Student Life
Belfast is a city blessed with fantastic natural surroundings, and the university takes full advantage of this. Outside the city, up in the Mourne mountains, is one of the university’s sports centres, specialising in mountain climbing and abseiling. The mountain climbing club at Queen’s University is renowned worldwide, and famous for producing mountaineers such as Dawson Stelfox.
Also taking advantage of the Irish countryside are the university’s boating clubs and societies, which include the Queen’s University Belfast Boat Club, world famous thanks to their success in international rowing competitions.
In the city itself, the sporting facilities are just as impressive: the university has numerous sports clubs and societies for students to join. These include, amongst others, traditional Gaelic games such as hurling and Gaelic football. The university playing fields lie approximately two miles away from the main campus, and comprise of seventeen pitches for rugby, football, gaelic football, hockey, camogie and cricket. In addition, there are a number of courts and athletic surfaces for netball, tennis and athletics.
There are also plenty of arts and media clubs and societies that students can join, such as the theatre group, the film makers society and the literary club. These clubs are well-supported by the university’s students' union. The university also hosts annual international arts and films festivals in the city, in which students are encouraged to participate, either by contributing work of their own or helping to organise the events.
As far as Belfast itself goes, there are few greener cities in the UK. The city has over forty parks, including the popular Botanic gardens, which host a live music festival every summer. These gardens provide ideal walks in the summer months and are a favourite spot for tourists.
In addition to the greenery, Belfast is home to many museums and art galleries.
Because of an increase in tourism, and in a bid to boost it further, the Belfast City Council recently divided the city into four ‘cultural quarters’ to make exploring the city easier:
Cathedral quarter - so called because St. Anne’s Cathedral lies at its heart. This is considered to be the main cultural area of Belfast and hosts the city’s annual visual and performing arts festival.
Gaeltacht quarter - an area of the city that tries to promote Irish heritage, including the use of the Gaelic language.
Queen's quarter - where the university campus is located, as well as the majority of the student population. In this part of the city, students can find Belfast city hall, the Botanic gardens, Ulster museum and the main stretch of bars and clubs, The Golden Mile.
Titanic quarter - the city harbour, named after the Titanic which was designed and built here in 1912.
For students who love shopping, a new £400 million shopping centre has recently opened in the city centre, consisting of shops, restaurants and a cinema. Students should be able to find anything and everything that they could want in retail terms here!
Student night life in Belfast is mainly concentrated in and around the students' union bar. However, due to an increasingly large student population in the city, many new, student-inspired bars and clubs have started opening in Belfast, meaning that students now have a much wider selection of places to visit. The main source of student entertainment in the city centre is an area locally referred to as ‘The Golden Mile’. Situated in the Queen’s quarter of the city, the Golden Mile is within walking distance of the university campus and contains many bars and restaurants. This area is fast becoming a favourite hot spot for students.
