127-616: The Belfast Media Group's Andersonstown News is a weekly published (Wednesdays) Belfast , Northern Ireland newspaper, which focuses on news and issues in west Belfast . The paper was founded in 1972. Its stablemates, the North Belfast News and South Belfast News , are published weekly. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations , the Andersonstown News has an average circulation of 8,457 for
254-646: A devolved Irish parliament within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . The first two Irish Home Rule Bills were put before the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1886 and 1893, but they were bitterly resisted and the second bill ultimately defeated in the Conservative's pro- Unionist majority controlled House of Lords . Following the fall and death of Parnell in 1891 after
381-556: A " National Petition " for a referendum on repeal of the union; in 1861 Daniel O'Donoghue submitted the 423,026 signatures to no effect. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and Fenian Brotherhood were set up in Ireland and the United States, respectively, in 1858 by militant republicans, including Young Irelanders . The latter dissolved into factions after organising unsuccessful raids on Canada by Irish veterans of
508-490: A concerted campaign for self-government. Mass nationalist mobilisation began when Isaac Butt 's Home Rule League (which had been founded in 1873 but had little following) adopted social issues in the late 1870s – especially the question of land redistribution. Michael Davitt (an IRB member) founded the Irish Land League in 1879 during an agricultural depression to agitate for tenant's rights. Some would argue
635-523: A consciousness of dispossession and defeat at the hands of British and Protestant forces, became enduring features of Irish nationalism. However, the Irish Catholic movements of the 16th century were invariably led by a small landed and clerical elite. Professor Kevin Whelan has traced the emergence of the modern Catholic-nationalist identity that formed in 1760–1830. Irish historian Marc Caball , on
762-540: A deep sea port, and extensive shipyards. The Lagan was banked (in 1994 a weir raised its water level to cover what remained of the tidal mud flats) and its various tributaries were culverted On the model pioneered in 2008 by the Connswater Community Greenway some, including the course of the Farset, are now being considered for "daylighting". It remains the case that much of the city centre
889-695: A divorce crisis, which enabled the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy to pressure MPs to drop Parnell as their leader, the Irish Party split into two factions, the INL and the INF , becoming practically ineffective from 1892 to 1898. Only after the passing of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which granted extensive power to previously non-existent county councils, allowing nationalists for
1016-801: A guerilla war broke out between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) (as the Irish Volunteers were now calling themselves) and the British security forces (See Irish War of Independence ) . The campaign created tensions between the political and military sides of the nationalist movement. The IRA, nominally subject to the Dáil, in practice, often acted on its own initiative. At the top, the IRA leadership, of Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy , operated with little reference to Cathal Brugha ,
1143-447: A loss of manufacturing, and after a cotton boom and bust, from the 1820s Belfast underwent rapid industrial expansion. As the global leader in the production of linen goods—mill, and finishing, work largely employing women and children— it won the moniker " Linenopolis ". Shipbuilding led the development of heavier industry. By the 1900s, her shipyards were building up to a quarter of the total United Kingdom tonnage. This included from
1270-480: A means of putting pressure on parliament. Coinciding as it did with the extension of the franchise in British politics – and with it the opportunity for most Irish Catholics to vote – Parnell's party quickly became an important player in British politics. Home Rule was favoured by William Ewart Gladstone , but opposed by many in the British Liberal and Conservative parties. Home Rule would have meant
1397-418: A partition amendment. Redmond rejected their proposals. The amended Home Rule Act was passed and placed with Royal Assent on the statute books, but was suspended after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, until the end of the war. This led radical republican groups to argue that Irish independence could never be won peacefully and gave the northern question little thought at all. The Irish Volunteer movement
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#17327872276751524-566: A period of twenty years, due largely to redevelopment, 50,000 residents left the area leaving an aging population of 26,000 and more than 100 acres of wasteland. Meanwhile, road schemes , including the terminus of the M1 motorway and the Westlink , demolished a mixed dockland community, Sailortown , and severed the streets linking the Shankill area and the rest of both north and west Belfast to
1651-470: A political tradition that favours an independent, united Ireland achieved by non-violent means. The more militant strand of nationalism, as espoused by Sinn Féin , is generally described as "republican" and was regarded as somewhat distinct, although the modern-day party is a constitutional party committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. 55.8% of voters in Northern Ireland voted for
1778-685: A purely defensive body, under Connolly's leadership, the ICA became a revolutionary body, dedicated to an independent Workers Republic in Ireland. After the outbreak of the First World War, Connolly became determined to launch an insurrection to this end. Home Rule was eventually won by John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party and granted under the Third Home Rule Act 1914 . However, Irish self-government
1905-456: A struggle against British occupation. Preceded by loyalist and republican ceasefires, the 1998 "Good Friday" Belfast Agreement returned a new power-sharing legislative assembly and executive to Stormont. In the intervening years in Belfast, some 20,000 people had been injured, and 1,500 killed. Eighty-five percent of the conflict-related deaths had occurred within 1,000 metres of
2032-607: A thousand people were killed. At the end of World War II , the Unionist government undertook programmes of "slum clearance " (the Blitz had exposed the "uninhabitable" condition of much of the city's housing) which involved decanting populations out of mill and factory built red-brick terraces and into new peripheral housing estates. At the same time, a British-funded welfare state "revolutionised access" to education and health care. The resulting rise in expectations; together with
