Maeve O’Connor

Maeve is the Heritage Engagement Officer for Inner North Belfast, based in Sailortown Regeneration. Maeve is working directly with the community to support engagement, identify opportunities and develop projects that celebrate and activate Belfast’s rich waterfront heritage, reconnecting communities with the waterfront.

What does Belfast Historic Waterfront mean to you, and why is it important to connect local communities with the heritage?
For me, the Belfast Historic Waterfront is about much more than historic buildings, docks and industrial heritage. It’s about the people who built, lived and worked in these places, the communities that shaped Belfast’s identity, and the stories that connect our past to our present.
Sailortown is a particularly powerful example of this. Once a thriving dockside neighbourhood, it was a place of strong community identity, rich cultural traditions and generations of families whose lives were intertwined with Belfast’s maritime industries. Much of the physical neighbourhood was lost through redevelopment and the construction of the motorway, but its stories, memories and sense of belonging remain very much alive.
I think it’s important that we recognise heritage isn’t just something we preserve in buildings or archives. It’s something that lives in people, their experiences, traditions and shared memories.
Connecting communities with the Belfast Historic Waterfront is about ensuring that the people who have the strongest connections to these places have a voice in how their heritage is celebrated, interpreted and carried forward. It’s also about making sure that newer communities and younger generations feel that this heritage belongs to them too.
Ultimately, I’d like to see the waterfront become somewhere that local communities feel genuinely connected to, rather than somewhere they simply live beside.

Over the next two years, what do you hope to achieve through your work with local communities?

My main ambition is to create meaningful opportunities for communities to reconnect with the waterfront, share their stories and actively influence how its future develops. A big part of this will involve building relationships with residents, community groups, schools, artists and local organisations, particularly across Sailortown and the neighbouring communities of North Belfast.We’re developing some really exciting projects around oral histories, storytelling, creative arts, biodiversity and community-led heritage activities. I want to see local people not just attending events, but helping to shape and deliver them.
I’m particularly excited about the opportunities to work collaboratively with the Heritage Engagement Officers in East Belfast and the Lower Ormeau. Although our communities have different histories and experiences, we’re connected by the same waterfront. There’s enormous potential to explore those shared connections through storytelling, creative projects, environmental activities and improvements to how people access and experience the waterfront.

I also want to build on the success of initiatives such as the Sailortown Festival, Sundays on the Maritime Mile and our cultural programmes at St Joseph’s Church, which have shown how arts, music and heritage can bring people together and breathe life back into historic spaces. Most importantly, I hope we can build lasting relationships, develop local skills and confidence, and ensure that communities have a genuine sense of ownership and influence over the future of the Belfast Historic Waterfront.

How can people living in the area get involved, share their stories or help shape the future of Belfast Historic Waterfront?

There will be lots of opportunities for people to get involved, and you certainly don’t need to be a historian or have any previous knowledge of maritime heritage. We’re particularly keen to hear from people who have memories, photographs, family stories or personal connections to Sailortown, the docks and surrounding neighbourhoods. These everyday experiences are an incredibly important part of our shared heritage, and we want to make sure they’re recorded and celebrated.

We’ll be organising community conversations, oral history projects, creative workshops, heritage events and activities with local schools and community groups. There will also be opportunities for people to develop new skills through training, volunteering and participation in community-led projects.
An important part of the Heritage Places programme is ensuring that local voices help shape wider plans for the waterfront, including how its heritage is interpreted, how public spaces are used and how communities can better access and enjoy the area. I’d really encourage people to come along, share an idea, tell us a story or simply have a conversation. Sometimes the most interesting projects begin with someone saying, “Do you remember when…?”

It’s about making heritage accessible, enjoyable and relevant to everyday life, and ensuring that everyone feels they have something valuable to contribute.

How do you plan to increase awareness of maritime heritage among your communities and strengthen their connection to Belfast Historic Waterfront?

I think one of the most effective ways to connect people with heritage is to bring it to life through experiences that are creative, inclusive and enjoyable. At Sailortown Regeneration, we’ve already seen how events such as the Sailortown Festival, Fleadh Cheoil, Culture Night and Sundays on the Maritime Mile can attract people who might never ordinarily attend a heritage event. Music, performance, exhibitions and storytelling can open the door to discovering the history of a place in a really natural way.

I also want to build on this by taking heritage beyond traditional settings and into schools, community centres, neighbourhood spaces and everyday conversations. We’re exploring projects that connect maritime stories with contemporary issues such as identity, belonging, migration, the environment and access to shared spaces. Working with organisations such as ArtsEkta, Studio Myco and Ulster Wildlife will allow us to combine oral histories, creative interpretation and biodiversity activities in ways that appeal to different ages and interests.

Another important element is addressing the physical and psychological barriers that can make the waterfront feel disconnected from surrounding neighbourhoods. For many neighbouring communities in North Belfast, major roads, industrial development and changes to the urban landscape have created a sense of separation from what was historically their waterfront.

By working collaboratively across Sailortown, East Belfast and the Lower Ormeau, we can explore these connections, identify barriers and help communities reimagine how they access and experience the waterfront.

For me, the real measure of success will be when people begin to see the Belfast Historic Waterfront not simply as a heritage destination or visitor attraction, but as part of their own neighbourhood, identity and future.

Heritage should be something people feel part of, not something they feel is happening around them.