Belfast: Encyclopedia - Belfast

Belfast

Pro Tanto Quid Retribuamus

"what shall we give in return for so much"

Belfast (Béal Feirste in Irish) is a city in the United Kingdom. It is the largest city in Northern Ireland, of which it is the capital. In the 2001 Census the population within the city limits (Belfast Urban Area) was 276,459, while c.800,000 people live in the Greater Belfast area or Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area. The city is situated at the south-western end of Belfast Lough, a long natural inlet ideal for the shipping trade that made the city famous, and near the mouth of the River Lagan. It is flanked by long stretches of hills, the Holywood Hills on the south and the Antrim Hills on the north. The city straddles the County Antrim and County Down boundary. The city recently gained the status of being the 2nd most popular city in the UK, above London and Glasgow, for short breaks.

The name Belfast originates from the Irish Béal Feirste, or the mouth of the Farset (feirste is the genitive of the word fearsaid, "a spindle"), the river on which the city was built. Interestingly, the river Farset has been superseded by the River Lagan as the most important river; the Farset now languishes under the High Street in obscurity. Bridge Street indicates where there was originally a bridge across the Farset.

Belfast saw the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement has encouraged large-scale redevelopment, such as Victoria Square, Titanic Quarter and Laganside including the new Odyssey complex and sports arena. Much of the city centre has now been pedestrianised. The city has two airports: Belfast City Airport adjacent to Belfast Lough and Belfast International Airport, formerley Aldergrove RAF Station, home of the famous 502 Squadron, which is near Lough Neagh. Queen's University Belfast is the main university in Belfast. The University of Ulster also maintains a campus in the city, which concentrates on fine art and design.

Belfast - Geography

Belfast is situated at 54°35′50″N, 05°56′20″W. A consequence of this latitude is that it both endures short winter days and enjoys long summer evenings. In the middle of the darkest period in December, local sunset is at 3.50 p.m. while sunrise is as late as 8.45 a.m. However, this is counterbalanced by the period from May to July. In mid-to-late June, sunset occurs after 10 p.m. and the daylight survives until 11 p.m. on fine nights.

To the north of Belfast are the Glens of Antrim in County Antrim, and to the south, the Castlereagh Hills in County Down. Overlooking the city are Divis Mountain, Black Mountain and Cavehill.

Like much of the country, Belfast has a temperate climate with significant rainfall. Average daily maximums are 19°C (66°F) in July, 8°C (46°F) in January. There is significant rainfall on over 200 days in an average year, and an annual rainfall total of approximately 850mm (33 inches), still barely half that received in Western Ireland and Scotland. While sleet and snow fall occasionally in Winter, as an urban, coastal, area, snow lies in Belfast on an average of only 2-3 days per year.

Belfast - Points of interest

The City Hall, dating from 1906, Queen's University, Belfast (1849), and other Victorian and Edwardian buildings display a large number of sculptures. Among the grandest buildings are two former banks: Ulster Bank (1860), in Waring Street and Northern Bank (1769), in nearby Donegall Street. Also notable is the Linenhall Library (1788), in Donegall Square North.

The world's largest dry dock is located in the city, and the giant cranes (Samson and Goliath) of the Harland and Wolff shipyard, builders of the Titanic, can be seen from afar. Other long-gone industries included Irish linen and rope-making.

Sections of the city contain numerous sectarian murals, reflecting the political and religious allegiances of the communities living there: the Shankill Road, East Belfast, Sandy Row, Glencairn, Highfield, Ballygomartin Road, Ballysillan Road, Upper Ardoyne, and Rathcoole, which are almost entirely Protestant, have murals depicting republican violence, loyalty to the British Crown, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association. Conversely, murals on the Falls Road, Poleglass, Marrowbone, New Lodge, Twinbrook and Ardoyne neighborhoods, which are almost entirely Roman Catholic areas feature political themes such as a united Ireland, and the Provisional IRA, as well as traditional folklore and the Irish language. The Irish folk hero Cú Chulainn has appeared on both republican and loyalist murals, representing the heroic Celtic past for the former and legendary battles between Ulster and the other provinces for the latter.

The ornately decorated Crown Liquor Saloon in Great Victoria Street is notable as being the only bar owned by the National Trust. The Royal Courts of Justice in Chichester Street is home to Northern Ireland's Supreme Court.

• Albert Memorial Clock, Belfast
• Ormeau Baths Gallery

Belfast - History

The site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze ages, and the remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen.

The original Belfast Castle was at Castle Junction, where several roads meet at the top of the High Street. This was demolished at the same time the River Farset was covered over to create the High Street. There is a new castle on the slopes of the Cavehill above the Antrim and Shore Road, now a popular location for wedding receptions.

