Transport in Belfast - Seaport

Seaport

The Port of Belfast is the busiest ferry port in Ireland with over 1.2 million passengers annually. Belfast also has a large port, used for exporting and importing goods and for passenger ferry services. Stena Line run regular services to Stranraer in Scotland using their HSS (High Speed Service) vessel, with a crossing time of around ninety minutes, and/or their conventional vessel with a crossing time of around three hours and forty-five minutes. Norfolkline (formally Norse Merchant Ferries) run a passenger/cargo ferry to and from Liverpool, with a crossing time of eight hours and a seasonal sailing to Douglas, Isle of Man is operated by the Isle of Man Steam Packet company (formally SeaCat).

The natural inlet of Belfast Lough gives Belfast its own port. As the city developed, this became the major avenue for trade with Britain and later Europe and North America. In the mid-seventeenth century, Belfast exported beef, butter, hides, tallow and corn and it imported coal, cloth, wine, brandy, paper, timber and tobacco. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Belfast's significant trade made it the richest commercial town in the north of Ireland. Around this time, the linen trade in Northern Ireland blossomed and by the middle of the eighteenth century, one fifth of all the linen exported from Ireland was shipped from Belfast Harbour.

As the Industrial Revolution arrived, the port provided the outlet for the thriving linen and shipbuilding trades. Belfast harbour was dredged in 1845 to provide deeper berths for larger ships. Donegall Quay was built out into the river as the harbour was developed further and trade flourished. The Harland and Wolff shipbuilding firm was created in 1861 and by the time the Titanic was built in Belfast in 1912, they boasted the largest shipyard in the world.

It is also the biggest gateway for both the import and export of goods in Northern Ireland, receiving 6,000 vessels, and half a million freight units per year. The Harbour Estate is also Northern Ireland's leading logistics & distribution hub.