100-600: The McMahon killings or the McMahon murders occurred on 24 March 1922 when six Catholic civilians were shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast , Northern Ireland . A group of police officers broke into their house at night and shot all eight males inside, in an apparent sectarian attack. The victims were businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others were shot but survived, and
200-604: A barman . The women were Owen's wife Eliza, her daughter and her niece. At about 1:20 am, the gang used the sledgehammer to break down the door of the McMahon household. Owen's wife, Eliza, said that four of the men wore police caps and carried revolvers while another wore civilian clothes. John McMahon, one of Owen's sons, said "Four of the five men were dressed in the uniform of the RIC but, from their appearance, I know they are Specials , not regular RIC". The Nationalist newspaper The Irish News also conducted an enquiry and came to
300-540: 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
400-649: A female family member was assaulted. The survivors said most of the gunmen wore police uniform and it is suspected they were members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It is believed to have been a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army 's (IRA) killing of two policemen on May Street, Belfast the day before. Northern Ireland had been created ten months before, in the midst of the Irish War of Independence . A truce ended
500-554: A history of active Irish republicanism and surrounded by Loyalist areas saw much violence during the Troubles . The few remaining Protestants left the area in the early 1970s as it came under increasing attack by Loyalists. They were replaced by Catholics intimidated from Loyalist areas of Belfast. The McGurk's Bar bombing occurred in the area on 4 December 1971 in North Queen Street; after initially being blamed on
600-447: 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
700-531: A meeting in London between Irish republican leader Michael Collins and Sir James Craig , Prime Minister of Northern Ireland , both to try to stop the IRA violence which Collins had been tacitly encouraging and supporting, and to pressure Craig to provide more protection for Catholics. Craig denied the nationalist assertion that the McMahon killings were part of an anti-Catholic pogrom on behalf of state forces, telling
800-566: 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
900-668: A quarter of households in the New Lodge own their own homes, with the vast majority renting from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive or other social landlords. 40.4% of local 16-year-olds gained five or more good GCSEs in 2002, well below the Northern Ireland average, but higher than most similarly deprived areas in England. 27.7% of 18-year-olds went on to further or higher education in
1000-483: A similar conclusion on the identity of the killers: "it was generally accepted that the members were, of the part-time wholly Protestant, 'B' Class of the Special Constabulary". All of the men had hidden their faces. The four men in police uniform rushed up the stairs and herded the males into the dining room. The women were taken into another room. Eliza "got down on her knees and pleaded for mercy, but
1100-479: A similar incident in Belfast known as the " Arnon Street killings ", in which five Catholics were killed by uniformed police who broke into their homes; allegedly in revenge for the killing of a policeman. In total, 452 people would be killed in Belfast in the conflict between June 1920 and July 1922 – 267 Catholics and 185 Protestants. No one was ever prosecuted for the killings but District Inspector John Nixon of
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#17327944726141200-423: A small anonymous minority set out to kill". The McMahon killings are believed to have been a reprisal for the IRA's killing of two USC men in Belfast. On 23 March 1922, constables Thomas Cunningham and William Cairnside were patrolling Great Victoria Street in the city centre when they were approached by a group of IRA members and shot dead. Two Catholics, Peter Murphy (61) and Sarah McShane (15), were shot dead in
1300-449: A sniper. Despite this daily life proceeded and the area benefitted from housing improvement and slum clearance during the 1980s, with new high standard public housing. However, despite this, the improvement in the general economic situation and the IRA and Loyalist ceasefires of 1994, depopulation continued apace as people left for the suburbs. In recent years, Northern Ireland has become an attractive destination for many immigrants from
1400-401: 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
1500-596: A suspected reprisal attack several hours later in the Catholic Short Strand area by unidentified gunmen. The McMahon family had no links to any paramilitary violence. Owen McMahon was a supporter and personal friend of Joe Devlin , the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) Member of Parliament (MP), an Irish nationalist who rejected republican violence. McMahon was a prosperous businessman, who owned several pubs in Belfast (one of which
1600-607: 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
1700-402: Is also an electoral ward of Belfast City Council . The area now known as the New Lodge was once open farmland within the original 17th-century city walls of the town of Belfast. The name of the area probably derives from the farm lodge at Solitude, now the location of the home ground of Cliftonville F.C. The Old Lodge Road, now largely demolished, ran from Peter's Hill to the bottom of
1800-441: 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
1900-589: 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
2000-647: Is quite close to all amenities including the City Centre, the Mater Hospital and Cityside (Yorkgate) Shopping Centre. A previous attempt was made to establish a local supermarket at the Ashton Centre however this failed after the opening of the Yorkgate complex in 1991. In common with similar areas, much local cultural and social life revolves around the pub scene, in the New Lodge itself and in
2100-425: Is the second-largest city on the island of Ireland (after Dublin ), with an estimated population of 348,005 in 2022, and a metropolitan area population of 671,559. First chartered as an English settlement in 1613, the town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians . Their descendants' disaffection with Ireland 's Anglican establishment contributed to the rebellion of 1798 , and to
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#17327944726142200-556: 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
2300-480: 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,
2400-714: 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,
2500-655: 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
2600-772: 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
2700-725: The Farset " a river whose name in the Irish, Feirste, refers to a sandbar or tidal ford. This was formed where the river ran—until culverted late in the 18th century, down High Street— into the Lagan. It was at this crossing, located under or close to the current Queen's Bridge, that the early settlement developed. The compilers of Ulster-Scots use various transcriptions of local pronunciations of "Belfast" (with which they sometimes are also content) including Bilfawst , Bilfaust or Baelfawst. The site of Belfast has been occupied since
2800-549: The Good Friday Agreement , the electoral balance in the once unionist -controlled city has shifted, albeit with no overall majority, in favour of Irish nationalists . At the same time, new immigrants are adding to the growing number of residents unwilling to identify with either of the two communal traditions. Belfast has seen significant services sector growth, with important contributions from financial technology ( fintech ), from tourism and, with facilities in
2900-733: 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
3000-672: The Irish War of Independence , Ireland was partitioned under British law, creating Northern Ireland . In July 1921, a truce was agreed between representatives of the Irish Republic and the British Government, ending the war in most of Ireland. Under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, most of Ireland would become the Irish Free State , while Northern Ireland could choose to remain part of
3100-658: The Oldpark Road , while the New Lodge Road would have continued along the line of the modern Cliftonville Road. With Belfast's explosive expansion as an industrial city in the 19th century, the New Lodge developed as a built up, inner-city area; its residents came from both the Protestant and Catholic communities. The area between Lepper Street and the Antrim Road was largely filled with slum housing for
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3200-747: 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
3300-490: The Parliament of Northern Ireland that, "no such thing has ever been the policy of Protestants here ... The Ulster men are up against, not Catholics but ... up against rebels, that they are up against murder, Bolshevism and up against those enemies not only of Ulster but of the [British] Empire". The killings were part of a series of reprisals on Catholics for IRA attacks in Belfast and elsewhere. The following week saw
3400-788: The Provisional Irish Republican Army , it was claimed by the Ulster Volunteer Force . As a stronghold of the Third Battalion of the Provisional IRA 's Belfast Brigade , rioting and gun battles between the IRA and the British Army and loyalist paramilitaries were almost daily occurrences during the early 1970s and other periods of high political tension such as the 1981 Irish hunger strike and occurred sporadically during
3500-639: The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was accused of involvement by historians Tim Pat Coogan and Éamon Phoenix . Nixon was later forced to step down from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (the force that succeeded the RIC in June 1922), albeit on full pension, in 1924 after being heard giving (in breach of police regulations) a political speech to an Orange Order meeting saying that, "not an inch of Ulster should be yielded" to
3600-916: 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
3700-546: The Shankill Road area were behind the killings. This has never been proved, but historian Éamon Phoenix , of Stranmillis College in Belfast, has said there is "strong circumstantial evidence" that District Inspector John Nixon was responsible. Historian Tim Pat Coogan also believes the police were responsible. An inquiry was carried out by the Department of Defence of the Irish Free State, but not by
3800-552: 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
3900-431: The United Kingdom , these twice erupted in periods of sustained violence: in 1920–22 , as Belfast emerged as the capital of the six northeast counties retaining the British connection, and over three decades from the late 1960s during which the British Army was continually deployed on the streets. A legacy of conflict is the barrier-reinforced separation of Protestant and Catholic working-class districts. Since
4000-432: The United Kingdom , with the final border being decided by a boundary commission . Violence continued in Northern Ireland after the truce. In the first half of 1922, in the words of historian Robert Lynch, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), "would make one final attempt to undermine the ever hardening reality of partition by launching an all out offensive on the recently established province of Northern Ireland". To counter
4100-594: 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)
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4200-585: 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
4300-493: The union with Great Britain in 1800 — later regarded as a key to the town's industrial transformation. When granted city status in 1888, Belfast was the world's largest centre of linen manufacture, and by the 1900s her shipyards were building up to a quarter of total United Kingdom tonnage. Sectarian tensions accompanied the growth of an Irish Catholic population drawn by mill and factory employment from western districts. Heightened by division over Ireland's future in
4400-458: 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
4500-533: 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
4600-399: 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
4700-562: 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
4800-529: The 20th century. Victoria Barracks , a major British army barracks, was an important feature of the area. The only remnants of it are the street name where about 10 former officers' houses remain in use today, the old barrack wall (on North Queen Street beside the police station) and the former army gym, now a social centre known locally as "The Recy." The New Lodge was heavily damaged in the Belfast Blitz in 1941, in which many streets were laid waste by
4900-468: 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
5000-692: The Carlisle estate and Henry Street. Seamus Lynch was elected for the Republican Clubs and their successor parties between 1977 and 1993 and a social club for supporters of the Workers Party and Official IRA survived until the late 80s. While the housing stock is now largely of a high standard, and the Belfast economy has improved dramatically from the nadir of the 1980s, the New Lodge remains an area of considerable social deprivation. The Northern Ireland Index of Multiple Deprivation lists
5100-597: The Free 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] ) 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
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#17327944726145200-401: The IRA, the new unionist Government of Northern Ireland established the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC), a quasi-military reserve police force to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The USC had a mutually hostile relationship with Irish nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland. Lynch writes of the USC: "some were polite and courteous, others merely arrogant and destructive whilst
5300-454: The Kingdom , Volunteer corps were soon pressing their own protest against "taxation without representation". Further emboldened by the French Revolution , a more radical element in the town, the Society of United Irishmen , called for Catholic emancipation and a representative national government. In hopes of French assistance, in 1798 the Society organised a republican insurrection. The rebel tradesmen and tenant farmers were defeated north of
5400-456: 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. New Lodge, Belfast The New Lodge ( Irish : An Lóiste Nua ) is an urban, working class Catholic community in Belfast , Northern Ireland , immediately to
5500-449: The Lough shore and Belfast International Airport 15 miles (24 kilometres) west of the city. It supports two universities: on the north-side of the city centre, Ulster University , and on the southside the longer established Queens University. Since 2021, Belfast has been a UNESCO designated City of Music . The name Belfast derives from the Irish Béal Feirste ( Irish pronunciation: [bʲeːlˠ ˈfʲɛɾˠ(ə)ʃtʲə] ), "Mouth of
5600-405: The New Lodge as the fifth most deprived of 581 wards in Northern Ireland, and the second most deprived in terms of income. The high score comes in spite of it being the least deprived of the 581 in terms of access to services, lying on the edge of the city centre and with major health and education facilities nearby. 70.8% of the local school population are entitled to free school meals. Less than
5700-414: The New Lodge moved to new housing developments in suburban areas like Ballymurphy , New Barnsley , Rathcoole and Glengormley . In the 1950s, the army barracks was closed and the area was redeveloped with a mixture of low-rise and tower block buildings. Much of the population of the Sailortown area of Belfast's docklands moved here in the 1960s. The New Lodge, on the edge of the city centre, with
5800-441: The Northern Ireland authorities. A 1924 Free State report alleged that twelve policemen, whom the report identified by name, had carried out the McMahon murders, as well as several other attacks on Catholics. The killings caused outrage among Belfast's Catholic population and over 10,000 people attended the funerals of those killed. The funerals of Owen, Gerard, Frank and Patrick were held on Sunday, 26 March. The British Army lined
5900-490: 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
6000-399: The attack by hiding behind furniture and pretending to be hit. John McMahon (30) survived despite serious gunshot wounds. Eliza McMahon raised the alarm by opening the drawing room window and shouting "Murder! Murder!" A matron at an adjoining nursing home was alerted and phoned the police and an ambulance. It has been alleged that a group of policemen operating out of Brown Square Barracks in
6100-413: 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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#17327944726146200-426: 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
6300-425: 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
6400-403: 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
6500-432: The concentrated bombing on the nearby factories, mills and army barracks; Burke Street, which ran between Dawson and Annadale streets was completely levelled in the 15-16 April Easter Tuesday raid, with all its inhabitants killed. The subsequent destruction of large swathes of housing stock began a process of movement to the suburbs and depopulation which continues to the present. After the Second World War , many people from
6600-436: 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
6700-417: The developing world and Eastern Europe, with the New Lodge seeing immigration from Poland , Latvia and Lithuania since the expansion of the European Union in 2004. The Dock Ward was one of 15 wards of Belfast City Council prior to 1973. Its boundaries were the Antrim Road, Clifton Street, North Queen St, Great George's Street and Brougham Street. From 1973 to 1985 the eastern boundary of the New Lodge ward
6800-427: 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
6900-420: 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,
7000-404: 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
7100-400: 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
7200-556: The linen trade that had formerly gone through Dublin . Abolitionist sentiment, however, defeated the proposal of the greatest of the merchant houses, Cunningham and Greg , in 1786 to commission ships for the Middle Passage . As "Dissenters" from the established Anglican church (with its episcopacy and ritual), Presbyterians were conscious of sharing, if only in part, the disabilities of Ireland's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority; and of being denied representation in
7300-492: The mourners to practise "patience and forbearance" and not to seek revenge. Irish Nationalist Party MP Joe Devlin told the British Parliament, "If Catholics have no revolvers to protect themselves they are murdered. If they have revolvers they are flogged and sentenced to death". David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill , worried that the violence would collapse the new Northern Ireland administration, organised
7400-631: The nearby Docks area. Live rock , blues , techno and Irish traditional music are regularly performed. The New Lodge Festival was devised as an alternative to the traditional Internment Night bonfire, which often led to violence. The festival is linked to the West Belfast Festival and Ardoyne fleadh and sees a wide range of musical events, children's activities, amateur sport and historical and cultural discussions. Many local people are passionate football fans. Gaelic football and boxing are also popular – Hugh Russell , who won
7500-420: The north of the city centre . The landscape is dominated by several large tower blocks. The area has a number of murals , mostly sited along the New Lodge Road. The locality is demarcated by Duncairn Gardens, Antrim Road , Clifton Street, and dependent on opinion, York Street or North Queen Street. North Queen Street and Duncairn Gardens have often seen rioting between republicans and loyalists . The New Lodge
7600-620: The post-War years, the New Lodge was historically the political stronghold of Gerry Fitt . The co-terminous Stormont parliamentary constituency was the most marginal constituency, changing hands at every election until 1965. It was won by the Ulster Unionist Party in 1929, Northern Ireland Labour Party in 1933, Unionists in 1938, NILP in 1945, Unionists in 1949, Irish Labour in 1953, Unionists in 1958, Irish Labour (Gerry Fitt) in 1962, and Republican Labour (Fitt again) in 1965 and 1969. The Westminster parliamentary constituency
7700-541: 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
7800-408: The redeveloped Harbour Estate , from film. It retains a port with commercial and industrial docks, including a reduced Harland & Wolff shipyard and aerospace and defence contractors. Post Brexit , Belfast and Northern Ireland remain, uniquely, within both the British domestic and European Single trading areas for goods. The city is served by two airports: George Best Belfast City Airport on
7900-690: 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
