Very pleasant visit to Balance House yesterday. This is the restored birthplace of John Ballance, 14th prime minster of New Zealand. He was in office between 1891 to 1893 and introduced universal suffrage for men and women. Further details are…
The iron fountain was a memorial to Daniel Joseph Jaffe erected by his son Offo Jaffe in 1874. Daniel Jaffe was a German industrialist who founded the linen exporters of Jaffe Brothers of Hamburg, Dundee, Belfast, Liepzig and Paris. He…
The steps of the Custom House became the an unofficial ‘speakers corner’ of Belfast. They became a location where religious, political and trade union speakers would speak, preach and lecture to open air crowds.[1] The Custom House was built in…
The first Jew recorded living in Belfast was a Manuel Lightfoot, a tailor, who was resident in the city in 1652. Jewish immigration into the city started in the mid-19th century. Daniel Jaffe and his brothers were among the first…
This strike is often known as the ‘engineering’ strike but is better described as a ‘general strike’ as around 60,000 of the city’s workers took industrial action. It is cited by labour historian John Gray as the most ‘formidable’ strike…
The Belfast Orange Hall in Clifton Street was opened in January 1885. The figure of King William on his horse was added to the top of the building in 1889. From the tip of King Billy’s sword to the ground…
The Belfast Waterfront borders the river Lagan and consists of the area north and south of the modern Lagan Weir on the County Down side. Known as Donegall Quay, this areas was dominated by docks as Belfast was a global…
I will be leading walking Blitz walking tours in central Belfast throughout 2022. ABOUT THIS EVENT During the Easter and Spring of 1941, the German air force launched a series of devastating raids against Belfast, causing widespread damage, death and…
The raid on the night of the 4-5 May had caused significant damage. Though this was known as the ‘fire raid’ because the Germans used three times the number of incendiaries than they had done on the Easter Tuesday Raid.…
On Sunday 4–5 May 1941, three weeks after the Easter Tuesday raid, Belfast suffered its third bombing raid. The area affected is show in the graphic below. Around 1 am, Luftwaffe bombers flew over the city, concentrating their attack on the Harbour Estate…
