Belfast History: The Origins of a City

Belfast or, in Irish, Béal Feirste means “river mouth of the sandbanks”. It is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland and the second largest on the island of Ireland. By population, it is the fourteenth most significant city in the United Kingdom. Belfast is at the western end of Belfast Lough and the mouth of the River Lagan, the ideal location for the shipbuilding industry. When the Titanic was built in Belfast in 1911–1912, Harland and Wolff had the largest shipyard in the world.

Belfast is a centre for industry, arts, higher education, business, and law and is the economic engine of Northern Ireland. It has sustained a period of calm, free from the intense political violence of former years and substantial economic and commercial growth. Also, Belfast city centre has undergone considerable expansion and regeneration in recent years.

From Docks to Conflict: Belfast History and Memories

The history of the city goes back to the Iron Age, but its status as a significant urban centre dates to the 18th century. Belfast was a major commercial and industrial centre, but the late 20th century saw a decline in its traditional industries, particularly shipbuilding. The city’s history is marked by violent conflicts between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, which has caused many working-class areas of the city to be split into Catholic and Protestant areas. The city has been relatively peaceful recently, and significant redevelopment has occurred, especially in the inner city and dock areas.

The Belfast area has been occupied since at least the Bronze Age. The Giant’s Ring, a 5,000-year-old hinge, is located near the city, and evidence of Bronze and Iron Age occupation has been found in the surrounding hills. One example is McArt’s Fort, an Iron Age hill fort located at Cave Hill north of the city.

Until the late 16th century, most of the land surrounding Belfast was still in the hands of the O’Neill clan. In 1571, Elizabeth I granted this land to Sir Thomas Smith, but Smith failed to take control of the area or fulfil his grant’s requirements, so the land reverted to the crown under James I. In 1612, King James granted the town of Belfast and its castle, together with some large estates, to Sir Arthur Chichester.

Despite the city’s seemingly growing significance to the English monarchy, it was still a tiny settlement. John Speed’s 1610 map of Ireland marks Belfast as an insignificant village, and the 1612 patent styles it a town or village. Nearby Carrickfergus, successfully held by the English for much longer, was still the more prominent settlement and centre for trade.

Throughout the 17th century, Belfast was settled by English and Scottish settlers as part of the Plantation of Ulster, of which Arthur Chichester was a major proponent. During the aftermath of the 1641 Rebellion, the Scottish parliament sent an army to Ulster to abolish the unrest. Many of these soldiers settled in Belfast after the Irish Confederate Wars.

Belfast thrived in the 18th century as a merchant town, importing goods from Great Britain and exporting the produce of the linen trade. At the time, linen was made by small producers in rural areas. Belfast saw the founding of the Irish Volunteers in 1778 and the Society of United Irishmen in 1791—both dedicated to democratic reform, an end to religious discrimination, and greater independence for Ireland.

Two significant developments at the time altered the appearance of Belfast’s centre: in 1784, plans were drawn up for the White Linen Hall (now the site of the City Hall) and new modern streets (now Donegall Square and Donegall Place). Construction was completed by 1788. 1786 the River Farset was covered to create High Street, and the ford across the Lagan was removed.

Home of the Titanic: Belfast’s Ship

In the 19th century, the city became Ireland’s pre-eminent industrial city, with linen, heavy engineering, tobacco, and shipbuilding dominating the economy. It had the ideal location for the shipbuilding industry, dominated by the Harland and Wolff Company. The company alone employed up to 35,000 workers and was one of the largest shipbuilders in the world. The ill-fated RMS Titanic was built there in 1911.

In 1912, the Liberal government introduced the Third Home Rule Bill to Parliament, which would have given limited autonomy to an all-Ireland Irish Parliament. Unionists, led by Edward Carson, raised a militia, the Ulster Volunteers, to resist this by force if necessary. The political crisis heightened tensions in Belfast, and rioting occurred in July of that year.

