November is the month everybody skips, and the month I would send a certain kind of traveller to first. If you are coming over for two nights rather than a week, I have set out five weekend breaks in Northern Ireland and what each one actually needs.
It is the cheapest month of the year here. It is the emptiest. The Causeway has nobody on it. And it holds three of the best events on the Northern Irish calendar, two of which most visitors have never heard of. What you pay for that is daylight, and November takes a lot of it.
Coming from the other side of the border? There is no checkpoint, but the money, your phone and the speed limits all change. Read the guide to crossing between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland weather in November
Belfast averages a high of 10°C and a low of 4°C, with about 95mm of rain across roughly 15 days. So it is wet on half the days and it is properly dark, but it is not cold in the way people from continental climates expect. Frost is occasional rather than routine at sea level. Snow in November is unusual outside the Mournes and the Sperrins.
The real November weather story is wind. Atlantic depressions run through from mid-month, and on the north coast that means a genuine gale several times in the month. It is spectacular if you are dressed for it and miserable if you are not.
Flying from the US?
Most Americans pay too much to get to Ireland.
I send one email a week with the best fares from US airports into Dublin, Shannon and Belfast, plus what to actually do when you land. $14.99 for the year, refunded if it does not pay for itself.
Daylight in November
- 1 November: sunrise 07:26, sunset 16:47. Nine hours and twenty minutes.
- 15 November: sunrise 07:54, sunset 16:21. Eight and a half hours.
- 30 November: sunrise 08:21, sunset 16:03. Seven hours and forty minutes.
Plan around a hard four o’clock. Anything outdoors needs to start before eleven, and the last hour before sunset is the good light, so aim to be somewhere worth looking at by three.
The upside nobody mentions: this is the best month of the year for interiors. Museums, distilleries, gaols, big houses and long lunches are all better in a month where the alternative is standing in a field in the dark.
What’s on in November 2026
Belfast International Arts Festival, to 8 November
The festival runs from 14 October and finishes on Sunday 8 November, so the first week of the month catches the tail of it. Over 200 events across around 30 venues. If you are in Belfast in that first week, this is what to build the evenings around.
Foyle Film Festival, Derry, 18 to 29 November
Derry’s film festival, and it is a serious one. It runs Wednesday 18 to Sunday 29 November 2026, based at the Nerve Centre on Magazine Street with screenings at the Brunswick Moviebowl and partner venues around the city. Its short film competition, Light in Motion, is both Oscar and BAFTA accredited, which puts it in a very small group of Irish festivals.
Twelve days of it, in a walled city, in late November. This is one of the great underrated things to do in Northern Ireland and it barely appears in visitor guides.
Armagh Georgian Festival, 26 to 29 November
Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 November. Four days of Georgian living history staged in the actual Georgian buildings: mock trials in the real courthouse, tours of the real gaol, interpreters in the library that Archbishop Robinson built, and what the organisers call Northern Ireland’s largest festive artisan market.
The free part people miss is Armagh Robinson Library on Abbey Street, which opens specially with parts of the collection out on display. Full detail in the Armagh Georgian Festival guide.
Book Navan Centre & Fort entry tickets, two miles from the city
The Christmas lights switch-ons, through November
This is the one most visitors miss. Towns across Northern Ireland turn their Christmas lights on during November, not December, so if you want to be there for a switch-on this is your month. By the first week of December it has all already happened.
And it is not just somebody flicking a switch. A switch-on here usually means market stalls, a stage with something on it, and a couple of hours of things for children to do before the lights go on. Belfast, Derry, Lisburn and most of the bigger towns do their own, and the smaller ones are often the better night out because you can actually move about. Keep an eye out for the Coca-Cola truck, which tours and turns up at some of them.
Belfast’s switch-on usually has the Belfast School of Performing Arts singing it, so there is a proper choir rather than a sound system, which makes more difference than you would think on a cold night. My own daughter goes to the school, so take my enthusiasm for that with a pinch of salt.
Dates move every year and each council sets its own, so check your town’s council listings in late October rather than trusting a date you read somewhere.
Belfast Christmas Market, from mid-November
The full Belfast Christmas Market guide has the 2026 dates situation, the food worth queueing for and the timing trick that beats the crowds.
The Continental Market takes over the grounds of Belfast City Hall and typically opens in the middle of November, running to around 22 December. In 2025 it ran 15 November to 22 December.