8000-457: The rest of that period. The area was vulnerable to attacks by Loyalist paramilitaries throughout the Troubles, particularly to drive-by shootings . The corner of the New Lodge Road and the Antrim Road was statistically the most dangerous spot to stand at in Northern Ireland. The last fatal IRA attack in the area before the ceasefire came in August 1992, when guardsman Damien Shackleton was killed by
8100-688: The route of the funeral procession – from north Belfast to Milltown Cemetery – anticipating it would be attacked. Edward McKinney was buried on the same day, Sunday, 26 March, in Cockhill Cemetery just outside Buncrana in his native Inishowen. At the funeral Mass for the victims at St Patrick's Church, Rev Father Bernard Laverty told the congregation that even the Black and Tans "had not been guilty of anything approaching this [crime] in its unspeakable barbarity". The McMahons had been "done to death merely because they were Catholics", but he told
8200-466: The same year. With increasing property prices in the Belfast area in recent years, a higher proportion of younger and better qualified people have stayed in the area with affordable property which is within walking distance of the city centre. The graveyard in Henry Place houses the graves of many people prominent in Belfast's history, most notably United Irishman Henry Joy McCracken The area
8300-582: 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
8400-413: 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
8500-432: 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
8600-514: The time, due to the daily violence in the city. At nearby Clifton Avenue they met three other men and the party of five proceeded to the home of Owen McMahon. Eight males and three women were in the house that night. The males were Owen, his six sons, and Edward McKinney. McKinney was from Desertegney, a parish just north of Buncrana in Inishowen , County Donegal . He worked for the McMahons as
8700-532: 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
8800-546: 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
8900-473: 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
9000-471: The war in most of Ireland ; but sectarian conflict in Belfast , and fighting in border areas, continued. Northern Ireland's police – especially the USC, which was almost wholly Protestant and unionist – were implicated in a number of attacks on Catholic and Irish nationalist civilians as reprisal for IRA actions. A week later, six more Catholics were killed in another reprisal attack . In May 1921, during
9100-534: The workers in the Lepper Mill, while the area between York Street and North Queen Street provided the same standard of accommodation for workers in the Gallagher tobacco factory and York Street Mill on York Street. The area between the New Lodge Road and Duncairn Gardens was historically occupied by the better-off working-class families, while Duncairn Gardens itself and Clifton Street were upmarket well into
9200-407: 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
9300-482: Was North Queen Street. The boundaries were extended to York Street and Clifton Park Avenue in 1985. In 1993 the Antrim Road boundary was restored with the Unity flats area added. These boundaries are used for census information. The Dock Ward of Belfast City Council mainly returned Unionists with slim majorities in the pre-War years, with Nationalists winning from the 1940s and becoming more dominant as time moved on. In
9400-767: Was The Capstan Bar on Ann Street) and had at one time been chairman of the Northern Vintners' Association. His home at Kinnaird Terrace, off the Antrim Road in north-central Belfast, near the New Lodge area, was described as a "sprawling Victorian mansion". However, one of the men killed at Kinnaird Terrace, Edward McKinney, an employee of the McMahon family, was subsequently and posthumously acknowledged to have been an IRA volunteer by IRA GHQ (General Headquarters). In his book, Donegal and The Civil War , Liam Ó Duibhir wrote that "His [McKinney's IRA] ... membership
9500-598: 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
9600-410: Was concealed after the killings as it would have given the police and the loyalist mob an opportunity to justify their actions." At about 1:00 am on 24 March 1922, two men wearing police uniforms seized a sledgehammer from a Belfast Corporation workman, who was guarding a building site at Carlisle Circus. The sledgehammer was later used to smash open the McMahon door. A curfew was in place at
9700-574: 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
9800-522: Was part of East Belfast until the 1974 elections and has formed part of North Belfast since then (although the areas east of North Queen Street were in West Belfast from 1983 to 1997). Politically, Sinn Féin now dominate the area although previously parts of the area were, along with the Lower Falls, one of the strongest areas for Official Republicanism in Belfast – especially the areas around
9900-503: 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
10000-543: Was struck on the side of the head and fell to the floor". When Owen asked why his family was being singled-out, one of the gunmen said it was because he was "a respected papist ". The gunmen said "you boys say your prayers", before opening fire. Five of the men were killed outright and two were wounded, one fatally. Owen McMahon (50), Gerard McMahon (15), Frank McMahon (24), Patrick McMahon (22) and Edward McKinney (25) were killed outright while Bernard McMahon (26) died later. The youngest McMahon son, 12-year-old Michael, survived
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