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Belfast
KNOWLEDGE OF Belfast
BEGINNINGS
Belfast is a Janus-faced city, shaped by both Irish Catholic and Scots/English Protestant heritages and situated on the cultural and political interface between Ireland and Britain. Its history is punctuated with civil unrest, great poverty, revolutionary fervour, several industrial world records and, in spite of everything, an enduring spirit of optimism and renewal.
Béal Feirsde ("the mouth of the crossing") was first mentioned in 666AD as the site of a battle between Ireland’s ancient peoples. It remained true to its name – a simple crossing point over an insignificant river – until the Norman invasion of Ulster in 1177. After laying the foundations of Carrickfergus Castle, the Norman leader John de Courcy built a smaller Norman fort at the mouth of the River Lagan in 1178. And so Belfast was born as a permanent settlement.
1600-1800
Out of all the chiefs of Ireland the fierce Celtic warriors of Ulster proved the hardest to subdue. It is an irony underpinning Ulster’s history that it was targeted for plantation by James I in order to curb its rebellious spirit. By 1611 the policy of appropriating Catholic lands and “planting lowland Scots and English settlers was well underway. Over the next century 200,000 Scots Presbyterians poured into the Province and Ulster’s distinctive, predominantly Protestant culture was formed.
In 1690 the Protestant King William of Orange defeated the English Catholic monarch James II at the Battle of the Boyne and took over the English throne. When King William entered Belfast, enormous bonfires were burned in his honour - a tradition that remains to this day in the form of the 12th July celebrations.
Belfast is a Janus-faced city, shaped by both Irish Catholic and Scots/English Protestant heritages and situated on the cultural and political interface between Ireland and Britain. Its history is punctuated with civil unrest, great poverty, revolutionary fervour, several industrial world records and, in spite of everything, an enduring spirit of optimism and renewal.
Béal Feirsde ("the mouth of the crossing") was first mentioned in 666AD as the site of a battle between Ireland’s ancient peoples. It remained true to its name – a simple crossing point over an insignificant river – until the Norman invasion of Ulster in 1177. After laying the foundations of Carrickfergus Castle, the Norman leader John de Courcy built a smaller Norman fort at the mouth of the River Lagan in 1178. And so Belfast was born as a permanent settlement.
1600-1800
Out of all the chiefs of Ireland the fierce Celtic warriors of Ulster proved the hardest to subdue. It is an irony underpinning Ulster’s history that it was targeted for plantation by James I in order to curb its rebellious spirit. By 1611 the policy of appropriating Catholic lands and “planting lowland Scots and English settlers was well underway. Over the next century 200,000 Scots Presbyterians poured into the Province and Ulster’s distinctive, predominantly Protestant culture was formed.
In 1690 the Protestant King William of Orange defeated the English Catholic monarch James II at the Battle of the Boyne and took over the English throne. When King William entered Belfast, enormous bonfires were burned in his honour - a tradition that remains to this day in the form of the 12th July celebrations.
Chapi