2159-441: Is built on an estuarine bed of "sleech": silt, peat, mud and—a source the city's ubiquitous red brick— soft clay, that presents a challenge for high-rise construction. (In 2007 this soft foundation persuaded St Anne's Cathedral to abandon plans for a bell tower and substitute a lightweight steel spire). The city centre is also subject to tidal flood risk. Rising sea levels could mean, that without significant investment, flooding in
2286-589: Is flanked by the lower-lying Castlereagh and Hollywood hills. The sand and gravel Malone Ridge extends up river to the south-west. From 1820, Belfast began to spread rapidly beyond its 18th century limits. To the north, it stretched out along roads which drew into the town migrants from Scots-settled hinterland of County Antrim . Largely Presbyterian, they enveloped a number of Catholic-occupied " mill-row " clusters: New Lodge , Ardoyne and "the Marrowbone". Together with areas of more substantial housing in
2413-515: Is not an exaggeration to term it a social revolution, and it was the first large-scale rural public-housing scheme in the country, with up to a quarter of a million housed under the Labourers Acts up to 1921, the majority erected by 1916", changing the face of rural Ireland. The combination of land reform and devolved local government gave Irish nationalists an economic political base on which to base their demands for self-government. Some in
2540-556: Is typically the only outside reference, these range more freely beyond the local conflict frequently expressing solidarity with Palestinians , with Cuba , and with Basque and Catalan separatists. West Belfast is separated from South Belfast, and from the otherwise abutting loyalist districts of Sandy Row and the Donegall Road , by rail lines, the M1 Motorway (to Dublin and the west); industrial and retail parks, and
2667-677: The All-for-Ireland Party as well as Sinn Féin and other national bodies. It resulted in the Conscription Crisis of 1918 . In May at the height of the crisis 73 prominent Sinn Féiners were arrested on the grounds of an alleged German Plot . Both these events contributed to a widespread rise in support for Sinn Féin and the Volunteers. The Armistice ended the war in November, and was followed by elections. In
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#17327872276752794-594: The American Civil War , and the IRB launched Clan na Gael as a replacement. In Ireland itself, the IRB tried an armed revolt in 1867 but, as it was heavily infiltrated by police informers, the rising was a failure. In the late 19th century, Irish nationalism became the dominant ideology in Ireland, having a major Parliamentary party in the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster that launched
2921-480: The Bronze Age . The Giant's Ring , a 5,000-year-old henge , is located near the city, and the remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen in the surrounding hills. At the beginning of the 14th century, Papal tax rolls record two churches: the "Chapel of Dundela" at Knock ( Irish : cnoc , meaning "hill") in the east, connected by some accounts to the 7th-century evangelist St. Colmcille , and,
3048-515: The Celtic Revival , grew up in the late 19th century. Though largely initiated by artists and writers of Protestant or Anglo-Irish background, the movement nonetheless captured the imaginations of idealists from native Irish and Catholic background. Periodicals such as United Ireland , Weekly News , Young Ireland , and Weekly National Press (1891–92), became influential in promoting Ireland's native cultural identity. A frequent contributor,
3175-732: The Curragh Camp indicated that they would be unwilling to act against the Ulster Volunteers should they be ordered to. In response, Nationalists formed their own paramilitary group, the Irish Volunteers , to ensure the implementation of Home Rule. It looked for several months in 1914 as if civil war was imminent between the two armed factions. Only the All-for-Ireland League party advocated granting every conceivable concession to Ulster to stave off
3302-659: The Democratic Unionist Party , which had actively campaigned for Brexit, withdrew from the power-sharing executive and collapsed the Stormont institutions to protest the 2020 UK-EU Northern Ireland Protocol . With the promise of equal access to the British and European markets, this designates Belfast as a point of entry to the European Single Market within whose regulatory framework local producers will continue to operate. After two years,
3429-655: The Falls Road and into what are now remnants of an older Catholic enclave around St Mary's Church , the town's first Catholic chapel (opened in 1784 with Presbyterian subscriptions), and Smithfield Market . Eventually, an entire west side of the city, stretching up the Falls Road, along the Springfield Road (encompassing the new housing estates built 1950s and 60s: Highfield, New Barnsley, Ballymurphy, Whiterock and Turf Lodge) and out past Andersonstown on
3556-772: The Falls area ) by the Department of Justice . These include Cupar Way where tourists are informed that, at 45 feet, the barrier is "three times higher than the Berlin Wall and has been in place for twice as long". With other working-class districts, Shankill suffered from the "collapse of old industrial Belfast". But it was also greatly affected from the 1960s by the city's most ambitious programme of "slum clearance". Red-brick, "two up, two down" terraced streets, typical of 19th century working-class housing, were replaced with flats, maisonettes, and car parks but few facilities. In
3683-725: The Farset " a river whose name in the Irish, Feirste, refers to a sandbar or tidal ford. This was formed where the river ran—until culverted late in the 18th century, down High Street— into the Lagan. It was at this crossing, located under or close to the current Queen's Bridge, that the early settlement developed. The compilers of Ulster-Scots use various transcriptions of local pronunciations of "Belfast" (with which they sometimes are also content) including Bilfawst , Bilfaust or Baelfawst. The site of Belfast has been occupied since
3810-561: The General election of 1918 , Sinn Féin won 73 seats, 25 of these unopposed, or statistically nearly 70% of Irish representation, under the British " First past the post " voting-system, but had a minority representation in Ulster. They achieved a total of 476,087 (46.9%) of votes polled for 48 seats, compared to 220,837 (21.7%) votes polled by the IPP for only six seats, who due to the "first past
3937-621: The Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689. The Jacobites demanded that Irish Catholics have a majority in an autonomous Irish Parliament, the restoration of confiscated Catholic land, and an Irish-born Lord Deputy of Ireland . Similarly to the Confederates of the 1640s, the Jacobites were conscious of representing the "Irish nation" but were not separatists and largely represented the interests of the landed class as opposed to all
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4064-549: The Good Friday Agreement , the electoral balance in the once unionist -controlled city has shifted, albeit with no overall majority, in favour of Irish nationalists . At the same time, new immigrants are adding to the growing number of residents unwilling to identify with either of the two communal traditions. Belfast has seen significant services sector growth, with important contributions from financial technology ( fintech ), from tourism and, with facilities in
4191-652: The Home Rule League in 1873. Charles Stewart Parnell (somewhat paradoxically, a Protestant landowner) took over the Land League and used its popularity to launch the Irish National League in 1882 as a support basis for the newly formed Irish Parliamentary Party , to campaign for Home Rule . An important feature of Irish nationalism from the late 19th century onwards was a commitment to Gaelic Irish culture. A broad intellectual movement,
4318-684: The Irish Parliament , full rights for Catholics and an end to the confiscation of Catholic-owned land. However, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653) destroyed the Confederate cause and resulted in the permanent dispossession of the old Catholic landowning class. A similar Irish Catholic monarchist movement emerged in the 1680s and 1690s, when Irish Catholic Jacobites supported James II after his deposition in England in
4445-667: The Irish Parliament . Belfast's two MPs remained nominees of the Chichesters ( Marquesses of Donegall ). With their emigrant kinsmen in America, the region's Presbyterians were to share a growing disaffection from the Crown. When early in the American War of Independence , Belfast Lough was raided by the privateer John Paul Jones , the townspeople assembled their own Volunteer militia . Formed ostensibly for defence of
4572-505: The Irish Patriot Party , led by Henry Grattan , who achieved substantial legislative independence in 1782–83 . Grattan and radical elements of the 'Irish Whig' party campaigned in the 1790s for Catholic political equality and reform of electoral rights. He wanted useful links with Britain to remain, best understood by his comment: 'The channel [ the Irish sea ] forbids union; the ocean forbids separation'. Grattan's movement
4699-682: The Irish Socialist Republican Party in Dublin. Connolly's party was small and unsuccessful in elections, but his fusion of socialism and Irish republicanism was to have a sustained impact on republican thought. In 1913, during the general strike known as the Dublin Lockout , Connolly and James Larkin formed a workers militia, the Irish Citizen Army , to defend strikers from the police. While initially
4826-793: The National Volunteers , and were among the 180,000 Irishmen who served in Irish regiments of the Irish 10th and 16th Divisions of the New British Army formed for the War. A minority of the Irish Volunteers, mostly led by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), refused to support the War and kept their arms to guarantee the passage of Home Rule. Within this grouping, another faction planned an insurrection against British rule in Ireland , while
4953-785: The New English Protestant forces sponsored by England . This vision sought to overcome the old ethnic divide between Gaeil (the native Irish) and Gaill (the Normans) which had been a feature of Irish life since the 12th century, following the Norman invasion of Ireland . Protestantism in England introduced a religious element to the 16th-century Tudor conquest of Ireland , as many of the native Gaels and Hiberno-Normans remained Catholic. The Plantations of Ireland dispossessed many native Catholic landowners in favour of Protestant settlers from England and Scotland. In addition,
5080-747: The Oldpark district , these are wedged between Protestant working-class housing stretching from Tiger's Bay out the Shore Road on one side, and up the Shankill (the original Antrim Road) on the other. The Greater Shankill area, including Crumlin and Woodvale , is over the line from the Belfast North parliamentary/assembly constituency, but is physically separated from the rest of Belfast West by an extensive series of separation barriers — peace walls —owned (together with five daytime gates into
5207-446: The Plantation of Ulster , which began in 1609, "planted" a sizeable population of English and Scottish Protestant settlers into the north of Ireland. Irish aristocrats waged many campaigns against the English presence. A prime example is the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill which became known as the Nine Years' War of 1594–1603, which aimed to expel the English and make Ireland a Spanish protectorate . A more significant movement came in
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5334-642: The Royal Victoria Hospital at the junction with the Grosvenor Road. Extensively redeveloped and expanded, the hospital has a staff of more than 8,500. Landmarks in the area include the Gothic-revival St Peter's Cathedral (1866, signature twin spires added in 1886); Clonard Monastery (1911), the Conway Mill (1853/1901, re-developed as a community enterprise, arts and education centre in 1983); Belfast City Cemetery (1869) and, best known for its republican graves, Milltown Cemetery (1869). The area's greatest visitor attractions are its wall and gable-end murals. In contrast to those in loyalist areas, where Israel
5461-405: The UK general election saw more nationalist MPs elected in Northern Ireland than unionist ones for the first time ever (nine nationalists and eight unionists). Two months later, Sinn Féin won the most votes in the 2020 Irish general election , thus ending 100 years of dominance in the Republic by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil , but still finished one seat behind the latter in the Daíl. Finally, at
5588-436: The United Kingdom , there was widespread violence . 8,000 "disloyal" workers were driven from their jobs in the shipyards: in addition to Catholics, "rotten Prods" – Protestants whose labour politics disregarded sectarian distinctions. Gun battles, grenade attacks and house burnings contributed to as many as 500 deaths. A curfew remained in force until 1924. (see The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922) ) The lines drawn saw off
5715-431: The United Kingdom , these twice erupted in periods of sustained violence: in 1920–22 , as Belfast emerged as the capital of the six northeast counties retaining the British connection, and over three decades from the late 1960s during which the British Army was continually deployed on the streets. A legacy of conflict is the barrier-reinforced separation of Protestant and Catholic working-class districts. Since
5842-414: The anti-clerical Spanish Republic characterised as another instance of No-Popery . (Today, the cause of the republic in the Spanish Civil War is commemorated by a " No Pasaran " stained glass window in City Hall). In 1938, nearly a third of industrial workers were unemployed, malnutrition was a major issue, and at 9.6% the city's infant mortality rate (compared with 5.9% in Sheffield , England)
5969-437: The harp , and located its mass meetings in sites such as Tara and Clontarf which had a special resonance in Irish history. The Great Famine of 1845–1849 caused great bitterness among Irish people against the British government, which was perceived as having failed to avert the deaths of up to a million people. British support for the 1860 plebiscites on Italian unification prompted Alexander Martin Sullivan to launch
6096-430: The people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state . Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cultural nationalism based on the principles of national self-determination and popular sovereignty . Irish nationalists during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries such as the United Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, the Fenian Brotherhood during
6223-525: The rebellion of 1798 , and to the union with Great Britain in 1800 — later regarded as a key to the town's industrial transformation. When granted city status in 1888, Belfast was the world's largest centre of linen manufacture, and by the 1900s her shipyards were building up to a quarter of total United Kingdom tonnage. Sectarian tensions accompanied the growth of an Irish Catholic population drawn by mill and factory employment from western districts. Heightened by division over Ireland's future in
6350-400: The slave plantations of the West Indies ; sugar and rum to Baltimore and New York ; and for the return to Belfast flaxseed and tobacco from the colonies . From the 1760s, profits from the trade financed improvements in the town's commercial infrastructure, including the Lagan Canal , new docks and quays, and the construction of the White Linen Hall which together attracted to Belfast
6477-416: The " Land War ", turned increasingly violent when Land Leaguers resisted attempts by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) to evict tenant farmers by force. This upheaval eventually resulted in the British government subsidising the sale of landlords' estates to their tenants in the Irish Land Acts authored by William O'Brien . It also provided a mass base for constitutional Irish nationalists who had founded
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#17327872276756604-407: The "Chapel of the Ford", which may have been a successor to a much older parish church on the present Shankill (Seanchill , "Old Church") Road , dating back to the 9th, and possibly to St. Patrick in the mid 5th, century. A Norman settlement at the ford, comprising the parish church (now St. George's ), a watermill, and a small fort, was an outpost of Carrickfergus Castle . Established in
6731-414: The "constitutional question": the prospect of a restored Irish parliament in which Protestants (and northern industry) feared being a minority interest. On 28 September 1912, unionists massed at Belfast's City Hall to sign the Ulster Covenant , pledging to use "all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland". This was followed by
6858-441: The 1640s, after the Irish Rebellion of 1641 , when a coalition of Gaelic Irish and Old English Catholics set up a de facto independent Irish state to fight in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ( see Confederate Irelan d ). The Confederate Catholics of Ireland, also known as the Confederation of Kilkenny, emphasised the idea of Ireland as a Kingdom independent from England, albeit under the same monarch. They demanded autonomy for
6985-406: The 1790s with the founding of the Society of the United Irishmen . It sought to end discrimination against Catholics and Presbyterians and to found an independent Irish republic. Most of the United Irish leaders were Catholic and Presbyterian and inspired by the French Revolution , wanted a society without sectarian divisions, the continuation of which they attributed to the British domination over
7112-399: The 1840s, by famine . The plentiful supply of cheap labour helped attract English and Scottish capital to Belfast, but it was also a cause of insecurity. Protestant workers organised and dominated the apprenticed trades and gave a new lease of life to the once largely rural Orange Order . Sectarian tensions, which frequently broke out in riots and workplace expulsions, were also driven by
7239-420: The 1880s, Fianna Fáil in the 1920s, and Sinn Féin styled themselves in various ways after French left-wing radicalism and republicanism . Irish nationalism celebrates the culture of Ireland , especially the Irish language , literature, music, and sports. It grew more potent during the period in which all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom , which led to most of the island gaining independence from
7366-457: The 1960s the great-house demesnes of the city's former mill-owners and industrialists were developed for public housing: loyalist estates such as Seymour Hill and Belvoir. Meanwhile, in Malone and along the river embankments, new houses and apartment blocks have been squeezed in, increasing the general housing density. Beyond the Queen's University area the area's principal landmarks are the 15-storey tower block of Belfast City Hospital (1986) on
7493-405: The British Isles), by local differences in births and deaths between Catholics and Protestants, and by a growing number of, particularly younger, people no longer willing to self-identify on traditional lines. In 1997, unionists lost overall control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history. The election in 2011 saw Irish nationalist councillors outnumber unionist councillors for
7620-430: The British Parliament – particularly the repeal of Poynings' Law , which allowed the latter to legislate for Ireland. They were supported by popular sentiment that came from the various publications of William Molyneux about Irish constitutional independence; this was later reinforced by Jonathan Swift 's incorporation of these ideas into Drapier's Letters . Parliamentarians who wanted more self-government formed
7747-444: The British administration felt initially that paying for such a degree of land and housing reform amounted to an unofficial policy of "killing home rule by kindness", yet by 1914 some form of Home Rule for most of Ireland was guaranteed. This was shelved on the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. A new source of radical Irish nationalism developed in the same period in the cities outside Ulster . In 1896, James Connolly , founded
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#17327872276757874-516: The Dáil's Minister for Defence or Éamon de Valera , the President of the Irish Republic – at best giving them a supervisory role. At local level, IRA commanders such as Dan Breen , Sean Moylan , Tom Barry , Sean MacEoin , Liam Lynch and others avoided contact with the IRA command, let alone the Dáil itself. This meant that the violence of the War of Independence rapidly escalated beyond what many in Sinn Féin and Dáil were happy with. Arthur Griffith , for example, favoured passive resistance over
8001-429: The Fenians saw that they could use the groundswell of support for land reform to recruit nationalist support, this is the reason why the New Departure – a decision by the IRB to adopt social issues – occurred in 1879. Republicans from Clan na Gael (who were loath to recognise the British Parliament) saw this as an opportunity to recruit the masses to agitate for Irish self-government. This agitation, which became known as
8128-431: The IRB. In April 1916, just over a thousand dissident Volunteers and 250 members of the Citizen's Army launched the Easter Rising in the Dublin General Post Office and, in the Easter Proclamation , proclaimed the independence of the Irish Republic . The Rising was put down within a week, at a cost of about 500 killed, mainly unengaged civilians. Although the rising failed, Britain's General Maxwell executed fifteen of
8255-442: The Irish Party was in due course eclipsed by Sinn Féin – a hitherto small party which the British had (mistakenly) blamed for the Rising and subsequently taken over as a vehicle for Irish Republicanism. Two further attempts to implement Home Rule in 1916 and 1917 also failed when John Redmond, leader of the Irish Party, refused to concede partition while accepting there could be no coercion of Ulster. An Irish Convention to resolve
8382-427: The Irish people. Also similarly to the Confederates they suffered defeat, in the Williamite War in Ireland (1689–1691). Thereafter, the largely English Protestant Ascendancy dominated Irish government and landholding. The Penal Laws discriminated against non- Anglicans . ( See also History of Ireland 1536–1691 .) This coupling of religious and ethnic identity – principally Roman Catholic and Gaelic – as well as
8509-479: The Irish speaking areas or Gaeltachta í, where the language has continued to decline (see article ). However, these organisations attracted large memberships and were the starting point for many radical Irish nationalists of the early twentieth century, especially the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916 such as Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett. The main aim was to emphasise an area of difference between Ireland and Germanic England, but most of
8636-454: The Kingdom , Volunteer corps were soon pressing their own protest against "taxation without representation". Further emboldened by the French Revolution , a more radical element in the town, the Society of United Irishmen , called for Catholic emancipation and a representative national government. In hopes of French assistance, in 1798 the Society organised a republican insurrection. The rebel tradesmen and tenant farmers were defeated north of
8763-465: The Land League had its direct roots in tenant associations formed in the period of agricultural prosperity during the government of Lord Palmerston in the 1850s and 1860s, who were seeking to strengthen the economic gains they had already made. Following the depression of 1879 and the subsequent fall in prices (and hence profits), these farmers were threatened with rising rents and eviction for failure to pay rents. In addition, small farmers, especially in
8890-414: The Lisburn Road, and the Lagan Valley Regional Park through which a towpath extends from the City-centre quayside to Lisburn. Northern Ireland's three permanent diplomatic missions are situated on the Malone Road, the consulates of China, Poland and the United States. Irish nationalism Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that
9017-449: The Lough shore and Belfast International Airport 15 miles (24 kilometres) west of the city. It supports two universities: on the north-side of the city centre, Ulster University , and on the southside the longer established Queens University. Since 2021, Belfast has been a UNESCO designated City of Music . The name Belfast derives from the Irish Béal Feirste ( Irish pronunciation: [bʲeːlˠ ˈfʲɛɾˠ(ə)ʃtʲə] ), "Mouth of
9144-563: The Monday edition and 16,453 for the Thursday edition This Northern Ireland newspaper-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Belfast Belfast ( / ˈ b ɛ l f æ s t / BEL-fast , /- f ɑː s t / -fahst ; from Irish : Béal Feirste [bʲeːlˠ ˈfʲɛɾˠ(ə)ʃtʲə] ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland , standing on
9271-499: The Rising's leaders, including Pearse, MacDonagh, Clarke and Connolly, and arrested some 3,000 political activists which led to widespread public sympathy for the rebel's cause. Following this example, physical force republicanism became increasingly powerful and, for the following seven years or so, became the dominant force in Ireland, securing substantial independence but at a cost of dividing Ireland . The Irish Parliamentary Party
9398-622: The Stewartstown Road toward Poleglass , became near-exclusively Catholic and, in political terms, nationalist. Reflecting the nature of available employment as mill workers, domestics and shop assistants, the population, initially, was disproportionately female. Further opportunities for women on the Falls Road arose through developments in education and public health. In 1900, the Dominican Order opened St Mary's [Teacher] Training College , and in 1903 King Edward VII opened
9525-509: The UK in 1922. Irish nationalists believe that foreign English and later British rule in Ireland from the 1169 English Norman Invasion of Ireland onwards has been detrimental to Irish interests. At the time of the partition of Ireland most of the island was Roman Catholic and largely indigenous, while a sizeable portion of the country, particularly in the north, was Protestant and chiefly descended from people of Great Britain who colonised
9652-603: The Union, or Irish self-government under the Crown. Catholic Emancipation was achieved, but self-government was not. O'Connell's movement was more explicitly Catholic than its eighteenth-century predecessors. It enjoyed the support of the Catholic clergy, who had denounced the United Irishmen and reinforced the association between Irish identity and Catholicism. The Repeal Association used traditional Irish imagery, such as
9779-633: The United Kingdom to remain a part of the European Union in the 23 June 2016 referendum in which the country as a whole voted to leave the union. The results in Northern Ireland were influenced by fears of a strong border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as well as by fears of a hard border breaking the Good Friday Agreement . Three significant events occurred in December 2019, February 2020 and May 2022, respectively. First,
9906-419: The War was going on. Critical in this regard were Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, and Thomas Clarke. These men were part of an inner circle that were operating in secret within the ranks of the IRB to plan this rising unknown to the rest of the volunteers. James Connolly, the labour leader, first intended to launch his own insurrection for an Irish Socialist Republic decided early in 1916 to combine forces with
10033-627: The banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel . It is the second-largest city on the island of Ireland (after Dublin ), with an estimated population of 348,005 in 2022, and a metropolitan area population of 671,559. First chartered as an English settlement in 1613, the town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians . Their descendants' disaffection with Ireland 's Anglican establishment contributed to
10160-485: The challenge to "unionist unity" posed by labour (industry had been paralysed by strikes in 1907 and again in 1919). Until "troubles" returned at the end of the 1960s, it was not uncommon in Belfast for the Ulster Unionist Party to have its council and parliamentary candidates returned unopposed. In 1932, the opening of the new buildings for Northern Ireland's devolved Parliament at Stormont
10287-482: The city centre. New "green field" housing estates were built on the outer edges of the city. The onset of the Troubles overwhelmed attempts to promote these as "mixed" neighbourhoods so that the largest of these developments on the city's northern edge, Rathcoole , rapidly solidified as a loyalist community. In 2004, it was estimated that 98% of public housing in Belfast was divided along religious lines. Among
10414-487: The coming decades will be persistent. The city is overlooked on the County Antrim side (to the north and northwest) by a precipitous basalt escarpment —the near continuous line of Divis Mountain (478 m), Black Mountain (389 m) and Cavehill (368 m)—whose "heathery slopes and hanging fields are visible from almost any part of the city". From County Down side (on the south and south east) it
10541-482: The communal interfaces , largely in the north and west of the city. The security barriers erected at these interfaces are an enduring physical legacy of the Troubles. The 14 neighbourhoods they separate are among the 20 most deprived wards in Northern Ireland. In May 2013, the Northern Ireland Executive committed to the removal of all peace lines by mutual consent. The target date of 2023
10668-514: The conflict (compared to c. 400 until then). For the first hundred years of its existence, Northern Ireland had a unionist majority, but had a large nationalist minority who would prefer to be part of a united Ireland . In Northern Ireland, the term "nationalist" is used to refer either to the Catholic population in general or to the supporters of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party . "Nationalism" in this restricted meaning refers to
10795-761: The country. They were sponsored by the French Republic , which was then the enemy of the Holy See . The United Irishmen led the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , which was repressed with great bloodshed. As a result, the Irish Parliament voted to abolish itself in the Act of Union of 1800 –01 and thereafter Irish Members of Parliament sat in London. Two forms of Irish nationalism arose from these events. One
10922-540: The deadlock was established in July 1917 by the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George , its members both nationalists and unionists tasked with finding a means of implementing Home Rule. However, Sinn Féin refused to take part in the convention as it refused to discuss the possibility of full Irish independence. The Ulster unionists led by Edward Carson insisted on the partition of six Ulster counties from
11049-500: The death and injury caused, they accelerated the loss of the city's Victorian fabric. Since the turn of the century, the loss of employment and population in the city centre has been reversed. This reflects the growth of the service economy , for which a new district has been developed on former dockland, the Titanic Quarter . The growing tourism sector paradoxically lists as attractions the murals and peace walls that echo
11176-587: The drilling and eventual arming of a 100,000-strong Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The immediate crisis was averted by the onset of the Great War . The UVF formed the 36th (Ulster) Division whose sacrifices in the Battle of the Somme continue to be commemorated in the city by unionist and loyalist organisations. In 1920–22, as Belfast emerged as the capital of the six counties remaining as Northern Ireland in
11303-712: The first time through local elections to democratically run local affairs previously under the control of landlord dominated " Grand Juries ", and William O'Brien founding the United Irish League that year, did the Irish Parliamentary Party reunite under John Redmond in January 1900, returning to its former strength in the following September general election . The first decade of the twentieth century saw considerable advancement in economic and social development in rural Ireland, where 60% of
11430-420: The first time, with Sinn Féin becoming the largest party, and the cross-community Alliance Party holding the balance of power. In the 2016 Brexit referendum , Belfast's four parliamentary constituencies returned a substantial majority (60 percent) for remaining within the European Union , as did Northern Ireland as a whole (55.8), the only UK region outside London and Scotland to do so. In February 2022,
11557-759: The government. By 1914, 75 per cent of occupiers were buying out their landlords' freehold interest through the Land Commission , mostly under the Land Acts of 1903 and 1909. O'Brien then pursued and won in alliance with the Irish Land and Labour Association and D.D. Sheehan , who followed in the footsteps of Michael Davitt, the landmark 1906 and 1911 Labourers (Ireland) Acts, where the Liberal government financed 40,000 rural labourers to become proprietors of their own cottage homes, each on an acre of land. "It
11684-597: The hierarchy of the Catholic Church were opposed to republican separatism on the grounds of its violent methods and secular ideology, while they usually supported non-violent reformist nationalism. Daniel O'Connell was the leader of the moderate tendency. O'Connell, head of the Catholic Association and Repeal Association in the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s, campaigned for Catholic Emancipation – full political rights for Catholics – and then Repeal of
11811-463: The land as settlers during the reign of King James I in 1609. Partition was along these ethno-religious lines, with most of Ireland gaining independence, while six northern counties remained part of the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists support Irish reunification . Generally, Irish nationalism is regarded as having emerged following the Renaissance revival of the concept of the patria and
11938-491: The land question had a nationalist resonance in Ireland as many Irish Catholics believed that land had been unjustly taken from their ancestors by Protestant English colonists in the 17th-century Plantations of Ireland . Indeed, the Irish landed class was still largely an Anglo-Irish Protestant group in the 19th century. Such perceptions were underlined in the Land league's language and literature. However, others would argue that
12065-564: The landing at Carrickfergus of William, Prince of Orange , who proceeded through the Belfast to his celebrated victory on 12 July 1690 at the Boyne . Together with French Huguenots , the Scots introduced the production of linen , a flax -spinning industry that in the 18th century carried Belfast trade to the Americas. Fortunes were made carrying rough linen clothing and salted provisions to
12192-510: The late 12th century, 11 miles (18 km) out along the north shore of the Lough, Carrickfergus was to remain the principal English foothold in the north-east until the scorched- earth Nine Years' War at the end of the 16th century broke the remaining Irish power, the O'Neills . With a commission from James I , in 1613 Sir Arthur Chichester undertook the Plantation of Belfast and
12319-556: The linen trade that had formerly gone through Dublin . Abolitionist sentiment, however, defeated the proposal of the greatest of the merchant houses, Cunningham and Greg , in 1786 to commission ships for the Middle Passage . As "Dissenters" from the established Anglican church (with its episcopacy and ritual), Presbyterians were conscious of sharing, if only in part, the disabilities of Ireland's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority; and of being denied representation in
12446-599: The other hand, claims that "early modern Irish nationalism" began to be established after the Flight of the Earls (1607), based on the concepts of "the indivisibility of Gaelic cultural integrity, territorial sovereignty, and the interlinking of Gaelic identity with profession of the Roman Catholic faith". The exclusively Protestant Parliament of Ireland of the eighteenth century repeatedly called for more autonomy from
12573-695: The poet John McDonald 's stated aim was "to hasten, as far as in my power lay, Ireland's deliverance". Other organisations promoting the Irish language or the Gaelic Revival were the Gaelic League and later Conradh na Gaeilge . The Gaelic Athletic Association was also formed in this era to promote Gaelic football , hurling , and Gaelic handball ; it forbade its members to play English sports such as association football , rugby union , and cricket . Most cultural nationalists were English speakers, and their organisations had little impact in
12700-498: The population continued to speak English. The cultural Gaelic aspect did not extend into actual politics; while nationalists were interested in the surviving Chiefs of the Name , the descendants of the former Gaelic clan leaders, the chiefs were not involved in politics, nor noticeably interested in the attempt to recreate a Gaelic state. Although Parnell and some other Home Rulers, such as Isaac Butt , were Protestants, Parnell's party
12827-468: The population lived. The introduction of local self-government in 1898 created a class of experienced politicians capable of later taking over national self-government in the 1920s. The Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 (the Wyndham Act), passed largely through the efforts of William O'Brien, abolished landlordism , and made it easier for tenant farmers to purchase lands, financed and guaranteed by
12954-627: The post" voting system did not win a proportional share of seats. Unionists (including Unionist Labour) votes were 305,206 (30.2%) The Sinn Féin MPs refused to take their seats in Westminster, 27 of these (the rest were either still imprisoned or impaired) setting up their own Parliament called the Dáil Éireann in January 1919 and declared the Irish Republic to be in existence. Nationalists in
13081-541: The principal landmarks of north Belfast are the Crumlin Road Gaol (1845) now a major visitor attraction, Belfast Royal Academy (1785) - the oldest school in the city, St Malachy's College (1833), Holy Cross Church, Ardoyne (1902), Waterworks Park (1889), and Belfast Zoo (1934). In the mid-19th century rural poverty and famine drove large numbers of Catholic tenant farmers, landless labourers and their families toward Belfast. Their route brought them down
13208-408: The redeveloped Harbour Estate , from film. It retains a port with commercial and industrial docks, including a reduced Harland & Wolff shipyard and aerospace and defence contractors. Post Brexit , Belfast and Northern Ireland remain, uniquely, within both the British domestic and European Single trading areas for goods. The city is served by two airports: George Best Belfast City Airport on
13335-629: The religious struggle between the ideology of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation . At this early stage in the 16th century, Irish nationalism represented an ideal of the native Gaelic Irish and the Old English banding together in common cause, under the banner of Catholicism and Irish civic identity ("faith and fatherland"), hoping to protect their land and interests from
13462-690: The remnants of the Blackstaff (Owenvarra) bog meadows. Belfast began stretching up-river in the 1840s and 50s: out the Ormeau and Lisburn roads and, between them, running along a ridge of higher ground, the Malone Road . From "leafy" avenues of increasingly substantial (and in the course of time "mixed") housing, the Upper Malone broadened out into areas of parkland and villas. Further out still, where they did not survive as public parks, from
13589-543: The rest of Ireland, stating that the 1916 rebellion proved a parliament in Dublin could not be trusted. The convention's work was disrupted in March 1918 by Redmond's death and the fierce German spring offensive on the Western Front, causing Britain to attempt to contemplate extending conscription to Ireland. This was extremely unpopular, opposed both by the Irish Parliamentary Party under its new leader John Dillon ,
13716-399: The south of Ireland, impatient with the lack of progress on Irish self-government, tended to ignore the unresolved and volatile Ulster situation, generally arguing that unionists had no choice but to ultimately follow. On 11 September 1919, the British proscribed the Dáil, which had met nine times by then, declaring it an illegal assembly, Ireland being still part of the United Kingdom. In 1919,
13843-582: The standoff was resolved with an agreement to eliminate routine checks on UK-destined goods. Belfast is at the mouth of the River Lagan at the head of Belfast Lough open through the North Channel to the Irish Sea and to the North Atlantic . In the course of the 19th century, the location's estuarine features were re-engineered. With dredging and reclamation, the lough was made to accommodate
13970-614: The streets in August 1969, the British Army committed to the longest continuous deployment in its history, Operation Banner . Beginning in 1970 with the Falls curfew , and followed in 1971 by internment , this included counterinsurgency measures directed chiefly at the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) who characterised their operations, including the bombing of Belfast's commercial centre, as
14097-432: The surrounding area, attracting mainly English and Manx settlers. The subsequent arrival of Scottish Presbyterians embroiled Belfast in its only recorded siege: denounced from London by John Milton as "ungrateful and treacherous guests", in 1649 the newcomers were temporarily expelled by an English Parliamentarian army. In 1689, Catholic Jacobite forces, briefly in command of the town, abandoned it in advance of
14224-413: The town at the Battle of Antrim and to the south at the Battle of Ballynahinch . Britain seized on the rebellion to abolish the Irish Parliament, unlamented in Belfast, and to incorporate Ireland in a United Kingdom . In 1832, British parliamentary reform permitted the town its first electoral contest – an occasion for an early and lethal sectarian riot. While other Irish towns experienced
