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BelfastBelfast was founded in 1177 when a castle in defense of a ford over the Lagan was built, but the present city is a product of the Industrial Revolution. French Huguenots, coming there after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), stimulated the growth of the town's linen industry. Serious rioting between Catholics and Protestants, who live in distinct sections of the city, has scarred Belfast many times since the 19th cent.; sectarian terrorist violence was a significant problem in the late 20th cent. The city and the surrounding country were subjected to heavy air raids in 1941. Belfast suffers from high unemployment, and its population has decreased markedly due to the violence and the planned economic development of outlying areas.
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- Lagan
Lagan, river, c.40 mi (60 km) long, rising in Slieve Croob, SE Northern Ireland. It flows NW, then NE past Lisburn to Belfast Lough at Belfast. The port of Belfast and its shipbuilding yards a...
- Corrigan, Mairead
Corrigan, Mairead, 1944–, Irish social activist, b. Belfast. A volunteer social worker in the Catholic neighborhoods of Belfast, Corrigan saw three of her sister's children killed when a car d...
- Morecambe and Heysham
Morecambe and Heysham, town (1991 pop. 41,432), Lancashire, NW England, on Morecambe Bay. Morecambe, a seaside resort, and Heysham, a port with service to Belfast, were joined in 1928. Nearby ...
- United Irishmen
United Irishmen or United Irish Society, Irish political organization. It was founded at Belfast in 1791 by Theobald Wolfe Tone. Disgruntled by the use of English patronage to control Irish po...
- Bangor, town, Northern Ireland
Bangor, town (1991 pop. 70,750), North Down dist., E Northern Ireland, on Belfast Lough. It is a seaport, resort, and yachting center (site of an annual regatta), with some light industry. The...
- Carrickfergus
Carrickfergus, town (1991 pop. 19,100) and district, E Northern Ireland, on the shore of Belfast Lough. A minor fishing port, the town has die-casting, distribution, electronics, and energy an...
- Fair, James Graham
Fair, James Graham, 1831–94, American financier, b. near Belfast, Ireland. He emigrated to America as a child, grew up on an Illinois farm, and went west in 1851 in search of gold. In partners...
- Fleetwood
Fleetwood, town (1991 pop. 27,899), Lancashire, NW England, on Morecambe Bay at the mouth of the Wyre estuary. Fleetwood, a port, trades and has a ferry service with the Isle of Man and Belfas...
- Smillie, Robert
Smillie, Robert, 1857–1940, British labor official, b. Belfast, Ireland, of Scottish parents. He was president of the Scottish Miners' Federation from 1894 to 1918 and from 1921 until his deat...
- Walton, Ernest Thompson Sinton
Walton, Ernest Thompson Sinton, 1903–95, Irish physicist, educated at Methodist College (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and Cambridge. He became a fellow of Trinity College in 1934 and pr...
