The quirky arts venue moored on the River Lagan

“It’s a unique setting, people love the quirkiness of coming on board.”

It’s one of Belfast’s more unlikely arts venues, but a barge on the River Lagan has relaunched itself as Northern Ireland’s only floating maritime heritage centre for arts and tourism.

The Belfast Barge is owned by the Lagan Legacy charity who brought it to Belfast from the Netherlands in 2006.

It opened as a museum in 2012, but is now an events space with a museum, gallery and a dog-friendly cafe.

In its 10th anniversary year, Belfast Barge manager Susan Doherty said the space would host maritime events throughout the year to celebrate its anniversary.

“It’s a one-off, a place for artists, a perfect venue for young new bands, weddings and it’s a nice intimate setting,” Ms Doherty said.

“It’s a bit more of an event going on to a boat as to a run-of-the-mill venue.”

The upper deck river-view room was leased out and used as a restaurant for a number of years but the Covid-19 pandemic brought a new opportunity to transform the space.

“The lease was coming up in the restaurant just as the pandemic hit so we put our heads together and thought, we need to make it more viable.

“It gave us an opportunity to take the whole boat back.”

The maritime museum on the lower deck of the barge holds artefacts salvaged from Harland & Wolff shipyard and a series of videos of the men and women who worked in industries along the Lagan over the years.

Ms Doherty said it was a great space to support the local arts scene.

“Most artists, if they’re exhibiting in galleries, a large percentage of the sale will go to the gallery themselves,” she said.

“So 100% goes to them on board so we’re supporting the arts and doing whatever we can.”

The barge was originally built in the Netherlands in 1960 and was previously known as MV Confiance.

Between 1999 and 2002, Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard was being closed down and demolished when two men had an idea for presenting the history and industrial heritage of the River Lagan and those who worked on it.

Derek Booker and Joyce Anderson noticed a lot of maritime items, including archives of ship engineering plans, were being thrown out and put in skips.

After gaining permission from the demolition company to salvage as much as they could, it sparked the idea for the Lagan Legacy charity to preserve the archive.

The next hurdle was where could they house their headquarters.

They decided a barge would be ideal with having maritime connection as well as having less environmental impact.

They went to Holland and purchased the barge in 2006 but because it was a flat bottomed vessel that was not meant for open waters, it took a long time to navigate – resulting in a three-and-a-half week journey to sail it to Belfast.

The biggest challenges were getting it under the Queen’s Bridge in Belfast and moored at Lanyon Quay on the Lagan.

It opened in 2012 and took a few years to get it renovated into the arts centre it is today.

Sash Ka Sheils, an artist from County Londonderry, held an art exhibition on the barge in November and said it was unique compared to traditional galleries.

“I was putting up the work and I was very aware of how the barge embodies history because of its relationship with the Lagan,” she said.

“It’s nearly like exhibiting with ghosts – that sense of co-existing with a time that’s passed, it just felt absolutely right.”

She usually exhibits her work in galleries on the first or second floor of a building but said the barge “reflected the paintings in a very different way”.

“The lower deck is almost like being in a bunker, you’re going down and there’s no natural light except the stairways and as the light changes, it keeps allowing the paintings to change,” she said.

“Your standard traditional exhibition space – art doesn’t feel really at home in that space but it feels very at home on the barge.”

Belfast-based rock band Modern Rome played a gig on the Barge when it reopened and band member Danny Boyle said the space lends itself to being a live music venue.

“Given the fact it’s on a boat, it makes it feel different playing there, you don’t get that when you play in a regular bar,” Mr Boyle said.

“When you go down into that space on the bottom level it really adds to the atmosphere.”

He said “without a doubt” it would be good to have more spaces for up-and-coming musicians to showcase their work.

“A lot of bars on the weekends have cover bands but it’s not accessible to musicians starting out and doing original music, that’s why the barge is more special.”

The Belfast Barge is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Northern Ireland Tourist Board and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.