14351-546: The uncertainty caused by the decline of the city's Victorian-era industries, contributed to growing protest, and counter protest, in the 1960s over the Unionist government 's record on civil and political rights. For reasons that nationalists and unionists dispute, the public protests of the late 1960s soon gave way to communal violence (in which as many as 60,000 people were intimidated from their homes) and to loyalist and republican paramilitarism . Introduced onto
14478-490: The use of force, but he could do little to affect the cycle of violence between IRA guerrillas and Crown forces that emerged over 1919–1920. The military conflict produced only a handful of killings in 1919, but steadily escalated from the summer of 1920 onwards with the introduction of the paramilitary police forces, the Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division into Ireland. From November 1920 to July 1921, over 1000 people died in
14605-473: The violence of the past. In recent years, "Troubles tourism" has presented visitors with new territorial markers: flags, murals and graffiti in which loyalists and republicans take opposing sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . The demographic balance of some areas has been changed by immigration (according to the 2021 census just under 10% of the city's population was born outside
14732-406: The west faced the prospect of another famine in the harsh winter of 1879. At first, the Land League campaigned for the " Three Fs " – fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure. Then, as prices for agricultural products fell further and the weather worsened in the mid-1880s, tenants organised themselves by withholding rent during the 1886–1891 Plan of Campaign movement. Militant nationalists such as
14859-407: The yard of Harland & Wolff the ill-fated RMS Titanic , at the time of her launch in 1911 the largest ship afloat. Other major export industries included textile machinery, rope, tobacco and mineral waters. Industry drew in a new Catholic population settling largely in the west of the town—refugees from a rural poverty intensified by Belfast's mechanisation of spinning and weaving and, in
14986-521: Was a radical movement, known as Irish republicanism . It believed the use of force was necessary to found a secular, egalitarian Irish republic, advocated by groups such as the Young Irelanders , some of whom launched a rebellion in 1848. The other nationalist tradition was more moderate, urging non-violent means to seek concessions from the British government. While both nationalist traditions were predominantly Catholic in their support base,
15113-744: Was allegedly sworn into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood in May 1882. However, the fact that he chose to stay in Westminster following the expulsion of 29 Irish MPs (when those in the Clan expected an exodus of nationalist MPs from Westminster to set up a provisional government in Dublin) and his failure in 1886 to support the Plan of Campaign (an aggressive agrarian programme launched to counter agricultural distress), marked him as an essentially constitutional politician, though not averse to using agitational methods as
15240-596: Was among the highest in United Kingdom. In the spring of 1941, the German Luftwaffe appeared twice over Belfast. In addition to the shipyards and the Short & Harland aircraft factory, the Belfast Blitz severely damaged or destroyed more than half the city's housing stock, and devastated the old town centre around High Street. In the greatest loss of life in any air raid outside of London, more than
15367-667: Was discredited after Home Rule had been suspended at the outbreak of World War I, in the belief that the war would be over by the end of 1915, then by the severe losses suffered by Irish battalions in Gallipoli at Cape Helles and on the Western Front . They were also damaged by the harsh British response to the Easter Rising, who treated the rebellion as treason in time of war when they declared martial law in Ireland. Moderate constitutional nationalism as represented by
15494-472: Was divided over the attitude of their leadership to Ireland's involvement in World War I. The majority followed John Redmond in support of the British and Allied war effort, seeing it as the only option to ensure the enactment of Home Rule after the war, Redmond saying "you will return as an armed army capable of confronting Ulster's opposition to Home Rule". They split off from the main movement and formed
15621-827: Was limited by the prospect of partition of Ireland between north and south. This idea had first been mooted under the Second Home Rule Bill in 1893. In 1912, following the entry of the Third Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons, unionists organised mass resistance to its implementation, organising around the " Ulster Covenant ". In 1912 they formed the Ulster Volunteers , an armed wing of Ulster Unionism who stated that they would resist Home Rule by force. British Conservatives supported this stance. In addition, in 1914 British officers based at
15748-548: Was notable for being both inclusive and nationalist as many of its members were descended from the Anglo/Irish minority. Many other nationalists such as Samuel Neilson , Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet were also descended from plantation families which had arrived in Ireland since 1600. From Grattan in the 1770s to Parnell up to 1890, nearly all the leaders of Irish separatism were Protestant nationalists . Modern Irish nationalism with democratic aspirations began in
15875-574: Was overshadowed by the protests of the unemployed and ten days of running street battles with the police. The government conceded increases in Outdoor Relief , but labour unity was short lived. In 1935, celebrations of King George V 's Jubilee and of the annual Twelfth were followed by deadly riots and expulsions, a sectarian logic that extended itself to the interpretation of darkening events in Europe. Labour candidates found their support for
16002-528: Was overwhelmingly Catholic. At local branch level, Catholic priests were an important part of its organisation. Home Rule was opposed by Unionists (those who supported the Union with Britain), mostly Protestant and from Ulster under the slogan, "Home Rule is Rome Rule ." At the time, some politicians and members of the British public would have seen this movement as radical and militant. Detractors quoted Charles Stewart Parnell's Cincinnati speech in which he claimed to be collecting money for "bread and lead". He
16129-503: Was passed with only a small number dismantled. The more affluent districts escaped the worst of the violence, but the city centre was a major target. This was especially so during the first phase of the PIRA campaign in the early 1970s, when the organisation hoped to secure quick political results through maximum destruction. Including car bombs and incendiaries, between 1969 and 1977 the city experienced 2,280 explosions. In addition to
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