Ireland and Northern Ireland Long Easter Weekend Break

This was never meant to be a big, complicated trip. It was a long Easter weekend break, the kind that’s genuinely easy to pull off if you stick to the capitals. We left Leeds on Thursday night, which gave us four nights away and meant we could actually enjoy both Dublin and Belfast without feeling like we were racing the clock.

We started in Dublin, and there’s no denying it. It’s beautiful. It’s historic. It’s full of the kind of streets you want to photograph even when the weather is doing its usual Irish thing. But for us, it also felt very touristy. Not in a bad way, just in that polished, well-oiled way where you can tell the city knows exactly what visitors want, and it’s delivering it confidently.

We did the classic Dublin sightseeing route mostly on foot, then used the sightseeing bus later to pick up anything we’d missed. It worked perfectly for a long weekend, especially when you’re trying to pack a lot in without turning the whole trip into a military operation.

And because I clearly have a travel personality now, we also made time for The Brazen Head, often said to be the oldest pub in Ireland. Even if you’re not a massive pub person, there’s something about sitting inside a place like that that makes you feel like you’re part of the city’s timeline, even if only for an hour.

Then we crossed into Belfast, and the whole mood shifted. Belfast felt like a city still in motion, still evolving, still figuring itself out in places. And honestly, I liked that. It felt less like a tourist performance and more like a place where real life is happening alongside the sights.

One of the biggest differences for me was the pub atmosphere. In Dublin, you’re often surrounded by other visitors. In Belfast, it was easy to find yourself in a pub where local people were actually there, just living their normal lives, and you’re the one passing through.

The big decision of the weekend was Titanic Belfast. I’ll be honest, I was almost certain it was the wrong choice. We were going on our very first cruise just a few months later, and I honestly wondered if it was a bit morbid to spend the weekend thinking about the Titanic when we were due to get on a ship ourselves. Not exactly confidence-boosting, is it?

But it turned out to be one of the best things we did.

Not only is Titanic Belfast brilliantly done, it also felt like tying up loose ends. We’d already visited museums in Liverpool, and this added another layer. It made the Titanic story feel less like a dramatic headline and more like a full historical thread, connected across different places. Staying at the Titanic Hotel made it even better, because it’s one thing to visit a museum, and another to sleep in the building where the ship was designed.

By the end of the weekend, it felt like we’d done two very different capital cities in one go. Dublin gave us the beauty and the classics. Belfast gave us character, grit, and a sense of a city still becoming itself.

For a simple Easter break, it was surprisingly packed. And it left me with the same feeling I always get after Ireland, north or south: we’ve done a lot, but we could come back and do it all again completely differently.

Next time, I’d do Dublin in a more local way. Less of the tourist trail, and more of the pubs where you catch proper music sessions. The kind where local people bring their own instruments and play because they love it, not because it’s part of the evening’s entertainment schedule.

In Belfast, I’d stay more central, or even book the Europa Hotel just for the iconic, historic factor. And I’d love to use Belfast as a base for exploring more outside the city too, because it feels like there’s so much nearby that we didn’t even touch.