In the early 17th century Belfast was settled by English and Scottish settlers, under a plan by Sir Arthur Chichester to colonise and remove Irish Catholics from the land (see Plantation of Ulster. This caused much tension with the existing Irish Catholic population who rebelled in 1641, when England was distracted with its Civil War. The resulting slaughter is still strong in Ulster Protestant folk memory. It was later settled by a small number of French Huguenots fleeing persecution, who established a sizeable linen trade.

In the 19th Century, Belfast became Ireland's pre-eminent industrial city, with linen, heavy engineering, tobacco and shipbuilding dominating the economy, and Belfast briefly overtook Dublin in population at the end of the nineteenth century. Migrants to Belfast came from across Ireland, Scotland and England, but particularly from rural Ulster, where sectarian tensions ran deep. The same period saw the first outbreaks of sectarian riots, which have recurred regularly since.

By 1901 Belfast was the largest city in Ireland. Since around 1840 its population included many Catholics, who originally settled in the west of city, around the area of today's Barrack Street. West Belfast remains the centre of the city's Catholic population (in contrast with the east of the City which is almost exclusively Protestant). Other areas of Catholic settlement have included the north of the city, especially Ardoyne and the Antrim Road and the Markets area immediately to the south of the city centre.

Conditions for the new working-class were often squalid, with much of the population packed into overcrowded and unsanitary tenements, and the city suffered from repeated cholera outbreaks in the mid 19th Century. Conditions improved somewhat after a wholesale slum clearance programme in the 1900s.

Belfast became the centre of Irish unionism, and in 1922 it was declared the capital of Northern Ireland after Ireland was partitioned into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State (later to become the Republic of Ireland, when it withdrew from the Commonwealth in 1949). The period immediately after partition was marked by vicious sectarian disturbances, and a dramatic hardening of the city's sectarian boundaries. In common with similar cities world-wide, Belfast suffered particularly during the Great Depression.

Many thousands of Catholics left the city, often permanently, after the creation of Northern Ireland saw a sustained campaign of violence and intimidation against them, such as the families of former Fianna Fail Taoiseach Charles Haughey, and Canadian-born actors Martin Short and the late James Doohan.

During the Second World War, Belfast was one of the major cities in the United Kingdom bombed by German forces and virtually the only one intentionally bombed by the Luftwaffe on the isle of Ireland, most of which had remained neutral during the War. Belfast was targeted due to its concentration of heavy shipbuilding and aerospace industries. Ironically, the same period saw the economy recover as the war economy saw great demand for the products of these industries. See Belfast blitz.

The post-war years were relatively placid in Belfast, but sectarian tensions and resentment among the Catholic population at the widespread discrimination festered below the surface, and the city erupted into violence in 1969 and bombing, assassination and street violence formed a backdrop to life throughout The Troubles. In the early 1970s, the city saw huge forced population movements as families, mostly but not exclusively Roman Catholic, living in areas dominated by the other community were intimidated from their homes. The general decline in European manufacturing industry of the early 1980s, exacerbated by political violence, devastated the City's economy.

As recently as 1971 the city was overwhelmingly Protestant, but today is almost evenly balanced due to higher Catholic birth rates and rising prosperity, together with Protestant emigration (both internal, e.g. to North Down and external) have fundamentally changed the balance.

Today the city still remains scarred by the conflict between the two communities and most of it is highly segregated with enclaves of one community surrounded by another (e.g. Protestant Glenbryn Estate in North Belfast, and the Catholic Short Strand in East Belfast) feeling, and often being, under siege.

In 1997, unionists lost control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history, with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland gaining the balance of power between nationalists and unionists. This position was confirmed in the council elections of 2001 and 2005. Since then it has had two Catholic mayors, one from the SDLP and one from Sinn Féin.

The formation of the Laganside Corporation in 1989 heralded the start of the regeneration of the River Lagan and its surrounding areas, a process assisted by the ceasefires of 1994, although communal segregation has continued since then, with occasional low level street violence in isolated flashpoints and the construction of new Peace Lines.

Belfast - Local Politics

In the 2005 local government elections, the voters of Belfast elected 51 councillors to Belfast City Council from the following political parties: 15 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 14 Sinn Féin, 8 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 7 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 4 Alliance Party, 2 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), and 1 Independent (Frank McCoubrey).

Belfast has four UK parliamentary and Assembly constituencies - North Belfast, West Belfast, South Belfast and East Belfast. All four extend somewhat beyond the city boundaries into parts of Castlereagh, Lisburn and Newtownabbey districts. In 2003, they elected 7 Sinn Féin, 6 DUP, 5 UUP, 4 SDLP, 1 PUP, and 1 Alliance MLAs (members of the Northern Ireland Assembly). In the 2005 general election, they elected 2 DUP MPs, 1 SDLP MP, and 1 Sinn Féin MP.

Belfast is twinned with Nashville, Tennessee in the United States and Hefei in China.

Belfast - Media

Belfast is the home of The News Letter, the oldest weekly newspaper in the world still in publication. Other main newspapers include The Irish News, the evening newspaper Belfast Telegraph and recently, the Daily Ireland newspaper, while there is also an Irish language weekly newspaper called Lá (or "day"). The current affairs magazine Fortnight (published, ironically, on a monthly basis) offers commentary from a left of centre but non-party-political stance.

The city is also the headquarters of BBC Northern Ireland, the ITV station UTV and the commercial radio stations Cool FM and Belfast CityBeat.

Belfast - Notable people

Famous people from or living in Belfast

• Gerry Adams, republican political leader
• Thomas Andrews, scientist
• Thomas Andrews, shipbuilder
• Tony Banks, later Lord Stratford, politician
• Chris Barrie, actor, presenter
• Derek Bell, musician
• John Stewart Bell, physicist
• George Best, football player
• Danny Blanchflower, football player
• Kenneth Branagh, actor/director
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell, astronomer (discoverer of pulsars)
• Frank Carson, comedian
• Mairead Corrigan, Nobel Laureate (Peace)
• James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
• Mairtín Crawford, poet
• Barry Douglas, concert pianist
• John Boyd Dunlop, inventor and veterinary surgeon
• Reg Empey, unionist political leader
• Lord Fitt, nationalist Political leader
• James Galway, musician
• Chaim Herzog, sixth President of Israel
• John Hewitt, poet
• Alex Higgins, snooker player
• David Holmes, DJ
• Lord Kelvin, scientist
• Sir John Lavery, artist
• Charles Michael Lavery QC, Barrister
• Michael Longley, poet
• Shauna Lowry, television presenter
• Francis Maginn, deaf missionary & visionary
• Sammy McIlroy, football player
• CS Lewis, author and scholar
• Mary McAleese, President of Ireland
• Arlene McCarthy, politician
• Henry Joy McCracken, industrial and Irish politician
• Wayne McCullough, World champion boxer and Olympic medalist
• Ian McDonald, science fiction author
• Alexander McDonnell, chess player
• William Frederick McFadzean, soldier and posthumous VC recipient
• Siobhán McKenna, actress
• James Joseph Magennis, submariner and VC recipient
• Mickey Marley, street entertainer
• Professor Denis Moloney OBE, Solicitor
• Gary Moore, musician, blues and rock guitarist formerly of Thin Lizzy
• Van Morrison, musician
• Colin Murray, radio DJ and journalist
• Denis Murray, Broadcast Journalist
• Ruby Murray, singer
• Ian Paisley, unionist political leader and church leader
• Mary Peters, athlete and Olympic Gold Medalist
• Stephen Rea, actor
• Bobby Sands, Anti H-Block MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone
• Bob Shaw, science fiction author
• Maclean Stewart, actor
• Norman Whiteside, football player
• Betty Williams, Nobel Laureate (Peace)
• Dr. David Dick, Nobel Prize Winner (Medicine)

Belfast - 2001 Census

Belfast Urban Area is within the Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA) as classified by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). On Census day (29 April 2001) there were 276,459 people living in Belfast Urban Area. Of these:

• 21.7% were aged under 16 years and 19.7% were aged 60 and over
• 46.8% of the population were male and 53.2% were female
• 47.2% were from a Catholic background and 48.6% were from a Protestant background
• 5.4% of people aged 16-74 were unemployed.

For more details see: NI Neighbourhood Information Service

Belfast - Districts

• Ardoyne
• Andersonstown
• Ballygomartin Road
• Ballymacarrett
• Ballymurphy
• Ballysillan Road
• Belfast City Centre
• Braniel
• Castlereagh Road
• Cregagh
• Donegall Road
• Falls Road
• Finaghy
• Glen Road
• Glencairn
• Grosvenor Road
• Highfield
• Malone
• New Lodge
• Newtownards Road
• Rathcoole (Belfast)
• Sandy Row
• Shankill Road
• Shaws Road
• Shore Road
• Short Strand
• Springfield road
• Stewartstown Road
• Stormont
• Suffolk Road
• Tigers Bay
• Turf Lodge
• Whiterock
• Woodvale Road

See also

• Belfast Peace Lines
• Belfast blitz
• List of towns in Northern Ireland
• List of villages in Northern Ireland

Antrim | Ards | Armagh | Ballymena | Ballymoney | Banbridge | Belfast | Carrickfergus | Castlereagh | Coleraine | Cookstown | Craigavon | Derry | Down | Dungannon and South Tyrone | Fermanagh | Larne | Limavady | Lisburn | Magherafelt | Moyle | Newry and Mourne | Newtownabbey | North Down | Omagh | Strabane

Categories: Capitals in Europe | Cities in Ireland | Coastal cities | Ports and harbours of Northern Ireland | Ports and harbours of Ireland | Belfast

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Belfast", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki