Belfast

:This article is about the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. For other uses, see Belfast (disambiguation).

History

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

Related Topics:
Bronze age - Iron Age - Hill fort

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
17th century - English - Scottish - Arthur Chichester - Plantation of Ulster - Rebelled - 1641 - Civil War - Ulster - French - Huguenots - Linen

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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.

Related Topics:
19th Century - Tobacco - Dublin - Nineteenth century - Ireland - Scotland - England - Sectarian

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By 1901 Belfast was the largest city in Ireland. Since around 1840 its population included many Catholics, who orginally 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.

Related Topics:
1901 - 1840 - Catholics - Protestant - Ardoyne - Antrim Road

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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.

Related Topics:
Cholera - Slum - 1900s

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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.

Related Topics:
Unionism - 1922 - Northern Ireland - Ireland - Partitioned - Irish Free State - Republic of Ireland - Commonwealth - Great Depression

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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.

Related Topics:
Charles Haughey - Martin Short - James Doohan

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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.

Related Topics:
Second World War - United Kingdom - German - Luftwaffe - Belfast blitz

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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.

Related Topics:
1969 - The Troubles - 1970s - 1980s

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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) together with boundary changes have fundamentally, and irreversibly changed the balance.

Related Topics:
1971 - Emigration - North Down

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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 seige.

Related Topics:
Glenbryn Estate - Short Strand

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In 1997, unionists lost control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history. Since then it has had two Catholic mayors, one from the SDLP and one from Sinn Féin. In 2004, the composition of the Belfast City Council changed again, and now the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland holds the balance of power between nationalists and unionists. A presumed safe seat in the Short Strand was denied Sinn Fein, and went to the Alliance Party following the brutal murder of a Catholic nationalist, Robert McCartney, by several members of the IRA. The IRA leadership was so embarrassed that it offered to have the men in question shot, but McCartney's sisters and fiancée, who have been travelling to speak in other parts of Ireland, as well as the United States, where they met with President George W. Bush, declined the IRA offer and demanded that the criminal justice system mete out lawful punishment to those charged with the crime.

Related Topics:
Unionists - Belfast City Council - Mayor - SDLP - Sinn Féin - Alliance Party of Northern Ireland - Nationalists - Sinn Fein - Robert McCartney - IRA - George W. Bush

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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.

Related Topics:
Laganside Corporation - 1989 - 1994 - Peace Lines

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