Ulster And The City Of Belfast

Richard Hayward made a massive contribution to the cultural life of Ireland. He promoted and acted with the Ulster Literary Theatre and worked with Tyrone Guthrie as one of the first artists in broadcasting. He did much to revive the interest in Irish songs, anticipating the great revival in traditional ballads and airs of the 1960s and 70s. His films included 'The Voice of Ireland', 'The Luck of the Irish'and a cameo appearance in 'The Quiet Man'. His travel writings embrace the whole of Ireland and remain relevant today. This is apparent in his interest in local history and archaeology and also his enthusiasm and respect for the Irish language, place names, folklore and dialects. None of this he found incompatible with his interest in Orangeism and his membership of the Orange order, thus placing him in the long tradition of Irishmen who could love and respect their county, without denigrating the traditions of others.

"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.

In Enduring City editors Frederick Boal and Stephen Royle bring together an impressive array of critics, scholars, and commentators to tell the story of Belfast and its people in the twentieth century. Specially commissioned for this volume, the nineteen essays presented here record the highs and lows of a century of seismic change in Belfast's history. From politics and governance to education and health, planning and architecture, population and transport, religious identities and conflict, and popular culture and literary life, the contributors chart the evolution and development of Belfast over the course of the last century.

Traces the history of film production in Northern Ireland from the beginnings of a local film industry in the 1920s and 1930s, when the first Northern Irish 'quota quickies' were made, through the propaganda films of the 1940s and 1950s and on to the cinema of the 'Troubles'.

This collection of essays and images reveals hidden cities, in literature, history and art, that radically redefine our knowledge and understanding of what we think of as Belfast. It traces the city's development from its first foundation to the present. -- Publisher description.

The port books also provide fairly accurate information about the places of origin of the ships that traded with Ulster - and indicate the size of local Ulster merchant fleets. This edition of Robert Hunter's transcription of the port books furthers our knowledge and understanding of trade and society during this turbulent period of resettlement.