Belfast

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Belfast (Ir. Béal Feirste, ‘the mouth of the sand bank, or ford’), the main centre of the industrial revolution in Ireland and, since 1921, the capital of Northern Ireland. Although the site of a 13th‐century castle, Belfast was not a place of any importance before the Flight of the Earls. Founded for English and Scots settlers by Sir Arthur Chichester in 1603, the infant town was incorporated by the crown as a close borough as early as 1613, in order to provide two loyal MPs to the Irish parliament. Belfast's role as the bastion of loyalty in Ireland, so pronounced from the 19th century onwards, thus goes back to its very origins. Its ethos, however, was commercial rather than aristocratic, and for much of the 18th century the small town manifested a radical and democratic outlook, beginning with the mass emigration of disaffected Presbyterians to colonial America, and culminating in the United Irish movement. This long aberration ended in bourgeois recoil from the horrors of the insurrection of 1798, and growing enthusiasm for the Act of Union.

Although the Chichester/Donegall family owned the town until 1844, their belated conferment of long leases on the larger tenants after 1750, notwithstanding the Steelboys' protests, ended a major constraint on growth. At the end of the 18th century the town had a thriving linen trade and an infant cotton industry. By 1830 linen manufacture had supplanted cotton, and Belfast became the world's leading producer; the establishment of a railway network during the 1840s boosted its regional role; and growing confidence in the city's economy generated sufficient capital to transform its shallow river approaches into a major port. Employment in textiles and clothing continued to expand thereafter, together with industries such as shipbuilding, engineering, rope manufacture, whiskey distilling, and tobacco products. It was a classic example of ‘takeoff’, as one economic development provided stimulus for the next.

Economic growth transformed Belfast from a small, Presbyterian commercial town into a large and ethnically mixed industrial centre. A population of 1,000 in the late 17th century grew slowly to about 8,000 in 1759 and 25,000 in 1808. The industrial explosion took it from 70,447 in 1841 to 349,180 in 1901, across which period it was the fastest growing centre in the United Kingdom. It was designated a city in 1888. There were boundary extensions in 1841, 1853, and 1896, and suburban authorities were separately incorporated in 1973. The city proper declined from a peak of 443,671 in 1951, but the Belfast Urban Area contained 475,967 people in 1991, plus a further 250,000 within daily commuting range.

Population growth brought the native–settler rivalries of rural Ulster into the town. By 1850 Church of Ireland/Presbyterian differences were merging into an essentially political ‘Protestant’ consciousness articulated by the Orange Order, but owing much to the Conservative Presbyterian theology of Henry Cooke. The Catholic minority, in contrast, retained a distinct identity of its own: it shifted and evolved during the 19th century, but the main elements included a shared religious practice, growing residential segregation, a relatively constrained occupational structure, and, with increasing coherence after 1885, a political identification with the nationalist programme of the rest of Ireland.

Ethnic division manifested itself in the waves of Catholic/Protestant rioting which became endemic in the main working‐class neighbourhoods, beginning with a 12 July clash in 1813 and continuing with polling day battles in 1832, 1835, and 1841. Flare‐ups in 1843 and 1852 were rather more serious, and 1857 was the first of a series of outbreaks of massive and uncontrollable rioting, lasting over days or weeks, that continued in 1864, 1872, 1886, 1912, 1920–2, 1935, and 1969–71. So great was the scale of conflict that changes in policing, from the Orange‐influenced Town Police to the mainly Catholic Royal Irish Constabulary (1865–1921), and then to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, made little difference.

The undercurrent of fear generated by recurrent violence produced total residential segregation in most working‐class neighbourhoods. This was paralleled in the workplace by high levels of segregation within linen mills and other large places of employment; the virtual absence of Catholic workers from the modern, skilled industrial sector; and periodic expulsions of Catholics and their perceived sympathizers from workplaces, most notably in 1920–2, when up to 10,000 were shut out. The continued pattern of rioting, given a political dimension by home rule and by partition, meant that segregation did not wither with the passage of generations and the decline in immigration: it increased, and reinforced the city's distinct sectoral pattern of ethnic development. The south‐western sector remained Catholic as it expanded, while the rest of the city's development was strongly Protestant, closing off other Catholic inner‐city neighbourhoods from further growth after about 1860. It is probably no coincidence that from this date the Catholics' faster growth rate, which took them from 8 per cent of the urban population in 1784 to 34 per cent in 1861, was reversed: Catholics fell to 23 per cent by 1926, before beginning to rise again, to 43 per cent of the city proper (34 per cent of the Belfast Urban Area) in 1991.

Belfast's politics have been shaped by its ethnic division. Prior to male household suffrage (see franchise) they approximated to British political culture: established church Tories, supported by most plebeian Presbyterians, opposed and usually defeated elite Presbyterian Liberals supported by Catholics. After William Johnston's electoral success (see party processions act) in 1868 this structure collapsed: Irish and British political cultures diverged, as traditional Conservatism embraced Orangeism to become Unionism, nationalism won the support of the Catholic community, and Liberalism died. The Unionist–nationalist dichotomy has continued to predominate, throwing off non‐sectarian challenges from the Northern Ireland Labour Party and various other socialist groupings rather more easily than it has the extreme ethnic challenges from the popular Protestantism of the Democratic Unionist Party and the republicanism of Sinn Féin that were permitted by the reintroduction of proportional representation after 1973.

Bibliography

Bardon, Jonathan , Belfast: An Illustrated History (1982).

A. C. Hepburn

Belfast is the second largest city in Ireland, and the economic and political capital of Northern Ireland. Although the Normans established a fort at Belfast in the 12th cent., a substantial town only developed at the beginning of the 17th cent.: Belfast benefited from the Ulster plantation, and from the patronage of the lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, and was incorporated by royal charter in 1613. The economic collapse of Chichester's descendants, the earls of Donegall, after the mid-18th cent. liberated the town from a constrictive leasing policy, and—in combination with the success of the local cotton industry—induced a period of rapid growth. But the most remarkable years of expansion were from c.1860 to the First World War, which coincided with the marked development of the shipbuilding and engineering industries, and the consolidation of linen manufacturing: the population of Belfast grew from 87,000 in 1851 to 349,000 by 1901. Belfast was incorporated as a city in 1888, and its chief magistrate raised to the dignity of lord mayor in 1892. With the Government of Ireland Act (1920), and the partition of the island, Belfast became the administrative capital of the newly created Northern Ireland.

The swift expansion of Belfast partly determined its politics. Rapid, uneven growth was accompanied by an alteration of the sectarian demography: the proportion of catholic citizens grew from virtually nothing at the beginning of the 18th cent. to one-third by the late 19th and 20th cents. A shifting denominational balance in company with rapid growth brought fluid sectarian frontiers within the city, and political instability: intercommunal violence, notably in 1857, 1864, 1886, and 1921–2, became almost endemic. The industrial growth of the city—unique in an Irish context—brought closer links with the British economy and with the empire: this, in combination with a protestant domination of capital, helped to determine the predominantly unionist character of the city's politics.

Alvin Jackson

BELFAST. The capital of Northern Ireland, settled in the early 17c with planters (settlers) mainly from England. The numbers of Scottish Protestants increased in the 18c and of Irish Catholics in the 19c, the often mutually hostile communities tending to live in different parts of the city. There is a range of usage varying according to level of education, with some homogeneity in working-class speech. Such words as true and drew sound like ‘thrue’ and ‘dhrew’ (an interdental pronunciation), good and cap sound like ‘gyood’ and ‘kyap’ (addition of the semi-vowel /j/), cheap and speak sound like ‘chape’ and ‘spake’ (with the vowel sound /e/), push and took rhyme with ‘rush’ and ‘luck’, ever and yet sound like ‘ivver’ and ‘yit’, deck and penny sound a little like ‘dack’ and ‘panny’ (having a close /a/ vowel), board and course sound like ‘boored’ and ‘koors’ (the /ou̶/ diphthong), cold and hold sound like ‘cowl’ and ‘howl’, berry/bury and cherry sound like ‘barry’ and ‘charry’, bag and can sounding like ‘beg’ and ‘ken’, off and shop sound like ‘aff’ and ‘shap’. Y'are not is commoner than you're not. None of the above features are exclusive to Belfast, but their co-occurrence and the rapidity of informal speech distinguish Belfast speakers from other speakers of IrE. These features of pronunciation are associated with the vocabulary and the grammatical patterns described for non-standard ANGLO-IRISH, but lexical influence from ULSTER SCOTS also occurs, especially in the north and east. See NORTHERN IRISH ENGLISH.

