Belfast Stranraer ferry

Belfast Guide

Belfast Harbour is a main hub in the importation and exportation of goods and for passenger ferry services. Operated by Stena Line, Belfast ferry port provides regular passenger ferry crossings to Cairnryan in Scotland and Liverpool Birkenhead in England. Run by Steam Packet, there are also seasonal services to Douglas on the Isle of Man, across the Irish Sea.

The city of Belfast, in Northern Ireland, is the capital city located in County Antrim, although parts of the city spread over to County Down. The city has a long tradition in the production of Irish linen, tobacco, rope and shipbuilding. In fact, the city's main shipbuilder, Harland and Wolf, is known for building the RMS Titanic in the early 20th Century. Today, Belfast is an important centre for commerce, the arts, higher education, law, business and of course, tourism.

Stranraer Guide

Stranraer is a town in the south of Scotland in the west of the region of Dumfries and Galloway and was formerly in the county of Wigtownshire. It lies on the northern side of the isthmus joining the Rhinns of Galloway to the mainland.

It was only in the mid 1700s that a harbour was first built in Stranraer itself, and further port development took place in the 1820s. But it was the coming of the railway from Dumfries in 1861 which finally established Stranraer as the area's main port.

For much of the following 150 years Stranraer was unchallenged as the natural location for the main Scottish port for the Irish ferries. Roll-on roll-off ferries appeared on the Irish routes well ahead of elsewhere in the UK.