The 2026 dates are not confirmed yet. Belfast City Council had not published them as of early September, and every date you will see quoted online for 2026 is an educated guess based on last year. Recent years have opened Monday to Wednesday 10am to 8pm, Thursday to Saturday 10am to 10pm and Sunday noon to 6pm, with a later start on opening day. Check Visit Belfast or the council directly before you build a trip around it. I will update this page when the dates land.
The history bit: the winter the food ran out
November is the month to go and look at a workhouse, and Derry has the one that is properly set up for it.
The Workhouse Museum on Glendermott Road in the Waterside is a surviving Victorian workhouse, and it does what almost no other site in Ireland manages: it explains the system rather than just the building. The workhouses were not shelters. They were designed to be worse than the worst work available outside, so that only the genuinely destitute would enter. Families were split at the door. Husbands from wives, children from parents. That was policy, not an accident of overcrowding.
The reason November is the right month to see it is that November is when the system broke. The potato crop failed for the second consecutive year in 1846, and by that winter the workhouses across Ulster and Donegal were holding more people than they were built for, in buildings with no heating and a fever epidemic running through them. The Carndonagh workhouse in Donegal, built for six hundred, held 675 by early 1848 and had closed its burial ground the year before because it was full.
If you want to follow that story across the border, the Doagh Famine Village in Inishowen is built on the site of a famine-era settlement, about forty minutes from Derry. Check before you travel: it runs a seasonal timetable and is rebuilding after a fire in 2025, so November is unlikely, and this is one to hold for a spring or summer return.
If you want to read about it properly rather than just stand in it, the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine maps the losses parish by parish, and Cecil Woodham-Smith’s The Great Hunger is the readable narrative most people start with. I have a fuller list on the Doagh Famine Village guide.
Standing in one of these buildings at half three in the afternoon, in the dark, with the rain going sideways, tells you something that a summer visit does not.
If that is your kind of history, the Northern Ireland guide has the Ulster American Folk Park in Tyrone, which covers the emigration side of the same story and is one of the best open-air museums in these islands.
Where to go in November
Belfast. The obvious base, and the right one. Titanic Belfast, the Ulster Museum, which is free, Crumlin Road Gaol, the Cathedral Quarter, and the market from mid-month.
Book a guided tour of Crumlin Road Gaol
Book the McConnell’s distillery tour and tasting in Belfast
Derry. Twelve days of film festival, the walls, the Workhouse Museum, and a compact city where everything is walkable in the rain.
Book a guided walking tour of the walled city
The Causeway Coast, in a storm. Contrarian, and correct. A north coast gale in November at Downhill or Ballintoy is one of the genuinely great sights in Ireland, and there will be four people there. Go at midday, do not go near the edge, and accept that Carrick-a-Rede will be shut.
Bushmills. A distillery is a November building.
See distillery tours and tastings in Bushmills
What’s closed in November
Most National Trust house interiors are shut for the winter by early November, though grounds, gardens and tea rooms usually stay open and several reopen in December for Christmas events. Rathlin sailings are on the winter timetable. Seasonal cafés on the coast are weekend-only or closed.
Everything indoor and major stays open: Titanic Belfast, the Ulster Museum, Crumlin Road Gaol, the Ulster American Folk Park, the Game of Thrones Studio Tour, the Giant’s Causeway visitor centre.
Costs and practicalities
This is the cheapest month. Flights and hotels are at their annual low for the first two weeks. That changes from mid-November in Belfast, when the Christmas market starts pulling weekend crowds and city hotel prices climb steeply on Fridays and Saturdays. If you want cheap Belfast, come before the market opens. If you want the market, book well ahead and consider a Sunday to Tuesday.
Money. Pound sterling, not euro.
Driving. A car still makes the coast and the Mournes work, but you are driving in the dark by five, and rural roads here have no lighting and no verge. If you are not confident, base yourself in a city and take a tour for the coast day.
Compare car hire for Northern Ireland
Book the Causeway Coast day tour from Belfast
Sundays. Big shops in Northern Ireland can only open between 1pm and 6pm on a Sunday. That is the law rather than the shop being contrary. It applies to anything over 280 square metres, so supermarkets, shopping centres and retail parks. Small shops, off licences, petrol stations and pharmacies open as normal. Plan your Sunday morning around breakfast and a walk, and leave the shopping until after one.
Where to stay in November
Belfast for the market, the museums and the arts festival. Derry for the film festival and a cheaper, quieter city. Armagh sells out across the Georgian Festival weekend, and Portadown, Banbridge and Newry are all within half an hour of it.
Where to stay in Belfast
One thing before you pick. If you are planning to be out in the evening, stay close to the city centre. Taxis and Ubers in Belfast are harder to come by than you would expect, and in December they are worse. Nearly every hotel will tell you it is within walking distance, but that can mean a mile or two, so check what you are actually agreeing to. Stay in the centre proper and everything is a ten or fifteen minute walk.
If you are not going out at night it matters far less, and somewhere a bit further out is grand.
- DoubleTree by Hilton Belfast City Ten Square. Directly behind City Hall, so you are about a minute from the Christmas market and the middle of everything. It was Ten Square before the Hilton rebrand, in case you are looking for the old name.
- Bullitt Hotel. Cathedral Quarter, noticeably better value, small rooms done properly. You are already among the bars and restaurants rather than walking to them.
- Titanic Hotel Belfast. In the old Harland and Wolff drawing offices, the actual rooms where the ship was designed. I stayed here and really liked it. It is still Belfast but it is not right in the middle, so take it when you are not planning a night out.
Not seeing anything that suits? Here is the full list of places to stay in Belfast.
Where to stay in Derry
- Bishop’s Gate Hotel. Inside the walls, in the old Northern Counties Club. Named Hotel of the Year 2026 at the Ulster Tatler Awards.
- Shipquay Boutique Hotel. Also inside the walls, small, and everything is on the doorstep.
- Maldron Hotel Derry. Central, reliable and usually the cheapest of the three.
Not seeing anything that suits? Here is the full list of places to stay in Derry.
A three day November itinerary
Day 1, Belfast. Ulster Museum in the morning, Titanic Belfast after lunch, Christmas market and the Cathedral Quarter in the evening.
Day 2, the coast. Out early. Dark Hedges, Bushmills, Giant’s Causeway by two while there is still light, back through the glens.
Day 3, Derry or Armagh. Derry for the walls, the Workhouse Museum and a film festival screening, or Armagh if your dates hit the last weekend of the month.
Is November the right month for you?
Yes if you want the lowest prices of the year, empty landmarks, museums and distilleries, a proper film festival, or the Georgian Festival.
No if you need daylight for a driving tour, want National Trust house interiors, or will not enjoy a wet dark afternoon.
If November sounds too dark, October gives you autumn colour and Halloween with three more hours of light. December is darker still but has the Christmas markets and a real sense of occasion.
Frequently asked questions
Is November a good time to visit Northern Ireland?
It is the cheapest and quietest month, and if you are here for cities, museums, festivals and the start of the Christmas season rather than long days outdoors, it is a good trade. If you want daylight, come at almost any other time.
What is the weather like in Northern Ireland in November?
Belfast averages a high of 10°C and a low of 4°C, with about 95mm of rain across roughly 15 days. Frost is occasional rather than routine at sea level and snow is unusual outside the Mournes and Sperrins. The real story is wind: Atlantic depressions run through from mid-month and the north coast gets a genuine gale several times.
How dark is it in Northern Ireland in November?
Nine hours and twenty minutes of daylight on 1 November, down to seven hours forty by the 30th. Plan around a hard four o’clock. Anything outdoors needs to start before eleven.
Is November the cheapest month to visit Northern Ireland?
Yes, for the first two weeks. Flights and hotels are at their annual low. That changes from mid-November in Belfast, when the Christmas market starts pulling weekend crowds and city hotel prices climb steeply on Fridays and Saturdays.
What is closed in Northern Ireland in November?
Most National Trust house interiors are shut for the winter by early November, though grounds, gardens and tea rooms usually stay open and several reopen in December for Christmas events. Rathlin sailings are on the winter timetable and seasonal coastal cafes are weekend-only or closed.
What stays open in Northern Ireland in November?
Everything indoor and major: Titanic Belfast, the Ulster Museum, Crumlin Road Gaol, the Ulster American Folk Park, the Game of Thrones Studio Tour and the Giant’s Causeway visitor centre.
Plan the rest of your trip
The full guide to things to do in Northern Ireland covers all of this in more depth, with routes and costs.
Browse tours and tickets across Northern Ireland
Some links in this guide are affiliate links. If you book through one I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I only link to things I would use myself. Festival dates and opening hours are as published at the time of writing and are worth confirming before you travel.
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Written by
Diana Greenlee
I live in County Down and write Tales of Irish Travel. After years living abroad I came home during Covid and started properly exploring the island. I write about the history and the story behind a place, not just the place. More about me.