79-469: Andersonstown , known colloquially as Andytown , is a suburb of west Belfast , Northern Ireland , at the foot of the Black Mountain and Divis Mountain. It contains a mixture of public and private housing and is largely a working-class area with a strong Irish nationalist and Irish Catholic tradition. The district is sometimes colloquially referred to as "Andytown". This area stretches between
158-642: A Church of Ireland church stands on the corner of the Stewartstown Road here) with Lenadoon Avenue forming an interface. In 1972 this street was the scene of violence that brought an end to a short-lived Provisional IRA ceasefire. Several houses were left empty in the street until the IRA accompanied a Catholic family into one after the family's move had been approved by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive . This attracted
237-476: A crowd of UDA members and supporters who attacked the houses and before long the British Army arrived on the scene. A stand-off followed for several days until the IRA decided to accompany another removal lorry with another Catholic family into the street but at the last moment the army, fearing a riot, rammed the vehicle with an armoured car. The republican supporters erupted in an angry display, resulting in
316-540: 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
395-426: A lecturer at Queen's University Belfast and an Irish Republican Socialist Party activist, was found tied up and shot dead at her home in the area. The murder was widely blamed on loyalist paramilitaries, but no group ever claimed responsibility. Kieran Doherty , a Teachta Dála who was one of the ten republican prisoners to die during the 1981 Irish hunger strike , was a native of Andersonstown. Andersonstown
474-447: 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
553-566: 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
632-532: 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
711-456: 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
790-548: A student at the New University of Ulster , Devlin joined a civil rights march from Belfast to Derry , organised by the People's Democracy . At Burntollet Bridge, a few miles from Derry, the march was attacked by loyalists . Devlin was struck on the head, knocked unconscious, fell into the river, and was brought to hospital suffering from concussion. The march was echoed in her 1994 play After Easter . At university, Devlin
869-607: 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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#1732790714516948-612: Is bounded by Andersonstown Road and the M1 Motorway to the rear south side. Ladybrook is adjacent to the Blacks Road area which is the only predominantly loyalist section of what is otherwise a mostly republican locality. The area, also known as Suffolk, the name of the townland , is home to around 800 Protestants and is represented by the Suffolk Community Forum, a group which since 1996 has co-operated in
1027-441: 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
1106-589: 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
1185-538: Is home to both Sport & Leisure Swifts F.C. and St. Teresa's GAC, with the two clubs grounds being almost adjacent to one another. The local newspaper, the Andersonstown News , voices an Irish Republican viewpoint. Produced by the Belfast Media Group, which also publishes papers in other areas of the city, editions appear on Mondays and Thursdays. The district is also the subject of
1264-619: Is situated at the junction of Stewartstown and Andersonstown Roads. St Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School and the All Saints College are located on the upper Glen Road . Casement Park , the main Gaelic Athletic Association stadium for Antrim GAA , is in Andersonstown. Donegal Celtic F.C. , an association football club, play their home games at Donegal Celtic Park on Suffolk Road on
1343-533: 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,
1422-817: Is the main area beyond the Falls Road although it is bordered by several other areas that form the Upper Falls District Electoral Area . On the south side of the Andersonstown Road the main district is Ladybrook , which is approximately bordered by Finaghy Road North (which leads to the Finaghy area and the Upper Lisburn Road ) and the M1 motorway . Riverdale Estate was built in the 1940s to accommodate both privately bought and privately rented tenants. This area
1501-556: 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
1580-480: 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,
1659-659: 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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#17327907145161738-596: 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
1817-772: 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
1896-733: 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
1975-747: 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
2054-916: 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
2133-552: 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
2212-594: 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)
2291-550: 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
2370-585: 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
2449-458: 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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2528-533: 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
2607-399: 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
2686-406: 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
2765-562: 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
2844-468: 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
2923-685: 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
3002-831: 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. Anne Devlin (writer) Anne Devlin (born 13 September 1951) is a short story writer, playwright and screenwriter born in Belfast , Northern Ireland . She
3081-682: The Shaws Road, the Glen Road and the Andersonstown Road. The area is in County Antrim . Historically, it was part of the Barony of Belfast Upper, the parish of Shankill and the townland of Ballydownfine (from Irish Baile Dúin Finn 'townland of the fort of Finn'). The area was also known as Whitesidetown after the family that owned the land, but they were dispossessed for
3160-962: The Stewartstown Road and the Glen Road, represented the western edge of the Belfast City Council area. After the Suffolk Road junction Stewartstown Road entered the jurisdiction of Lisburn City Council , heading towards Poleglass and the surrounding areas. However following the reform of local government in Northern Ireland that preceded the 2014 local elections these areas were absorbed into an expanded Belfast City Council. 54°34′42″N 5°59′38″W / 54.57833°N 5.99389°W / 54.57833; -5.99389 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] )
3239-554: 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
