The Little Book of Belfast (eBook)

AD 82:

Although the Romans never invaded Ireland, Cnaeus Julius Agricola, Governor of Britain had plans to cross over from Stranraer and enter the country by way of Belfast Lough, at that time known as Loch Lao – the Lough of the Calves.

150:

Claudius Ptolemy, a Greco-Roman living in Alexandria, produced a map that included the eastern part of Ireland and which showed the river Logia, the Latin name for the river Lagan.

667:

A battle took place between two of the warring tribes – the Ulidians and the Cruithins (Picts). This was when the name of Beal Feirste, which means ‘the approach to the sandbank or ford’, was first recorded. It was anglicised later and has today become Belfast.

1177:

The Norman knight John de Courcy arrived in Belfast and built a motte and bailey on the banks of the river Farset just above the strategic crossing point between upper and lower Clandeboye. He later moved onto Carrickfergus where he built a more substantial castle, which remains to this day as a monument to him. At this time Loch Lao was known as Carrickfergus Lough, as Belfast was still only a very small settlement.

1210:

King John passed through Belfast on his way to Carrickfergus.

1306:

A tax roll of this year records the Little Church of the Ford, which was on the site of today’s St George’s in High Street and had a history that went all the way back to the tenth century.

Shankill Road has a history stretching all the way back even further, to the seventh century. The White Church that existed in this area was the Mother Church of Belfast, dating from this period to the sixteenth-century Reformation. This road was the ancient route out of Belfast to Antrim, 20 miles away, and over the nearby hills. In the 1830s a more direct route, the new Antrim Road, was built and the original Antrim Road was renamed Seanchill, which is Irish for ‘old church’ and was an acknowledgement of its former history.

1476:

A more substantial Norman-type castle was built in Belfast on the site of today’s British Home Stores. It was taken and demolished by one of the clan of the Clandeboye O’Neills.

1489/
1503/
1512/
1523:

The castle was taken and retaken by Hugh Roe O’Donnell in 1489 and then by the Earl of Kildare in 1503 and 1512. In 1523 the earl wrote to King Henry VIII that he had ‘taken a castle of Hugh O’Neill’s called Belfast and burned 24 miles of his country’.

1571:

Belfast Castle and town were granted to Sir Thomas Smith.

1573:

Belfast town was granted to the Earl of Essex.

1574:

The Gaelic Lord Clandeboye O’Neill, his father and his wife, were arrested by Essex and sent to Dublin for execution.

1594–1603:

Queen Elizabeth was determined to crush the last vestiges of the Ulster Gaels’ resistance in Ireland, and they were eventually defeated in March 1603. It is ironic that shortly before the final defeat of the Ulster Gaels, in the Nine Years War, the queen died and King James VI of Scotland took over the crown to become King James I of England.

1603:

Sir Arthur Chichester, a soldier from Devon, who fought in the Nine Years War, was rewarded for his efforts and granted Belfast and Upper and Lower Clandeboye (today’s South Antrim and North Down), as well as other lands throughout Ulster. Initially he did not think too highly of Belfast and wrote, ‘And albeit when I have it att best perfection I will gladly sell the whole landes for the ———- five poundes’.

Chichester would later change his mind and even turned down an opportunity to go to Virginia in America.

1605:

Sir Arthur Chichester was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland and he and King James began a plantation scheme for Ulster, whereby lowland Scottish Presbyterians and Anglicans from Devon were encouraged to come to Ulster with the promise of land. They also rewarded other soldiers who had fought in Queen Elizabeth’s Nine Years War and were known as ‘Undertakers’. These soldiers were granted 2,000 acres with the undertaking that they had to build English-style houses and a bawn – a protective wall, behind which the planters could retreat when under attack from the native Irish.

1605–16:

Sir Arthur Chichester as Lord Deputy of Ireland – the King’s Representative – was able during his tenure to add the Irish harp to the Royal Standard.

1611:

Sir Arthur Chichester rebuilt Belfast Castle and in 1612 he was created Baron Chichester of Belfast.

1613:

Belfast was granted borough status, which entitled it to send two MPs to the Dublin Parliament. Its first two MPs were Sir John Blennerhasset and George Trevillian. A borough allowed Belfast to have a sovereign (mayor), twelve burgesses, and freemen.

1625:

Sir Arthur Chichester died and was buried alongside his wife in St Nicholas’ Parish Church in Carrickfergus.

1636:

The Eagle’s Wing, a ship built in Belfast by Presbyterian ministers, set sail for New England but due to severe weather had to return home. It would not be until the 1750s that there would be a mass emigration of Presbyterians to America.

1642:

A wall (rampier) was built around Belfast to protect the Scottish and English planters, as there was an uprising throughout Ireland by the native and Anglo-Irish Catholics.

1649:

During the Cromwellian Period, Ireland supported King Charles I. A Colonel Venables marched to ‘Royalist’ Belfast and after a four-day siege he captured the town.

In 1644 the Belfast Presbyterians had taken over the Anglican Church in High Street but in 1649 Colonel Venables banished them not only from the church but from Belfast itself and turned the church into a citadel (fort), using lead from the roof to make musket bullets. The Presbyterian ministers would not be able to return to Belfast until the restoration of the monarchy under King Charles II, and even then it was not until around 1680 they were able to build their first meeting house in Hercules Street, today’s Royal Avenue.

1688:

The Long Bridge and its twenty-one arches, spanning the river Lagan was opened. The Earl of Donegall opened a Latin school at the corner of Ann Street and School House Lane (today’s Church Lane). Also in this period the earl diverted the wide river Blackstaff (Owen Na Varra – the ‘River of the Stakes’) to emerge at what is today’s Old Gasworks site at Cromac Street/Ormeau Road.

1690:

King William III arrived in Ireland with his troops and stopped off in Belfast, staying in the castle of the Earl of Donegall’s, who was the late Sir Arthur Chichester’s nephew. The king was on his way to the Battle of the Boyne. The consequences of the defeat of King James II at the Battle of the Boyne, and the later Treaty of Limerick, would lead to the Dublin Parliament introducing the Penal Laws.

In the 1690s, sections of the Penal Laws, which in the main were directed against Catholics, would also affect Ulster Presbyterians, and in the eighteenth century this led to a strange alliance between radical Presbyterians and the native Irish Catholics, eventually leading to the 1798 uprising.

1695:

The First Presbyterian Church was opened in Rosemary Street by Revd John McBride. He, like many Irish Presbyterians of his day, travelled to Glasgow to study for the ministry. In 1680 he was ordained Minister of Clare, County Armagh. By 1688 he had moved to Borgue near Kirkcudbright in Scotland. He returned to Ireland and was installed in Belfast in October 1694. At the time, the First Presbyterian Meeting House was at the corner of Hercules Lean, today’s Royal Avenue. Reverend McBride was well known to the Earl of...