out what's available and when.
Sometimes the best food finds aren't in a city centre with a neon sign. They’re operating as a fully registered, home catering setup with a five-star hygiene rating.
Sometimes they're hiding in Ballymena with 43,000 likes and a lot less queue than they probably deserve.
📱Contact them here
💬Will you try Qate Kitchen? Or do you know another hidden food gem in Northern Ireland we should be talking about?
🧠 Did You Know?
👑 The Belfast Boy Who Took a World Record From Pelé
In the summer of 1982, a 17-year-old from Danube Street in Belfast did something that still hasn't been undone.
Norman Whiteside stepped onto a pitch in Zaragoza against Yugoslavia and became the youngest player in FIFA World Cup history at 17 years and 41 days old.
In doing so, he quietly took a record that had belonged to Pelé since 1958.
He'd played just two senior games for Manchester United before Billy Bingham put him in the World Cup starting lineup.
He was on £16 a week.
Four decades later, with teenage superstars rewriting football every other season, that record still stands.
Some things from Belfast just don't get beaten.
💬 What's the greatest sporting achievement ever produced by Northern Ireland?
🗳️ POLL OF THE WEEK
What's been your favourite Belfast story this week?
🎻 Fleadh takeover
🍻 Lidl pub
🥘 Ruchira's community kitchen
🍽️ Qate Kitchen
💬 Your Voice
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Until next week, look after yourselves and look after each other.
At's us nai,
The Belfast Insider Team