Colin McAlpin is one of Northern Ireland's best known journalists/broadcasters having been an award-winning Sports Editor, Features Editor, Arts/Entertainments Editor and columnist for the three Belfast daily/Sunday newspapers. He is a long-established travel writer and an authority on the American Civil War. He co-hosted with his daughter, Heidi, a weekly magazine radio programme on a Belfast station and headed a team that established a museum for Crusaders, one of Northern Ireland's premier football clubs. He was a co-founder of the Northern Ireland Film Commission (now Northern Ireland Screen), the UK Guild of Regional Film Writers and he is a former Chair of Dance Northern Ireland.