Belfast , Gaelic Béal Feirste, city (1991 pop. 297,000), capital of Northern Ireland, Belfast dist. It is on Belfast Lough, an inlet of the North Channel of the Irish Sea, and at the mouth of the Lagan River. The harbor, 8.5 mi (13.7 km) long, is navigable to the largest ships. The great shipyards of Belfast have built some of the world's largest ocean liners. The city is also the center of the Irish linen industry; other industries include tobacco and food processing, packaging, and the manufacture of rayon, aircraft, tools and machinery, clothing, carpets, and rope. Agricultural and livestock products are the chief exports. Queen's Univ. (founded 1845) and Victoria College (founded 1859), one of the oldest women's grammar schools in the British Isles, are among the educational institutions there. The Protestant Cathedral of St. Anne, the Waterfront concert hall, and the Odyssey Center, housing a sports arena and a science museum, are notable. The Parliament House of Northern Ireland is at Stormont, a suburb.

Belfast was founded in 1177 when a castle in defense of a ford over the Lagan was built, but the present city is a product of the Industrial Revolution. French Huguenots , coming there after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), stimulated the growth of the town's linen industry. Serious rioting between Catholics and Protestants, who live in distinct sections of the city, has scarred Belfast many times since the 19th cent.; sectarian terrorist violence was a significant problem in the late 20th cent. The city and the surrounding country were subjected to heavy air raids in 1941. Belfast suffers from high unemployment, and its population has decreased markedly due to the violence and the planned economic development of outlying areas.

Belfast is the second largest city in Ireland, and the economic and political capital of Northern Ireland. Although the Normans established a fort at Belfast in the 12th cent., a substantial town only developed at the beginning of the 17th cent., and was incorporated by royal charter in 1613. The most remarkable years of expansion were from 1860 to the First World War, coinciding with the development of the shipbuilding and engineering industries, and the consolidation of linen manufacturing: the population of Belfast grew from 87,000 in 1851 to 349,000 by 1901. With the Government of *Ireland Act (1920), and the partition of the island, Belfast became the administrative capital of the newly created Northern Ireland.

The swift expansion of Belfast partly determined its politics. The proportion of catholic citizens grew from virtually nothing at the beginning of the 18th cent. to one‐third by the late 19th and 20th cents. The industrial growth of the city brought closer links with the British economy: this, in combination with a protestant domination of capital, helped to determine the predominantly unionist character of the city's politics.

Belfast Capital of Northern Ireland, at the mouth of the River Legan on Belfast Lough. The city was founded in 1177, but did not develop until after the Industrial Revolution. Belfast is now the centre for the manufacture of Irish linen. Since the 19th century, religious and political differences between Protestants and Catholics have been a source of tension. In the late 1960s, these differences erupted into violence and civil unrest. Shipbuilding is a major industry and Belfast's harbour includes the Harland and Wolff yard, which has produced many of the world's largest liners. Other industries: aircraft, machinery, tobacco. Pop. (1996 est.) 297,300.

Belfast, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, UK, USA 1. UK (Northern Ireland): the Irish name is Béal Feirste ‘Mouth of the Sandbank Ford’ or ‘Crossing of the River’ where the River Farset flows into the River Lagan, a point where it could be crossed at low tide. Capital of Northern Ireland since 1920.2. The other towns take their name from the Irish Belfast.

Belfast (Béal Feirste) Antrim. (bellum) Fertsi 668. ‘Ford-mouth of the sandbank’.

Belfast. See truss.

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