Following the end of the First World War and radical Irish nationalist politics after the Easter Rising of 1916, the issues of Irish independence and the partition of Ireland again became prominent. The separatist Sinn Féin party won most seats in Ireland, though not in Ulster, where Belfast nationalists continued to vote for members of the Irish Parliamentary Party and unionists for the Unionist Party. After that, a guerilla war developed between the security forces and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Ireland was partitioned into Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland (the six most-Protestant counties of the province of Ulster) and the Catholic-dominated rest of the country. James Craig was Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister.

A History of Terror: The Belfast Conflict

The conflict began in Belfast in July 1920. On 21 July 1920, rioting broke out in the city, starting in the shipyards and spreading to residential areas.

The year 1921 saw three significant flare-ups in Belfast; just before the Truce that formally ended the Irish War of Independence on 11 July, Belfast suffered a day of violence known at the time as ‘Belfast’s Bloody Sunday’.

The violence peaked in the first half of 1922 after the Anglo-Irish Treaty confirmed the partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State.

 The opening ceremony of the new parliament buildings east of the city, 1932: A large, symmetrical white building with classical-style columns front and centre sits uphill of the viewer, behind a well-tended lawn.

The parliament buildings at Stormont: Two factors contributed to the rapid end of the conflict. One was the collapse of the IRA in the face of the Northern state’s use of internment without trial. The second was the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in the South, which distracted the IRA’s attention from the North and essentially ended the violence there.

The Great Depression: As the largest city in Ulster, Belfast became the capital of Northern Ireland, and a grand parliament building was constructed at Stormont in 1932. Upper- and middle-class unionists dominated the Government of Northern Ireland. As a result, conditions in the poorer parts of Belfast remained terrible, with many houses being damp, overcrowded, and lacking basic amenities such as hot water and indoor toilets until about the 1970s.

In common with similar cities worldwide, Belfast suffered particularly during the Great Depression. Partly as a result of these economic tensions, in the 1930s, there was another round of sectarian rioting in the city. However, the most significant unrest of the period, the Outdoor Relief Riots of 1932, was notable for its non-sectarian nature.

During the Second World War, Belfast was one of the major cities in the United Kingdom that was bombed by German forces. The British government had thought that Northern Ireland would be safe from German bombing because of its distance from German positions, and so very little was done to prepare Belfast for air raids. About one thousand people died, and many more were injured. Of Belfast’s housing stock, 52% was destroyed.

The post-war years were relatively peaceful in Belfast. Still, sectarian tensions and resentment among the Catholic population at widespread discrimination festered below the surface, and the city erupted into violence in August 1969 when sectarian rioting broke out in the town. The perceived one-sidedness of the police and the failure of the IRA to defend Catholic neighbourhoods of the city was one of the leading causes of the formation of the militant Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), which would subsequently launch an armed campaign against the state of Northern Ireland.

Despite the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994, today, the city remains scarred by the conflict between the two communities. In all, nearly 1,500 people have been killed in political violence in the city from 1969 until the present. Most of Belfast is highly segregated, with enclaves of one community surrounded by another (e.g., the Protestant Glenbryn estate in North Belfast and the Catholic Short Strand in east Belfast) feeling under siege. Fitful paramilitary activity continues, often directed inwards, as in the loyalist feuds and the killing of Catholic Robert McCartney by PIRA members in December 2004.

A Cultural Delight: Sites in Belfast

GIANT’S RING

The Giant’s Ring is a henge monument at Ballynahatty, near Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Viscount Dungannon initially preserved it. The inscribed stone tablet on the wall surrounding the site, which details Viscount Dungannon’s interest, was carved by Belfast stone carver Charles A Thompson about c.1919. This is confirmed by his granddaughter Ann Aston as told to her by him, and he was shown the tablet in situ by him. The site is a State Care Historic Monument with ASAI (Area of Significant Archaeological Interest) status.

The Giant’s Ring dates from the Neolithic period and was built around 2700 BC, predating the Egyptian pyramids. The monument’s original purpose was most likely as a meeting place or a memorial to the dead.

CAVE HILL

Cave Hill is a basaltic hill overlooking Belfast. It forms part of the southeastern border of the Antrim Plateau. It is distinguished by its famous Napoleon’s Nose, a basaltic outcrop that resembles the profile of the famous emperor Napoleon. All of Belfast can be seen from the hill’s peak.

