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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Belfast
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(279,000 in 1991)
Capital city of Northern Ireland on the northeast coast at the mouth of the river Lagan, where it enters the long inlet of the North Channel known as Belfast Lough. The town grew up around a Norman castle of the 12C (destroyed in 1315). By the 18C Belfast's two main industries were clearly identified: the manufacture of linen had been given a considerable boost by the arrival of refugee *Huguenot weavers in the late 17–c-; and the development of ship-building led eventually to the giant Harland and Wolff yard, where the *Titanic was launched.
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By the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 Belfast became the seat of government for *Northern Ireland, and a classical-style parliament building was provided at Stormont (1928–32, by Arnold Thornely). From 1972 to 1999 it was out of use after direct rule was imposed from Westminster because of the sectarian violence in the city. For the same reason two otherwise undistinguished Belfast streets have become familiar names throughout Britain, the Falls Road as a Catholic enclave and the Shankhill Road as the Protestant equivalent.
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Belfast's cathedral, St Anne's, is Protestant; begun in 1899 to the design of Thomas Drew, and continued by Charles Nicholson, it is still unfinished. Queen's University stands in what is still a largely Victorian suburb, with a central building in Tudor style by Charles Lanyon (1813–89); founded as Queen's College in 1845, it has had university status since 1908.
The Ulster Museum has a strong holding of the Belfast-born painter Sir John Lavery (1856–1941) and a splendid array of gold and silver, together with many more mundane objects, recovered in the 1960s from the Girona, a ship of the Spanish *Armada which went down off the north Antrim coast.
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