Brendan Behan was holding forth in Bittles Bar when I went in, large as life, which seemed a bit odd as this was Belfast and besides, the man is dead. But there he was sharing a painted pint with James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde and W.B.Yeats. "Not bad," said Judy, who leads Belfast pub tours, "two Nobel Prizewinners in one mural, and there's our latest over there on that wall, Seamus Heaney."

Bittles is buzzing at 4.30 of a Saturday afternoon, the Belfast craic guided by Ireland's literary lions. The mural was done by a local man, Joe O'Kane, and Judy pointed out to him one time that Behan's pint glass is full and the others are half-empty, which seemed a mite unrealistic.

"Ah," said Joe, quick as a flash, "but yer man's on his second pint already."' And yer man Joe is in the bar and says hello to us, having left his second pint behind long ago, "I'm the artist, and people never believe it. They think I ought to be wearing a smock like Tony Hancock in that film, The Rebel. Did you see that? Wonderful film. How d'you mix your colours, they ask him. In a bucket, he says. In a bucket! Wonderful film. You'll stay for a drink?"
But the tour is just a taster of Belfast's historic pubs, which bear as much resemblance to Irish theme pubs as a pint of Guinness does to a glass of water. Bittles is a youth, born in 1861, two years after the Kitchen Bar round the corner, which has been in the hands of the same family ever since. Nearby was the Empire Theatre. The landlord, Pat Catney, pays homage on his walls to the stars who played there and maybe nipped out for a quick one: Charlie Chaplin, Marie Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy.

I asked Judy what's the largest group she'd ever shown round the city's pubs. "Ninety-nine rheumatologists," she said, as she led me down a back alley to White's Tavern. It's the oldest tavern in Belfast, with doors first opening in 1630 and look like they've never closed since. We can't talk inside as a two-man band is playing country-rock loud enough to be heard in heaven. "They've music three nights a week and one night a gay night," Judy shouted.

In Kelly's Cellars, a country pub when it was built in 1720, you could hardly get through the doors, and at one table a guy is playing a mandolin, not for the pub but just for the fun of it.

Then there's The Crown Liquor Saloon, the pub that's owned by the National Trust.

"The Crown," I say to Judy,"the cause of all the problems."
"Yes," she replied."It used to be called the Railway Tavern but the owner's wife was a Royalist and wanted it changed to The Crown. The husband didn't. She got her way but he had the name placed in the floor just inside the front door so every customer who goes in has to walk all over it."
In Belfast, you take history in with every mouthful. Can you think of a better way?
 
 

Mike Gerrard is an award-winning member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, living in Cambridgeshire, England.