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98-660: Divis Tower is a 19-floor, 200-foot (61 m) tall tower in Belfast , Northern Ireland . It is located in Divis Street, which is the lower section of the Falls Road . It is currently the fifteenth-tallest building in Belfast . The tower was built in 1966 as part of the now-demolished Divis Flats complex, which comprised twelve eight-storey blocks of terraces and flats, named after the nearby Divis Mountain . The tower,

196-643: A Catholic former British Army soldier, with whom she had ten children. After being intimidated out of a Protestant district by loyalists in 1969, the McConville family moved to West Belfast's Divis Flats in the Lower Falls Road . Arthur died from cancer in January 1972. At the time of her death, Jean McConville lived at 1A St Jude's Walk, which was part of the Divis Flats complex. This

294-615: A bomb hidden in a drainpipe along a balcony, killing British soldier Kevin Waller, who was aged 20, and two boys, Stephen Bennet (14) and Kevin Valliday (12); three other civilians and another British soldier were injured in the blast. Following the IRA's statement that it was ending its armed campaign, the Army decided to dismantle the observation post, dubbed a 'spy' post by Sinn Féin . Removal of

392-540: 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

490-679: A father and daughter find the protagonist lying unconscious in the street, injured by bomb shrapnel, they carry him to their home in the building and tend to his wounds. Only then do they realise he is a soldier, which presents problems for all three of them. Divis Flats and Divis Tower feature in numerous photographs of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Divis Tower was featured in the BBC Northern Ireland sitcom Give My Head Peace . The characters of Da, Cal, Ma, and for

588-447: 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

686-566: 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

784-532: 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

882-401: 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

980-519: A team of RUC detectives was established to review the cases of all those who were thought to have been kidnapped during the conflict. In 1999, the IRA gave information on the whereabouts of her body. This prompted a prolonged search, co-ordinated by the Garda Síochána , the Republic of Ireland 's police force, but no body was found. On the night of 26 August 2003, a storm washed away part of

1078-607: 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

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1176-549: A transmitter had been found in her flat. A report by the Police Ombudsman found no evidence for this or other rumours. Before the Troubles , the IRA had a policy of killing informers within its own ranks. From the start of the conflict the term informer was also used for civilians who were suspected of providing information on paramilitary organisations to the security forces. Other Irish republican and loyalist paramilitaries also carried out such killings. As she

1274-639: A vertical complex of 96 flats housing approximately 110 residents, was designed by architect Frank Robertson for the Northern Ireland Housing Trust . The site on which the Tower stands was previously the location of the Sir Charles Lanyon -designed Falls Road Methodist Church, which opened in 1854 and closed in 1966. The site was sold to Belfast Corporation for approximately £11,000. A television documentary has been made about

1372-757: A while Dympna and Emer, all nationalists, lived in "Flat 47A, Divis Tower". Divis Tower and the surrounding residential areas feature prominently in Patrick Radden Keefe 's 2018 book Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland , a book about the murder of Jean McConville during The Troubles. It is also featured in Michael Magee's book 'Close to Home' published in 2023. 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] )

1470-441: 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

1568-589: 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

1666-584: Is taking place." In a later interview on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 , he stated that he knew the names of those who had abducted and killed his mother, but that: "I wouldn't tell the police [PSNI]. If I told the police now a thing, me or one of my family members or one of my children would get shot by those [IRA] people. It's terrible that we know those people and we can't bring them to justice." Patrick Radden Keefe 's 2018 book Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland focuses on

1764-533: 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,

1862-556: 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

1960-480: 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,

2058-659: 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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2156-597: 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

2254-772: 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

2352-733: 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

2450-747: 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

2548-916: 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

2646-552: 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

2744-594: 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)

2842-610: 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

2940-585: 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

3038-458: 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

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3136-533: 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

3234-399: 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

3332-406: 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

3430-562: 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

3528-496: The British Military Reaction Force (MRF). After her disappearance, McConville's seven youngest children, including six-year-old twins, survived on their own in the flat, cared for by their 15-year-old sister Helen. According to them, the hungry family was visited three weeks later by a stranger, who gave them McConville's purse, with 52  pence and her three rings in it. On 16 January 1973,

