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To mark LGBT+ History Month, our guest blogger Michael Fryer has shared with us the exciting and important work the LGBT Heritage Project Northern Ireland has been doing for the last year as well as uncovering some local east Belfast stories of remarkable LGBT people from the past.

Welcome back! it has been a while since our last blog post, but since we are back in lockdown for what we hope will just be a few weeks, we would like to introduce you to another way of engaging with local heritage from your own home. Jason Burke has written this entry for us about his latest foray into creating podcasts. Jason is a prolific researcher, writer and communicator in all things 'Historical Belfast' and if you have missed being able to go on his walking tours lately, here is a new way of engaging with the past in Belfast.

This blog entry has been written by William Ennis, a writer who attends the Yard Sessions every month in EastSide Visitor Centre. The Yard Sessions were launched by the Thomas Carnduff Society. In this piece, Willliam explains the importance of Carnduff as a poet from a working class Belfast background and how is legacy is not ony his verse but the space he created for others from a similar background to write.

A Wee Mermaid in Helen's Bay

Welcome back to part 2 of Searching for the Past with Online Records. Part 1 can be found here. So far, I have been describing the process I used when looking for one of my own ancestors as a method of exploring and demonstrating resources, archives and maps that can be used together to build a bigger picture of someone in the past and how they lived.

For this post we are going to be focussing on a Belfast museum. The Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum is a small museum on Talbot Street. I haven't visited this museum in real life because I had completely wrong assumptions about the stories told there. I believed it was akin to a military history museum and thought it might be one of those places that caters for passionate enthusiasts rather than for someone like myself who is just a bit nosey and likes hearing people’s stories.

Welcome to a new series on our blog. For the next wee while it seems we are going to be more reliant on technology than ever, but this doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy some ‘old stuff’. I am hoping to create a series of articles that can signpost heritage lovers to some amazing online resources. There will be some resources for absolute beginners and hopefully some surprises for the more seasoned heritage afficionado. The aim is to cover a range of online museum collections, archives, podcasts, social media accounts and other heritage resources.