If you had been relying on the Belfast media for news of what was happening in the world over the last few days the big story was “ships moor in harbour”. A fleet of  spaceships from half a dozen advanced civilisations all landing on the same day could not have generated any more incessant or hyperbolic reporting.  What actually happened was that a bunch of sailing ships had raced each other across the Atlantic and dropped anchor in Belfast, a city with a port.

As the list of articles on the Belfast Telegraph site shows no superlative was unused and no heart string was untugged. The TV and radio were worse. Endless interviews with nine year olds- “what do you think of the tall ships kid?” gave the usual nine year old insight into everything “it’s great, dead brilliant”. Minor local celebrities were asked “what do you think of the tall ships?”. They’d been listening to the nine year olds and mostly said “it’s great, dead brilliant”. From Thursday to Sunday it was constant.

A major part of the reporting was along the lines of “Belfast seemed like a great place to be and it made one wonder how the same city was home to the psychopaths who murdered and maimed for three decades”.  If this means anything it means that the author finds it hard to imagine that a city can find space for both competent local government officials, a business community out to make money and sectarian gangsters. There’s a desperation to wish that the place was more like Eastbourne or Paris which has been a mainstay of anguished Norn Irish liberalism which would be touching if it wasn’t so naive.

And that’s the point really. The city’s mayor claims to believe “Belfast is now widely regarded as a happening, must-see city. This is Belfast’s moment and we have to build on the legacy of the most successful and biggest event our city has seen.” It seems to me that if half of the statelet’s population feels the need to visit an event like that then the place lacks much in the way of great visitor attractions. The city’s only museum has been shut for ages and insiders are sceptical about the official reopening date being met. Driving down the  Falls Road you have to stop yourself from laughing out loud when you see the office of the “West Belfast Tourism Development Board” or somesuch just a few days away from a “suicide awareness” office set among a strip of kebab shops, take away pizza places and football themed pubs. It’s hard to say if they look worse in the rain or the sun. Looking at the tourists hunched forward into the rain you would forgive them for breaking into tears every time they remembered that this was their main holiday of the year.

Belfast isn’t a bad city but it ain’t Paris.