Belfast City Hall sits at the centre of Donegall Square like a confident full stop at the end of a long civic argument. Opened in 1906 in Portland stone, with a green copper dome and marble interiors that cost the city a small fortune, it replaced the old White Linen Hall, built in 1785 for the trade that made Belfast rich.

The grounds are a compressed history of the city. A statue of Sir Edward Harland, his hand resting on a ship, stands near the Titanic Memorial Garden, where a nine-metre plinth lists all 1,512 people lost in 1912. Nearby, a column honours James Magennis, the Falls Road-born diver who became Northern Ireland's only Victoria Cross recipient in World War Two.

VoiceMap's Belfast tours use City Hall as an anchor point, tracing the city's shipbuilding ambitions, its linen trade origins and the quieter stories of soldiers, inventors and civic figures whose statues still watch over the square.