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3318-534: The Suffolk Lenadoon Interface Group with its Catholic neighbours. The close proximity of Suffolk to neighbouring republican areas has led to the development of an interface area at the junction with the Stewartstown Road (which the Andersonstown Road merges at the junction with Shaw's Road). The interface, which is close to the fortified Woodbourne Police Service of Northern Ireland barracks, has seen numerous clashes between youths from
3397-622: The areas. The barracks are on the site of the former Woodbourne House Hotel, which was destroyed in the earliest days of the Troubles. To the north of the Stewartstown Road is the Lenadoon area, which is bordered by Shaw's Road. Lenadoon includes an eponymous public park which was redesigned in 2000. Lenadoon was previously a mixed area and indeed in the early stages of the Troubles the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)
3476-485: 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
3555-426: 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
3634-425: 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
3713-482: 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
3792-500: 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
3871-587: 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
3950-420: 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,
4029-404: 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
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#17327907145164108-400: 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
4187-493: 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
4266-618: The north and Shaw's Road on the west. The Black Mountain district electoral area consists of six electoral wards: Shaw's Road, Andersonstown, Colin Glen, Turf Lodge, Falls Park and Beechmount. The electoral ward named Andersonstown and that named Shaw's Road covers the area of Andersonstown. In 2008, Andersonstown ward had a population of 5,064. There are five Catholic churches in the area: St Agnes' and St. Michael's and St Teresa's, St Matthias', and Holy Spirit Church. There are several schools including Holy Child Primary School and De La Salle College . St Genevieve's High School for girls
4345-421: 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
4424-441: The novel Titanic Town by Mary Costello and the movie adaptation by Anne Devlin . The area is part of the Black Mountain district electoral area for Belfast City Council. In the 2014 Belfast City Council election this district elected five Sinn Féin councillors, as well as one councillor each for the SDLP and People Before Profit . In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the area was a major centre of civil disturbances during
4503-414: The outskirts of Andersontown. In 1990, an Irish Cup game between Donegal Celtic and Linfield F.C. , a club with a mainly Protestant following, was moved away from the area on the orders of police due to fears that violence would break out. The game was played at Windsor Park , but despite the move a riot broke out anyway. On the Glen Road, the path that leads into the mountains known as Glen Road Heights
4582-474: 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
4661-460: 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
4740-414: 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
4819-421: The scene of the Ballymurphy massacre and Springhill massacre . On 5 April 1979, two British Army soldiers were shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) whilst closing security gates at Andersonstown joint Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army base. The PIRA in Andersonstown was part of the First Battalion of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade . On 26 June 1980, Miriam Daly ,
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#17327907145164898-432: The social-political conflict known as The Troubles . A large British army fort – known as Silver City – was built in the central Broom Hill part of Andersonstown. There was generally less strife than in, for instance, neighbouring districts such as Lenadoon, which in 1972 saw clashes between the IRA and Ulster Defence Association and a subsequent demographic shift in the estate from Protestant to Catholic, and Ballymurphy ,
4977-458: The soldiers firing rubber bullets, CS gas and water cannons. The Provisionals accused the army and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw of going back on earlier negotiations and favouring the loyalists. By the evening of the event the IRA announced an end to its ceasefire as a direct response to events at Lenadoon and a gun battle with the army and UDA ensued. The Glengoland area, which borders on Colin Glen Forest Park between
5056-403: 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
5135-413: 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
5214-404: The support they gave to the Society of United Irishmen , resulting in a change of name. In 1832, it was described as a village consisting of eleven families, some of whom were named Anderson . The Andersons are likely to have been of Scottish Lowland descent. Most of what is now Andersonstown was a farm named 'Maryburne', owned by a family named Collins; however, after a family dispute the land
5293-432: 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
5372-413: 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
5451-413: 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
5530-491: 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
5609-403: 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
5688-407: 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
5767-644: Was a teacher from 1974 to 1978, and started writing fiction in 1976 in Germany . Having lived in London for a decade, she returned to Belfast in 2007. She is the daughter of Paddy Devlin , a Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and later a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). She was raised in Belfast. In January 1969, while
5846-479: Was active in the area but following the street violence of the early 1970s Protestants moved out and the area became almost wholly Catholic. The Suffolk Road area lies further west and is home to Donegal Celtic. Suffolk includes Blacks Road and as a result is a source of conflict between rival gangs of youths. The area around Suffolk Road was previously considered part of the Protestant Suffolk area (and
5925-660: 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
6004-521: 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
6083-574: 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
6162-503: 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
6241-412: Was sold off. The settlement then rapidly developed in the 1950s and 1960s as the local housing authority built hundreds of houses for people who were rehoused during the redevelopment of the lower Falls Road district. As the population of the area increased, Twinbrook and Poleglass housing estates were built further out of Belfast. The area is bounded by Andersonstown Road on the south, Glen Road on
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