3626-619: The British Army was paying her for information about republicans. Hughes claims that, because of her circumstances, they let her go with a warning. However, he claims when the IRA found she had resumed working for the British Army, it decided to "execute" her. Usually the bodies of informers were left in public as a warning, but the IRA secretly buried McConville, apparently because she was a widowed mother of ten. The IRA had first done this two months earlier, when it killed and buried two IRA members who were alleged to be working undercover for

3724-468: 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

3822-672: The Good Friday Agreement and Sinn Féin's support of it. They saw Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams as a traitor for negotiating the agreement and persuading the IRA to end its campaign. In 2010, after Hughes's death, some of his statements were published in the book Voices from the Grave . He claimed McConville had admitted being an informer, and that Adams ordered her disappearance. In a 2010 newspaper interview, Price also claimed Adams ordered her to participate in McConville's kidnapping. Price, who died in 2013, said she gave

3920-482: The IRA had killed her for being an informer. The Guardian newspaper said that she was killed because neighbours claimed they saw her helping a badly wounded British soldier outside her home; McConville's children say they recall her helping a wounded British soldier some time before their father died in January 1972. In a 2014 interview published in the Sunday Life , former Irish republican Evelyn Gilroy claimed

4018-685: 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

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4116-762: 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. Murder of Jean McConville Jean McConville ( née Murray ; 7 May 1934 – 1 December 1972) was a woman from Belfast, Northern Ireland , who

4214-541: The PSNI began a legal bid to gain access to the tapes. Acting on a request from the PSNI, the United States Justice Department tried to force Boston College to hand them over. Boston College had promised those interviewed that the tapes would not be released until after their deaths, and other interviewees said they feared retribution if the tapes were released. Following a lengthy court battle,

4312-455: The PSNI was given transcripts of interviews by Hughes and Price. In March and April 2014, the PSNI arrested a number of people over the kidnapping and killing of Jean McConville. Ivor Bell , former IRA Chief of Staff, was arrested in March 2014. Shortly afterwards, he was charged with aiding and abetting in her murder. In April, the PSNI arrested three people who were teenagers at the time of

4410-481: The PSNI, Adams voluntarily arranged to be interviewed at Antrim PSNI Station. He was arrested and questioned for four days before being released without charge. A file was sent to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to decide whether further action should be taken, but there was "insufficient evidence" to charge him. The arrest took place during an election campaign. Sinn Féin claimed that

4508-622: 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

4606-477: The Troubles in 2001, called the Belfast Project . It recorded interviews with republicans and loyalists about their involvement in the conflict, on the understanding that the tapes would not be released until after their deaths. Two of the republican interviewees, Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, both now deceased, admitted they were involved in McConville's kidnapping. Both became diehard opponents of

4704-490: The [IRA] because she is an informer". In March 1973, information was received from the British Army, saying the kidnapping was an elaborate hoax and that McConville had left of her own free will. As a result, the RUC refused to accept that McConville was missing, preferring to believe an anonymous tip that she had absconded with a British soldier. The first investigation into her kidnapping appears to have taken place in 1995, when

4802-557: The border. McConville was killed by a gunshot to the back of the head; there was no evidence of any other injuries to her body. Her body was secretly buried across the border on Shelling Hill Beach (also known as Templetown Beach) at the south-eastern tip of the Cooley Peninsula in the north of County Louth , about 50 miles (80 km) from her home. The place of her death is uncertain. Although no group admitted responsibility for her disappearance, there were rumours that

4900-651: The building was referred to as the "Planet of the Irps" (in reference to the film Planet of the Apes ; IRSP supporters are referred to as "Irps") Nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, the first child killed in the Troubles, was killed in the tower during the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 , when the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) fired a Browning machine gun from a Shorland armoured car into

4998-413: 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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5096-426: 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

