It is one of a series of narrow alleys in the city centre, and is currently home to Henry's Pub (formerly McCracken's) – named after Henry Joy McCracken, an Irish Presbyterian and a leading member in the north of Ireland of the republican Society of the United Irishmen, and the grandson of the News Letter's founder.

Francis Joy, who founded the paper, had come to Belfast early in the century from the County Antrim village of Killead.

[8] Samples from that antiquated edition include reports about a highway robbery (where a bandit "took from a Sardinian Gentleman a Purse of Guineas and a rich Scimitar", among other things) at Newbury and the theft of a horse ("Four Years Old, and about Fourteen hands high") at Ballyhome.

[9][10][11] One of the recurring motifs of the News Letter's editorial line today is to remind people of the scale of the paramilitary bloodshed during the Troubles, with the vast bulk of crimes being unsolved.

[12][13][14][15][16][17][18] In recent years, the paper's business model has focussed on increasing subscriptions (home delivery and collection for the print edition, mobile devices/laptops for the digital one).

[19] Historical copies of the News Letter, dating back to 1828, are available to search and view in digitised form at the British Newspaper Archive.

In addition to the News Letter's coverage of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal from 2016 to the present, a book entitled Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite, by its (now former) political correspondent Sam McBride (a frequent media commentator on Northern Irish affairs), was published in 2019 by Merrion.