AC Hotel

CITY QUAYS AND CLARENDON DOCK AREA BELFAST MARCH 2022

I am not sure how people in Belfast would describe this area of Belfast especially as there are now many new elements such as City Quays 1, City Quays 2, City Quays 3 developments as well as the AC Hotel. There is also the Sailortown Area.

While walking around the area, mainly close to the river, I noticed lots of shells and as I suspect that the local birds were dropping shellfish from a height to break them open or even banging them on the hard surface.

When I visited the area in September 2021 two police officers questioned me in detail about my equipment. They were very friendly and I suspect that they were interested in photography and they did suggest some areas that I should visit maybe they were advising me to move on].

The oldest remaining docks in Belfast Harbour are the Clarendon dry docks, built in the 1800s, by Belfast’s first commercial shipbuilder, William Ritchie. He originally set his shipyard up at the Old Lime Kiln Dock (where Corporation St is now) but Ritchie needed a dry dock so Belfast Harbour agreed to build a dock which Ritchie built himself, completing it in 1800. Known as Ritchie’s Dock for years, it was later renamed Clarendon Dock No 1. The second Clarendon Dock was completed in 1826. The Victorian dry docks are no longer used but remain an important link to Belfast’s maritime past.

Sailortown was a working-class dockland community in the docks area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Established in the mid-19th century on partly reclaimed land, it had a mixed Protestant and Catholic population. The 1907 dock strike called by trade union leader James Larkin commenced in Sailortown before spreading throughout the city.

Urban redevelopment in the late 1960s resulted in Sailortown’s eventual demolition. As of 2021, only two churches, one pub and three houses remain of the once bustling waterfront enclave. However, a combination of private investment in the greater Docks area and building of social housing by associations such as Clanmill has led to a growth in population since 2010 in the Pilot St area.