5194-425: 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

5292-403: 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

5390-436: 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

5488-427: 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

5586-442: The embankment supporting the west side of Shelling Hill Beach car park, near the site of previous searches. This exposed the body. On 27 August, it was found by passersby while they were walking on Shelling Hill Beach (also known as Templetown Beach) in County Louth, at the south-eastern tip of the Cooley Peninsula. McConville was subsequently reburied beside her husband Arthur in Holy Trinity Graveyard in Lisburn . In April 2004

5684-426: The families whose loved ones were killed and buried by the IRA". In August 2006, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Sir Hugh Orde , stated that he was not hopeful anyone would be brought to justice over the murder, saying "[in] any case of that age, it is highly unlikely that a successful prosecution could be mounted." Boston College had launched an oral history project on

5782-420: 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,

5880-496: The flats. The RUC claimed that it was coming under sniper attack from the tower at the time. Rooney's death occurred during a day of street violence in the area. Chairman of the enquiry into the riots, Mr Justice Scarman , found the use of the Browning machine gun "wholly unjustifiable". On 12 May 1981, an Army sniper killed INLA member Emmanuel McClarnon from the top of Divis Tower, on the night that Francis Hughes died on hunger strike. In September 1982, an INLA unit detonated

5978-415: The history of the Troubles starting from McConville's death. According to Keefe, Dolours Price told Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre that three IRA volunteers were present at McConville's killing: former Unknowns commander Pat McClure, Price and a third volunteer whom Price alleged fired the fatal shot. However, Moloney and McIntyre refused to tell Keefe who this person was, as the volunteer was still alive at

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6076-434: The incident to the RUC and the British Army. However, the Police Ombudsman did not find any trace of an investigation into the kidnapping during the 1970s or 1980s. An officer told the Ombudsman that CID investigations in that area of Belfast at that time were "restricted to the most serious cases". On 2 January 1973, the RUC received two pieces of information stating: "it is rumoured that Jean McConville had been abducted by

6174-499: The inquest into McConville's death returned a verdict of unlawful killing. In 2006 the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland , Nuala O'Loan , published a report about the police's investigation of the murder. It concluded that the RUC did not investigate the murder until 1995, when it carried out a minor investigation. It found no evidence that she had been an informer, but recommended the British Government go against its long-standing policy regarding informers and reveal whether she

6272-404: The interviews as revenge against Adams. Former republican prisoner Evelyn Gilroy, who lived near McConville, claimed Adams was an IRA commander and the only person who could have ordered the killing. Adams has denied any role in the death of McConville. He said "the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family". In 2011,

6370-417: The kidnapping: a 56-year-old man and two women, aged 57 and 60. All were released without charge. Following Bell's arrest in March, there was media speculation that police would want to question Gerry Adams due to the claims made by Hughes and Price. Adams maintained he was not involved, but had his solicitor contact the PSNI to find whether they wanted to question him. On 30 April, after being contacted by

6468-409: The killing of McConville was not a crime, saying that she had been executed as a spy in a war situation. This prompted Irish journalist Fintan O'Toole to write a rebuttal, arguing that the abduction and extrajudicial killing of McConville was clearly a "war crime by all accepted national and international standards". The IRA has since issued a general apology, saying it "regrets the suffering of all

6566-502: The killing, McConville's orphaned son Billy was sent to De La Salle Brothers Boys' Home, Rubane House, Kircubbin , County Down , notorious for child abuse; he testified in 2014 to the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry , describing repeated sexual and physical abuse, and starvation, saying "Christians looking after young boys – maybe they were Christians, but to me they were devils disguised in that uniform." Within two days of her kidnapping, one of her sons reported

6664-404: 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

6762-400: 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

6860-493: 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

6958-403: The months leading up to her death, tension and suspicion grew between McConville and her neighbours. One night shortly before her disappearance, she was allegedly attacked after leaving a bingo hall and warned to stop giving information to the British Army. According to police records, on 29 November 1972 a British Army unit found a distressed woman wandering in the street. She told them her name