Cave Hill rises to almost 370 metres above sea level. Most of its lower east side lies on the Belfast Castle estate, which has the imposing 19th-century Scottish baronial castle as its focal point. The castle was designed by Charles Lanyon and constructed by the 3rd Marquess of Donegall in 1872 in Deer Park. The slopes of Cave Hill were initially used as farmland, but in the 1880s, a significant planting exercise was undertaken, producing the now familiar deciduous and coniferous woodland landscape.

Three large caves inside the hill are man-made and were initially excavated for iron mining. On the mountain’s summit, you will find McArt’s Fort, an example of an old ring fort. It is protected on one side by a precipice and the others by a single ditch, 10 feet in depth and 25 feet in width. The flat top of the fort is 150 feet from north to south and 180 feet from east to west. It is believed that the fort’s inhabitants used the caves to store white foods for the winter and may have served as a refuge during times of attack.

Titanic Belfast Museum

On the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard where the Titanic was built, is now the Titanic Belfast museum, it charts the history of Belfast and the creation of the world’s most famous ocean liner. The building contains more than 12,000 square metres of floor space, most of which is occupied by a series of galleries, plus private function rooms and community facilities.

Botanic Gardens

The Belfast Botanic Gardens, established in 1828 by the Belfast Botanic and Horticultural Society, contains exotic tree species and impressive plant collections from the southern hemisphere. It is home to the Palm House and the Tropical Ravine.

The Palm House contains a range of tropical plants, hanging baskets, seasonal displays and birds of paradise. The Tropical Ravine was built in 1889 by the park’s head gardener, Charles McKimm, and his staff; it contains some of the oldest seed plants and banana, cinnamon, bromeliad and orchid plants.

Ulster Museum

The Ulster Museum is located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast and has around 8,000 square metres of public display space. It features material from the collections of fine and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial archaeology, botany, zoology, and geology. It is the largest museum in Northern Ireland.

St George’s Market

St George’s Market is the last surviving Victorian-covered market in Belfast. It is on May Street, close to the River Lagan and the Waterfront Hall.

The market hosts a Friday variety market: flowers, produce, meat, fish, homewares and second-hand goods; a Saturday food and craft market, food stalls to look out for include Suki Tea, Ann’s Pantry Bakers and Hillstown Farm; and a Sunday market: food, local arts and crafts and live music.

Belfast City Hall

One of Belfast’s most iconic buildings, Belfast City Hall first opened its doors in August 1906 and is Belfast’s civic building. It’s in Donegall Square, in the heart of Belfast city centre.

Carrickfergus Castle

Carrickfergus Castle is a Norman Irish castle in Northern Ireland. It is situated in the town of Carrickfergus in County Antrim, on the northern shore of Belfast Lough. Besieged by the Scottish, Irish, English, and French, the castle played an important military role until 1928 and remains one of the best-preserved medieval structures in Northern Ireland.

Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park

Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park is a South Belfast park covering almost 130 acres. It has meadows, woodland, riverside fields, formal rose gardens, a walled Japanese garden, a children’s playground, a coffee shop, an orienteering course and many walks.

Belfast Zoo

Belfast Zoo is one of the top fee-paying visitor attractions in Northern Ireland, receiving more than 300,000 visitors a year. The site is home to more than 1,200 animals and 140 species. Most of the animals in Belfast Zoo are in danger in their natural habitat. The zoo carries out vital conservation work and participates in over 90 European and international breeding programmes, which help ensure the survival of many species under threat.

ST Anna’s Cathedral

Built over 80 years, the foundation stone of Belfast Cathedral was laid in 1899, and the nave was consecrated in 1904. The new Cathedral was built around the old Parish Church, which remained in use until 27 December 1903, when the last service was held. The parish church was demolished except for the Sanctuary, which was incorporated into the new Cathedral. 1981, the North Transept was finished, and in 2007, the Spire of Hope was added to the Cathedral. There are beautiful works of art: mosaics, textiles, carvings and many historical artefacts.