Belfast

"For most people, nineteenth-century Belfast is the very essence of an industrial city, boasting as it did by 1900 the world's largest spinning mill, the most productive shipyard, the biggest ropeworks and tobacco factory. This book looks beyond that world to reveal an earlier Belfast where the foundations for its later industrial prowess were laid. It charts the town's remarkable growth from site to city, from the first mentions of it as long ago as the seventh century through to the 13th-century Anglo-Norman settlement and Gaelic revival, to the Plantation town of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It re-traces not only the development of the early streets, and their names, but also the lives of those who walked and lived in them. In doing so it recreates something of the thriving commercial settlement and port that came increasingly to dominate the life of the region it served - Ulster - in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." "Using a unique series of maps, together with archaeological and documentary evidence that has been expertly pieced together, the book revolutionises our understanding of this, the most Ulster of towns, before the coming of industrialisation. Just as importantly, it reminds us that Belfast has always stood, in the poet Derek Mahon's lyrical phrase, a 'hill at the top of every street'."--BOOK JACKET.

Offbeat, charming, and filled with humour and insight, Beyond Belfast is the story of one man’s misguided attempt at walking the Ulster Way, “the longest waymarked trail in the British Isles.” It’s a journey that takes Will Ferguson through the small towns and half-forgotten villages of Northern Ireland, along rugged coastlines and across barren moorland heights, past crumbling castles and patchwork farms. From IRA pubs to Protestant marches, from bandits and bad weather to banshees and blood sausage, he wades into the thick of things, providing an affectionate and heartfelt look at one of the most misunderstood corners of the world. As the grandson of a Belfast orphan, Will also peels back the myths and realities of his own family history—a mysterious photograph, rumours of a lost inheritance. The truth, when it comes, is both surprising and funny …

This book is written to help find the roots of any family in the county. A hands on guide to find your family in county Antrim and in Belfast. New; Full size 8 1/2 x 11; 50 pages; illustrations, some of which may appear faded with age as in the originals; County Map; Local Sources; Coats of Arms; and record extracts. Many families are given with family history notes, specific locations; coat of arms; and seats of power. Some are only mentioned. A must for any researcher. ( For a large collection of family histories within the county we also recommend "The Book of Irish Families, great & small", by O'Laughlin.)

The Republic of Ireland came into being in 1921, at the end of a bloody insurrection against the British. However, the treaty left the northern six counties under British sovereignty. Since that time, the Protestant majority has dominated the poorer Catholic populace with support from the British Army. In 1972, British troops fired on demonstrators, launching more than twenty-five years of sectarian violence and terror from both sides. Mason Devereux, an American freelance photojournalist, is drawn into doing a project on the violence while visiting Northern Ireland. Devereux makes contact with the Irish Republican Army. The I.R.A. is interested in publicity showing Protestant paramilitaries' violence against Catholics. A deal is struck and Devereux is given access to extraordinary photo opportunities. Devereux accepts the I.R.A.'s assistance, but finds his own way to get incriminating photographs of the I.R.A's own violence. On the verge of a negotiated end of the violence with the British government, a renegade faction of the Irish Republican Army, lead by seventies legendary gunman Michael Flynn, derails that movement toward peace. Flynn and Devereux cross paths in a sequence of violent events that continues the tragedy of Northern Ireland's Troubles.

In Belfast Imaginary: Art and Urban Reinvention, Katharine Keenan argues for the reimagining of place in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the context of Brexit. This deeply researched ethnography depicts the work of artists and policy makers as they imagine and perform a new urban identity for Belfast in the liminal time between the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit.