Arthur O'Neill (1726 or 1734 – October 1816) was an Irish harper, a virtuoso player of the Irish harp or cláirseach : he was active during the final decades of its unbroken instrumental tradition in the later 18th and very early 19th century. He was closely associated with Edward Bunting , and the Belfast Harp Society 's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to preserve the instrument, attending the Belfast Harper's Assembly and serving as the Society's harp tutor until 1813. He is best known for his lively and humorous memoir, collected by Bunting, which contained many reminiscences of famous harpers (such as Carolan ) and of the environment in which they played.
94-549: The Belfast Harp Society (1808–1813) and its successor, the Irish Harp Society (1819–1839), were philanthropic associations formed in the town of Belfast , Ireland , for the purpose of sustaining the music and tradition of itinerant Irish harpists, and secondarily, of promoting the study of the Irish language, history, and antiquities. For its patronage, the original society drew upon a diminishing circle of veterans of
188-546: A Catholic relation of the earls of Antrim ) whom O'Neill had tutored, Bunting again brought O'Neill to Belfast as tutor for the Belfast Harp Society . The society's subscribers included many who attended the 1792 and had been associated with the Society of United Irishmen, among them Dr. William Drennan ; Francis, John, and Mary Ann, McCracken , brothers and sister to Henry Joy McCracken who had been hanged as
282-468: A Miss Reilly, of having "an improper connection" with another student. While she was cleared on investigation, the scandal was followed up by the dismissal of two of O'Neill's class as being "incapable by nature of learning the harp". Subscribers began to withdraw their support. A season of six fund-raising balls held under the patronage of the Marchioness of Donegall failed to make up the loss. In 1813,
376-540: 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
470-447: 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
564-654: A moment been forgotten or unattended to. The contributors, by all accounts, have now the satisfaction of knowing, that they have effectually restored the ancient melodies, the nearly lost airs of the Emerald Isle, by the encouragement given by them to the long–neglected and forgotten Harper. The News Letter conceded that the Society's friends in Ireland, were not able "to contend" with the generosity with which its patrons in India responded to such reports. It noted that while
658-524: A number of blind children in playing the Irish harp, and also procuring and disseminating information relative to the language, history and antiquities of Ireland. Heading the list of 191 people pledging for this purposes between one guinea and twenty guineas annually, was town's proprietor, the Marquess of Donegall . The president was Earl O'Neill . Yet among the subscribers in the largely Presbyterian town were many who, as United Irishmen , had challenged
752-544: A parliamentary election. Failing to commit himself on an issue that increasingly was to associate interest in Irish culture with Catholic-majority separatism, repeal of the Act of Union , he lost by a wide margin. In 1856, The Illustrated London News , reported that the "ancient national music of Ireland is kept alive by a few practitioners of a very humble kind, who wander about in their own country chiefly playing to parties assemble in taverns". The only "gentleman harper" remaining
846-566: 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
940-565: A rebel in "'98"; Thomas McCabe ; and brothers William and Robert Tennent. Although some controversy attended his treatment by the society, which struggled financially, in 1813 O'Neill retired on a pension provided by the James MacDonnell to County Tyrone. He died in late October 1816 in Maydown, County Armagh , and was buried near his birthplace, in the churchyard at Eglish . The historic, probably 18th-century harp known as
1034-532: 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 the Lough shore and Belfast International Airport 15 miles (24 kilometres) west of the city. It supports two universities: on
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#17327760757221128-456: 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
1222-607: 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
1316-465: A while only a sort of galvanised vitality. The selection of blind boys, without any greater regard for their musical capacities than the possession of the organ of hearing, for a calling which doomed them to a wandering life, depending for existence mainly if not wholly on the sympathies of the poorer classes, and necessarily conducive to intemperate habits, was not a well-considered benevolence, and should never have had any fair hope of success. In 1818, it
1410-441: 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
1504-589: 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
1598-439: Is known to have studied from Charles Vallency's Irish grammar), and by her Gaeilgeoir friends, and fellow subscribers, the poet Mary Balfour of Limavady and the brothers Samuel and Andrew Bryson. Dr MacDonnell, Robert James Tennent (the son of Robert Tennent), and the engineer Alexander Mitchell contributed to an additional subscription to support Cody's efforts. Cody used William Neilson's newly published Introduction to
1692-533: Is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland , standing on 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,
1786-556: 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
1880-480: 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,
1974-659: 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,
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#17327760757222068-655: 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
2162-772: 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
2256-733: 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
2350-747: 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
2444-916: 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
2538-602: The Trinity College Harp , then known as " Brian Boru Harp", and which was then owned by a Counsellor McNamara, the Recorder of Limerick. At the latter's request O'Neill said that he played it through Limerick city: and was followed by a procession of upwards of five hundred people, both gentle and simple. They seemed to be every one imbibed with the national spirit, when they heard it was the instrument that our celebrated Irish monarch played upon, before he routed
2632-552: 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
2726-594: 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)
2820-610: 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 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
2914-585: 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
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3008-474: The " King of Oudh ") died in 1837, and the "benevolent, liberal and patriotic" impetus behind the "Bengal subscription" appears to have been spent. In 1839, the Society closed its academy in Cromac Street. The Irish scholar and folklorist Robert Shipboy MacAdam , tried but failed to revive the society in the years that followed. John McAdam, the Society's secretary (and fluent Irish speaker), noted there
3102-458: 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
3196-478: 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
3290-399: 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
3384-406: 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 the United Kingdom , these twice erupted in periods of sustained violence: in 1920–22 , as Belfast emerged as the capital of
3478-562: 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
3572-512: The Belfast Reading Society): James MacDonnell , Henry Joy, Robert Bradshaw and Robert Simms . Encouraged by MacDonnell and supported by his adoptive family, McCrackens, the musician and collector Edward (Atty) Bunting notated the music of the ten performers. In 1808, he was appointed musical director of the new society, with Mary Ann McCracken acting informally as his secretary. Bunting's master tutor
3666-468: 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
3760-726: The Danes at Clontarf, out of poor Erin. The Lord be merciful to you Brian Borou. I hope in God, I will tune your harp again in your presence in heaven, and if it should be the case, upon my honour and conscience I will not play the tunes of the "Protestant Boys" or " July the First'; but I would willingly play "God Save the King," and that would be yourself, Brian. In July 1792, the musician and collector Edward (Atty) Bunting . Bunting brought O'Neill to Belfast's first Harp Festival . This had been staged for
3854-493: The HHSI seeks return "to the world the true sound of the oldest Irish music". For this purpose, the Society brings together artists and audiences, players and tutors, researchers and experts, and harp makers and organologists. 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] )
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3948-573: The Harp and Ancient Music of Ireland". As O'Neill was then three years dead, the funds were devoted to a renewed effort employing O'Neill's former pupils. The new Irish Harp Society procured a small number of harps and again selected pupils, "without reference to religious distinctions", from among "the blind and the helpless". In 1823, the new master was Valentine Rainey (sometimes "Rennie") of Cushendall . He had been committed to O'Neill as pupil by James MacDonnell, and had performed for King George IV on
4042-487: The Irish Language . In December of that year, O'Neill was led by his twelve blind pupils into dinner marking publication of the second volume of Bunting 's Ancient Music of Ireland. Met "with most enthusiastic applause", their musical performances were celebrated as a triumph. From this highpoint, the affairs of the Society did not run smoothly. In February 1810, O'Neill laid charges against his only female pupil,
4136-630: 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
4230-819: 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. Arthur O%27Neill (harpist) O'Neill said he was born in Drumnastrade townland in the parish of Clonfeacle, County Tyrone , around 1737. He
4324-578: The Society's financial difficulties and of O'Neill's plight ("the last Minstrel of Erin, unfriended, exigent, and bent in years") were submitted in June and November 1814 to the Belfast Commercial Chronicle . Eventually these reached Irish expatriates in the then capital of British India , Calcutta . As a result, almost five years later former members of the board found themselves in receipt of subscription of more than £1,000 "to revive
4418-622: 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
4512-617: The aristocracy and their Anglican establishment . The Society was chaired by Gilbert McIlveen , a founding member of the United Irishmen and counted on the support of Dr. William Drennan who as author of the United Irish test or pledge had called for the "union of power among Irishmen of every religious persuasion"; Drennan's sister and political confidant, Martha McTier ; Francis, John, and Mary Ann McCracken , brothers and sister to Henry Joy McCracken who in 1798 had led
4606-583: The benefit of the Belfast Charitable Society but coincided with the town's Bastille Day celebrations, complete with parades by local Volunteer corps, and resolutions in favour of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform . The festival was widely interpreted as an expression of a new republican-tinged patriotism. In 1808, with the support of Dr James MacDonnell and his brother Alexander (the Presbyterian sons of Michael Roe,
4700-488: The benefit of the Belfast Charitable Society but coincided with the town's Bastille Day celebrations. These had been complete with parades by local Volunteer corps , and resolutions, carried by the new-formed United Irishmen, in favour of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform . The 1792 Harp Festival had been organised, again, by members of the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge (known then as
4794-485: 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
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#17327760757224888-482: 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
4982-459: The city, but then faded along with Trotter's personal finances. He went bankrupt in 1812. Arthur O'Neill retired to County Tyrone on a £30 pension volunteered by James MacDonnell and his brother Alexander, both of whom had themselves been instructed on the harp by O'Neill in their youth. To the consternation of those who had come to regard the blind harper as a national treasure, the Society itself had made no provision for his final years. Accounts of
5076-487: 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
5170-549: 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
5264-500: 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
5358-427: 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
5452-420: 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,
5546-404: 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
5640-400: 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
5734-493: 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
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#17327760757225828-417: The new society ceased its activity. Inaugurated at meeting held St. Patrick's Day, 1808, the Belfast Harp Society was an initiative of members of the Society for Promoting Knowledge (the Linen Hall Library) . Rules were drawn up by the town physicians James MacDonnell , Samuel Bryson and Robert Tennent . The declared aims were: preserving the national music and national instrument of Ireland by instructing
5922-421: 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 the Farset " a river whose name in the Irish, Feirste, refers to a sandbar or tidal ford. This
6016-414: The occasion of his visit to Ireland in 1821. The News Letter , 15 April 1828, published a glowing tribute to the Society's academy, and of "the inimitable Rainey", that had appeared in the Calcutta newspaper The Bengal Hurkaru and Chronicle : We can confidently assure the friends and benevolent supporters of the patriotic and humane establishment, that the prosperity of the Institution has never for
6110-399: The patriotic and reform politics of the 1780s and 1790s, among them several unrepentant United Irishmen . In its sectarian division, Belfast became increasingly hostile to Protestant interest in distinctive Irish culture. The society reconvened as the Irish Harp Society in 1819 only as a result of a large and belated subscription raised from expatriates in India. Once that source was exhausted,
6204-474: 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
6298-442: The rebels who killed Earl O'Neill's father in battle at Antrim and was subsequently hanged; Robert Tennent's brother William , a former state prisoner; and Thomas McCabe , whose son William Putnam McCabe was forced into French exile after seeking with Robert Emmet to renew the republican insurrection in 1803. The creation of the society harkened back to Belfast's first Harp Festival in July 1792. This had been staged for
6392-460: 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
6486-520: The resident Whig grandee, the Marquis of Downshire , "with his usual characteristic patriotism, in the encouragement of every thing useful and liberal" made an annual subscription of £10, the list of subscribers in India was headed by the Governor General , the late Marquess of Hastings , at more than £31, and by a further eight of "our patriotic countrymen" (army officers for the most part), each contributing more than £12. Rainey, who "on liberal terms" had been invited to India (according to Bunting, by
6580-414: 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 the redeveloped Harbour Estate , from film. It retains a port with commercial and industrial docks, including
6674-460: The school closed. The difficulties of the Society were compounded by the arrest in August 1813 of its treasurer, Robert Tennent . Pushing forward at a town meeting to protest the killing of two counter-demonstrators (who happened to be Protestants, likely Presbyterians) by a relatively new element in the life of the town, parading Orangemen , Tennent was accused of assaulting Lord Donegall's brother-in-law and Anglican vicar of Belfast, Edward May. He
6768-533: The secretary of the radical Whig, Charles James Fox ) brought to the Irish capital a man who vied with Arthur O'Neill for consideration as "the last of the ancient race of harpers", Patrick Quinn, a blind harper from Portadown who owned the Otway harp. Inaugurated in July 1809, society counted among its benefactors, Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Moore . Within two months it had mounted a grand " Carolan Commemoration" in
6862-584: The sight of both". He began instruction on the harp at the age of ten with Owen Keenan of Augher , and by the time he was fifteen became an itinerant musician. His memoir consists largely of descriptions of journeys he undertook around the country, including several accounts of competitions at which he played, interspersed with broadly humorous anecdotes. He was aware that some of these anecdotes, or his estimation of other harpers' characters, might cause offence (he described Arthur Short of Tyrone, for example, as "but an indifferent performer [...] very peevish [...] I
6956-582: 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
7050-554: 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
7144-432: 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
7238-532: 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
7332-413: The town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians . Their descendants' disaffection with Ireland 's Anglican establishment contributed to 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
7426-546: 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
7520-473: 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
7614-407: 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
7708-499: The year 1835, the "'fad' went out". Charles Egan's workshop in Dublin, the main supplier, went out of business. Irish harp was ousted in both country houses, and popular meeting places, by the pianoforte and violin. Already, in 1792, the top premium in the festival had gone to Charles Fanning playing, "with modern variations", The Coolin , a piece of music at that time much in request by the pianoforte's young practitioners, and in 1796 it
7802-697: Was Patrick Byrne , of Farney, County Monaghan , who some years previously had had the honour of performing before the Queen Victoria at Balmoral. Byrne had graduated from the Irish Harp School in Belfast in 1821. A core mission of the Belfast harp societies has been resumed, since 2002, by the Historical Harp Society of Ireland in Kilkenny. Rediscovering the older wire-stringed harp of the kind played by O'Neill and Rainey,
7896-660: 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
7990-545: Was as arrangements for the piano forte that Bunting first published his festival transcriptions. Other currents may also have been running against interest in the harp and its patriotic symbolism. Robert Tennent's son, Robert James Tennent , a subscriber to the Irish Harp Society, took up the first opportunity provided by Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1832 to challenge the nominees of Lord Donegall in
8084-460: Was blinded as the result of an accident early in life: "At the age of two years I was diverting myself with a pen-knife which pierced my right eye, but was not deprived of the sight of it immediately. I had a Grandmother who loved me to excess, and she, perceiving my eye in danger, sent everywhere for Oculists and Doctors to cure me. I had to submit to all their prescriptions, and the result was, that in their efforts to cure one eye, I unfortunately lost
8178-521: 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
8272-546: Was informed he was about a hundred times married") but admitted he cared "not a pin" who might read the memoir. His chief musical rival was his friend Charles Fanning , who beat him at each of the Granard Harp Festivals in 1781–3 (O'Neill jokingly claimed that the first loss was due to him having worn his best clothes, leading the judges to think the shabbily-dressed Fanning more deserving of the prize). O'Neill claimed to have, in his youth, restrung and played
8366-470: Was not sufficient local interest to sustain its activity. In the wake of the Act of Union and subsequent removal of many landowning families to England, the gentry in Ireland were "too scarce, and too little national, to encourage itinerant harpers, as of old." McAdam was also to suggest that, "like all other fashions," "the taste and fashion of music ... must give way to novelty.” From 1809 Irish harps were purchased by many titled women in Ireland. But after
8460-574: 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
8554-503: 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
8648-469: Was reported that “several blind minstrels educated in the seminary at Belfast" were "wandering through different parts of the country", and, by "affording a pleasing and harmless amusement to the people who hear them", were able to support themselves. The Belfast Harp Society was the model for, and was briefly to survive, the Harp Society in Dublin. John Bernard Trotter from Downpatrick (who had been
8742-478: Was sentenced to three months. The Irish antiquary, George Petrie , argued that the Society had been flawed in conception: The effort of the people of the North to perpetuate the existence of the harp in Ireland by trying to give a harper's skill to a number of poor blind boys was at once a benevolent and a patriotic one; but it was a delusion. The harp at the time was virtually dead, and such effort could give it for
8836-512: Was the most celebrated of the 1792 performers, Arthur O'Neill of Dungannon , now 75. O'Neill was to instruct poor children from the age of ten, blind like himself, with a view both to preserving his musical legacy and, as harpists, to save his charges from a life of destitution. In July 1809, the Society extended its programme to include classes in the Irish language . Provided by James Cody, these were particularly welcome by Mary Ann McCracken (who
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