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82-782: Civil Rights groups in Northern Ireland in the 1960s had campaigned for the repeal of the Special Powers Act and the disbandment of the B-Specials. On 26 August 1969 Hunt was appointed to: examine the recruitment, organisation, structure and composition of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Ulster Special Constabulary and their respective functions and to recommend as necessary what changes are required to provide for

164-461: A British Navy hulk ( HMS Argenta ) which has been described as a "floating gulag ". Political violence had declined dramatically by 1925, and the government gradually shifted its emphasis from broad measures designed to return civil order to the province to more preventative regulations aimed at suppressing the threat posed by republican aspirations.' Regulations such as internment and the establishment of curfews were used far less, and those such as

246-540: 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

328-447: 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

410-566: 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

492-532: 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

574-456: 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

656-607: 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

738-418: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This law enforcement –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 The Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 (12 & 13 Geo. 5. c. 5 (N.I.)), often referred to simply as the Special Powers Act and known as the "Flogging Act",

820-441: 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

902-589: 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

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984-416: Is of such a nature as to give reasonable grounds for suspecting that he has acted or is acting or is about to act in a manner prejudicial to the preservation of the peace or maintenance of order'. The Irish politician Cahir Healy was interned for 18 months in 1922-23 and is quoted on the reasons he was interned: "All my life Ive been a man of peace. It is not therefore, because they feared that I would disturb

1066-533: 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,

1148-556: 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

1230-492: The 1981 Irish Hunger Strike and the death of MP Bobby Sands . Imprisonment under anti-terrorism laws specific to Northern Ireland continued until the 1998 Good Friday Agreement , but these laws required the right to a fair trial be respected. The Act encountered further controversy in the 1970s due to the deployment of the Army in Northern Ireland and its role in maintaining order and similar policing-style duties. In 1972,

1312-480: 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,

1394-659: 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,

1476-655: 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

1558-772: 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

1640-733: 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

1722-747: 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

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1804-916: 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

1886-627: The Ulster Unionist Party was the only party ever to form a government in this parliament, the Act was used 'almost exclusively on the minority population'. Initially, regulations under the Act were used mostly to curb immediate violence and disorder. One of the most controversial of these was internment without trial. Paragraph 23 of the Schedule allowed for the indefinite internment without warrant or trial of 'any person whose behaviour

1968-552: 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

2050-594: 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)

2132-610: 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

2214-585: 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

2296-458: 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

2378-533: 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

2460-665: The 1,981 men interned, only 107 were loyalists. Due to inadequate intelligence-gathering, many of the interned republicans were members of the Official IRA rather than the recently formed Provisional IRA , which was much more heavily involved in military activity at the time. Internment ended in 1975, but is credited with increasing support and sympathy for the PIRA amongst the Catholic community and outside of Northern Ireland. It helped to create political tensions which culminated in

2542-399: 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

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2624-406: 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

2706-562: 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

2788-405: The Act was initially current only for one year and had to be renewed annually. In 1928, however, it was renewed for five years and when this period expired in 1933 the Act was made permanent. According to John Whyte, this happened because, from 1925, nationalist MPs began sitting in the Stormont parliament which they had initially boycotted. Unsurprisingly, they objected strenuously to the renewal of

2870-470: The Act, and it was felt by the ( Ulster Unionist Party ) Minister of Home Affairs that it would be better to make the Act permanent than for Parliament annually to 'wrangle' over it. Despite rhetoric accompanying the Act which asserted that it was for the purpose of restoring public order, its provisions continued to be used for the entire period of the Northern Irish parliament's existence. Because

2952-468: 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

3034-610: The Home Affairs Minister to ban or re-route any 'non-traditional' procession if it was likely to lead to disorder. It was used primarily against nationalist parades and took over the function of controlling parades and processions from the Special Powers Act. This made it an offence to interfere with the display of the Union Jack on private property and enabled the police to remove any other flag if it

3116-782: The Irish government claimed that Northern Ireland was rightfully its territory. Partition was formally established with the Government of Ireland Act 1920 . This also established the Parliament of Northern Ireland , which came into being the following year. Partition was followed by high levels of inter-communal violence, especially in Belfast (see: The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922) ). The Irish Republican Army , although split into pro- treaty and anti-treaty factions, continued to use armed force, aiming to end partition and compel

3198-685: 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

3280-434: The Schedule included the closing of licensed premises; the banning in any area of meetings and parades in public places; the closing of roads; the taking of any land or property; and the destruction of any building. The Schedule also forbade the spreading by word of mouth or text any 'reports or... statements intended or likely to cause disaffection to subjects of His Majesty'. Because it was presented as emergency legislation,

3362-525: The Special Powers Act and demanded an official inquiry into the administration of Northern Ireland. Following the outbreak of the Troubles in 1968, many within the Protestant community called for the reintroduction of internment. This occurred in 1971 and authorised internment of those suspected to be involved in terrorism. Although there were loyalist as well as republican terrorists at this time, of

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3444-622: 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

3526-555: The United Kingdom to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The Act was presented as being necessary to re-establish peace and law and order in Northern Ireland, and enabled the government to 'take all such steps and issue all such orders as may be necessary for preserving the peace and maintaining order', although it was specified that the ordinary course of law should be interfered with as little as possible. The Act did allow that trial by jury could be superseded, inquests abolished and

3608-511: The banning of meetings and parades, and restrictions on the flying of the Irish tricolour became more common. Between 1922 and 1950, the government banned nearly 100 parades and meetings, the vast majority of which were nationalist or republican. No loyalist gathering was ever directly banned under the Act, although a few were caught in blanket bans against parades or meetings in a particular area. From 1922 until 1972, 140 publications were banned,

3690-413: 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

3772-426: 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

3854-487: 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

3936-482: 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

4018-500: 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

4100-455: The death penalty and flogging could be imposed for the possession of arms. The Home Affairs Minister ( Dawson Bates - in office 7 June 1921 – 6 May 1943) was empowered to make any regulation felt necessary to preserve law and order in Northern Ireland. Anyone who broke these regulations could be sentenced to up to a year in prison with hard labour, and in the case of some crimes, whipping . A special summary jurisdiction (court with no jury)

4182-587: 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

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4264-664: The efficient enforcement of law and order in Northern Ireland. Robert Mark was also a member of the committee. Hunt made 47 recommendations and 5 suggestions. These resulted in the reshaping of the Royal Ulster Constabulary , the disbandment of the Ulster Special Constabulary , and the formation of the Ulster Defence Regiment . This article related to government in the United Kingdom or its constituent countries

4346-483: 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,

4428-601: The government was forced to amend the Act in order to legalise the detention of internees arrested by soldiers. Martin Meehan had been arrested after escaping from Crumlin Road Jail and charged with escaping from lawful custody. At his trial he successfully argued that, under the Special Powers Act, a soldier had no power of arrest and, as such, he had the legal right to escape, and was awarded £800 in compensation for being illegally detained for twenty-three days. This enabled

4510-564: 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

4592-458: 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

4674-493: 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

4756-421: 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

4838-422: The peace of Northern Ireland that they dragged me away from my wife and family, but for political reasons. I have been engaged in preparing the case for the inclusion of these areas (Fermanagh and Tyrone) in the Free State. To get me out of the way, local politicians urged my arrest". In the period from May 1922 to December 1924, 700 republicans were interned under the Act. Many of the internees were imprisoned on

4920-474: 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

5002-479: The province of Ulster , were mostly Protestant , identified primarily as British (although many saw themselves as Irish and British), and were committed to remaining within the United Kingdom . In the years before World War I , both groups established armed militias intended to enforce their aims and protect their communities from the other side's militias. The British government resolved to partition Ireland in an effort to alleviate unionists and nationalists, with

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5084-460: 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

5166-414: 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

5248-456: The six most Protestant of the nine counties of Ulster forming Northern Ireland while the rest of Ireland achieved limited self-rule. This was accepted by most unionists as the best deal they were likely to get, but bitterly disappointed many nationalists, especially those who lived in the six counties that became Northern Ireland. Many nationalists on both sides of the border felt that their country had been unjustly divided, and for many decades

5330-403: 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

5412-413: 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

5494-432: 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

5576-413: 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

5658-413: 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

5740-491: 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

5822-405: The vast majority of which expressed republican viewpoints. The Act was also used against communist publications and recordings. Likewise the vast majority of groups banned under the Act were republican; the 1960s incarnation of the Ulster Volunteer Force was the only loyalist group to be made illegal in this way. After the troubles of the early 1920s had died down, the provision for internment

5904-473: 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

5986-407: 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

6068-596: 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

6150-440: Was an act passed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland during the partition of Ireland and shortly after the establishment of Northern Ireland . The Act was renewed annually and in 1928 was renewed for five years and made permanent in 1933 and not repealed until 1973. Its sweeping powers made it highly controversial, and it was seen by much of the Irish nationalist community as a tool of Ulster unionist oppression. The Act

6232-416: Was enabled to hear cases involving such crimes. The Home Affairs Minister was also permitted to forbid the holding of inquests if he felt this was required to preserve order and peace. The Schedule to the Act specified actions which the government could take in order to preserve peace, although the body of the Act enabled the government to take any steps at all which it thought necessary. Actions specified in

6314-670: Was eventually repealed by the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 , following the abolition of Northern Ireland's parliament and the imposition of direct rule by the British government . At the start of the twentieth century, the people of Ireland were divided into two mutually hostile factions. The much larger group ( nationalists ) were mostly Roman Catholic , identified primarily as Irish, and wanted some form of Irish home rule or independence from Britain. The smaller group ( unionists ), concentrated primarily in

6396-521: 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

6478-511: Was likely to cause public disorder. This act was primarily directed against displays of the Irish tricolour, although contrary to popular belief, it did not ban it. This was because it would have been legally very difficult for the Northern Irish government to ban the flag of a sovereign state. 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] )

6560-518: Was not used until the IRA's border campaign of the 1950s, in which several hundred republicans were interned. During this time British Labour Party MPs took up the case of the interned Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland. Labour MPs sent a telegram to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland , Basil Brooke demanding the release of the internees. Some British trade union branches protested against

6642-574: 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

6724-452: 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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