7056-594: 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

7154-586: The observation post commenced on 2 August 2005. In 2009, the top two floors of the tower were reinstated as residential properties. As part of a £1.1 million refurbishment programme by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive , eight extra flats were provided. Both Divis Tower and the former Divis Flats have featured in multiple works of popular culture. In the film '71 , new recruits to the British Army, who are deployed in Belfast, are told never to enter Divis Flats. However, when

7252-491: The person who had tended to the soldier was her [Gilroy's] sister. The IRA did not admit involvement until after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement . It claimed she was killed because she was passing information about republicans to the British Army. Former IRA member Brendan Hughes claimed the IRA had searched her flat some time before her death and found a radio transmitter, which they confiscated. He and other former republicans interrogated her and claimed she admitted

7350-541: 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

7448-690: 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

7546-414: 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

7644-582: 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

7742-530: The story of the abduction appeared on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph , under the headline "Snatched mother missing a month". The following day, the children were interviewed on the BBC television programme Scene Around Six . The children reported to the social services , and were immediately brought into local council care. The family was split up by social services. Among the consequences of

7840-554: 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

7938-432: 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

8036-407: The time. In the last chapter of his book he claimed to identify the third volunteer. Say Nothing was released on Hulu and Disney+ on 14 November 2024. Jean McConville was portrayed by Judith Roddy. Michael McConville said that "The portrayal of the execution and secret burial of my mother is horrendous and unless you have lived through it, you will never understand just how cruel it is", it

8134-514: The timing of the arrest was politically motivated; an attempt to harm the party's chances in the upcoming elections. Alex Maskey said it was evidence of a "political agenda [...] a negative agenda" by elements of the PSNI. Jean McConville's family had campaigned for the arrest of Adams over the murder. Her son Michael said: "Me and the rest of my brothers and sisters are just glad to see the PSNI doing their job. We didn't think it would ever take place [Mr Adams' arrest], but we are quite glad that it

8232-544: The tower. In response to Provisional IRA and INLA activity in the area, the British Army constructed an observation post on the roof in the 1970s and occupied the top two floors of the building. At the height of the Troubles , the Army was only able to access the post by helicopter . Divis Tower was a flashpoint area during the height of the Troubles. A stronghold of the Irish Republican Socialist Party and Irish National Liberation Army ,

8330-532: 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

8428-413: 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

8526-546: 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

8624-473: 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

8722-407: 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

8820-443: Was McConville and that she had been attacked and warned to stop informing. One of McConville's children claimed she was kidnapped the night after this incident, but others gave the date of the kidnapping as 7 December. On the night of her disappearance, four young women took McConville from her home at gunpoint, and she was driven to an unknown location. Dolours Price claimed that she was one of those involved in driving her across

8918-487: Was a recently-widowed mother of ten, the McConville killing was particularly controversial. Her body was not found until 2003, and the crime has not been solved. The Police Ombudsman found that the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not begin to investigate the disappearance properly until 1995. Jean Murray was born on 7 May 1934 to a Protestant family in East Belfast but converted after marrying Arthur McConville,

9016-660: 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

9114-626: Was an IRA stronghold, from which attacks were regularly launched against the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Since the death of her husband, she had been raising their ten children, who were aged between six and twenty. Their son Robbie was a member of the Official IRA and was interned in Long Kesh at the time of her death. He defected to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1974. In

9212-521: 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

9310-504: Was kidnapped and murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and secretly buried in County Louth in the Republic of Ireland in 1972 after being accused by the IRA of passing information to British forces. In 1999, the IRA acknowledged that it had killed McConville and eight others of the " Disappeared ". It claimed she had been passing information about republicans to the British Army in exchange for money and that

9408-532: Was one. Journalist Ed Moloney called for the British Government to release war diaries relating to the Divis Flats area at the time. War diaries are usually released under the thirty-year rule , but those relating to Divis at the time of McConville's death are embargoed for almost ninety years. The police have since apologised for its failure to investigate her abduction. In January 2005, Sinn Féin party chairman Mitchel McLaughlin claimed that

9506-574: 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

9604-503: 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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