A Landmark in Irish Golf History

Established in 1881, The Royal Belfast Golf Club is Ireland’s oldest golf club — a distinction felt not as a distant fact, but in the everyday traditions, etiquette and welcome that still shape the Club today.

The Beginning at Kinnegar

The story began in the summer of 1881, when Thomas Sinclair discovered golf during a visit to St Andrews. Inspired, he returned to Ireland and worked with George L. Baillie, a schoolteacher and experienced golfer from Musselburgh, to establish a course at Kinnegar, with land secured from Captain John Harrison. It was a modest beginning, but one of lasting significance for the growth of golf across Ireland.

Royal Status and a New Home

In 1885, just four years after the Club’s founding, the Prince of Wales — later King Edward VII — accepted an invitation to become Patron, giving Royal Belfast its Royal designation. As the game grew, the Club moved to a 9-hole layout at Carnalea in 1892, before relocating after the First World War to Craigavad House, a stately estate overlooking Belfast Lough originally built in 1852 by John Mulholland, later 1st Lord Dunleath.

In 1925, the Club commissioned Harry S. Colt to design an 18-hole course at Craigavad, working with the estate’s natural contours. That course, largely unchanged since, remains one of Colt’s most enduring designs — rewarding accuracy, patience and course management rather than length alone.

A Living Tradition

Members and visitors today are part of a story that began in 1881: felt in the welcome on arrival, the rhythm of the clubhouse and the respect shown to the game. For anyone planning an Irish golf trip, Royal Belfast offers a meaningful round, a warm welcome and a genuine connection to the heritage of golf in Ireland.