Car hire from Belfast International Airport makes the 30-minute drive into the city centre easy. Initially a small Hamlet in the mouth of the Lagan River, Belfast quickly expanded, as a haven for pirates and merchants – the perfect port of call for sea-damaged ships. Nicknamed ‘Linenopolis’ as the home of Irish linen, it has also been the centre of tobacco production, rope making and ship building. Hiring a car to explore this history is easy with our Belfast International Airport Branch. Hayland and Wolff, the shipbuilders of the fated Titanic, were based here, and you can see the only authentic remnant of Titanic history here, at the Titanic’s Dock and Pump House.