By European standards, Belfast is a newcomer to the map since its origins date back only 900 years. It is also one of the continent’s youngest capitals, being elevated to that status only in 1920 when Ireland was divided between the mainly Protestant North and the Catholic South. While the South went on to establish itself as a Republic, Northern Ireland remained a province of the UK.
The name Belfast derives from the Irish ‘beal feirste’ which means ‘mouth of the sandy ford’. Some evidence of Iron Age hill forts remains but the earliest documentation of a settlement dates from 1177 when John de Courcy, an Anglo-Norman freeloader, built a castle close to the river. The Irish seized control again within a few decades.
Three hundred years later, Sir Arthur Chichester arrived with settlers from England and Scotland. Resistance from the inhabitants was quickly suppressed and within ten years Chichester’s new town was granted corporation status, with the right to send Members of Parliament to London.
It became a substantial town in the 17th century and truly blossomed as a commercial centre when exiled French Huguenots arrived with their expertise in textiles. Throughout the 18th century both the linen trade and the shipbuilding industry expanded. So, too, did the population, reaching 100,000 by the dawn of the 19th century.
Queen Victoria visited this mini-metropolis in 1849 and the legacy of that trip has been immortalised in the names of everything from bridges, to streets, to stations and to monuments. She reciprocated by granting Belfast city status in 1888.
The partition of Ireland after World War I heralded a steady decline of Belfast’s main industries: cloth, rope, tobacco and shipbuilding. Bombing destroyed the important docklands and many central districts during World War II, and many locals chose to emigrate after 1945.
Violence erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969 and Belfast saw more than a fair share of the Troubles in the following 30 years. However, the 1998 ceasefire brought renewed prosperity to the city as businesses and tourists return to fuel the booming economy.
