I assume that this is a bollard that looks like a chess piece. I photographed it as I did not see any other similar bollards during my 2022 visit.
The oldest building in Belfast is Clifton House, built in the early 1770s as the Poorhouse.
Back in I was contacted by a follower who mentioned that it should be Donegal not Donegall but in this case they were wrong. When I was six years of age I lived in Donegal and we visited Belfast on a regular basis and one day I noticed that a street sign Donegall rather than Donegal and when I asked my father about he said that it was a very old spelling error and that no one could be bothered to change it. Later I discovered that my father did know exactly why but he felt that it was too complicated to explain in detail.
Arthur Chichester, who was granted a charter for the city in 1613. When he and his descendants were made Earls of Donegal for services rendered a clerical error led to them becoming Earls of Donegall.
Donegall Square is a square in the centre of Belfast. In the centre is Belfast City Hall, the headquarters of Belfast City Council. Each side of the square is named according to its geographical location, i.e. Donegall Square North, South, East and West. It is named after the Donegall family. Other streets to bear their name in Belfast are Donegall Road, Donegall Pass and Donegall Street. Donegall Place, the city’s main shopping street, runs from the north side of the square.
Ever since I was about four years old I really liked visiting Belfast and I now still visit at once a year to spend a week photographing the built environment. One thing that I have noticed about Belfast is that there are many once attractive buildings in the city but many of them are unoccupied or could even be described as derelict and this is especially true in and around Donegall Street.
To make things worse, about six or seven months after I last visited the area there was a major fire which resulted in a report by an engineer indicating that repairs following a major fire in the Cathedral Quarter are likely to take years and that a cordon may need to remain around the listed Old Cathedral Building on Donegall Street, restricting access for several business owners, pedestrians and traffic.
Over the years, Ulster Architectural Heritage has repeatedly voiced concerns about the degradation of Belfast’s built heritage and here is an example of what they have to say:
“Once probably the most completely Victorian city in the British Isles, many of Belfast’s 19th century buildings have been demolished for road schemes, housing estates and commercial developments. Many of the remaining historic buildings within the city centre lie vacant, some even open to the elements, and with all sense of pride or purpose gone they have become a backdrop for anti-social behaviour and vandalism. Too often, it seems, developers acquire properties without thought for their possible restoration, often evicting long-standing family businesses and either blocking the buildings up or demolishing them outright while they seek planning permissions, in the process further eroding Belfast’s sense of place and character. The problem does not just lie with buildings that are completely vacant. Looking up above the ground floor on any street within the city centre, including core streets like Donegall Place, Royal Avenue, High Street and Castle Place, the majority of the upper storeys lie neglected and vacant, a trend which has been accelerated with the rise in online shopping. At the moment there are few incentives for developers to see their empty buildings brought into use. Buildings are acquired for their land value rather than because the new owners want to see them restored, or even perhaps like them. The buildings are often neglected because of an inability to see their potential for re-use.”
Saint Malachy’s Church is a Catholic Church in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is located in Alfred Street, a short distance from Belfast City Hall , though it precedes that building by over 60 years. The Church is the focal point of the local parish community, also Saint Malachy’s, one of the 88 parishes in the Diocese of Down and Connor. It is third oldest Catholic Church in the city of Belfast.
In the beginning Saint Malachy’s was served by priests from St Mary’s Church, Belfast until the Parish of Saint Malachy was created in 1866 and Fr Geoffrey Brennan, a native of Kilkenny, was appointed Administrator. The first Parish Priest of Saint Malachy’s, a post created in 1909, was Fr Daniel McCashin.
The area of the city around Saint Malachy’s was dramatically re-developed from the early 1980s. That period of urban planning, and the age of the church itself, led to a deterioration in the condition of the brickwork meaning a full scale Restoration Programme which began in January 2008 and was completed in 2009 at a cost of £3,500,000. The interior of the Church was also restored.
The ornate stencilling around the Sanctuary, painted over in the 1950s, was restored as were the Altar Rails and the intricate mosaic floor. The Solemn Re-Opening and Dedication of the Altar was celebrated on 29 March 2009 by the Bishop of Down and Connor Dr Noel Treanor in the presence of the Bishop Emeritus Dr Patrick Walsh.
This was the first time that Saint Malachy’s had been closed for an extended period since the Church was opened in 1844. During the Restoration, Nuptial and Requiem Masses were celebrated in neighbouring Churches.
THE MAIN QUADRANGLE QUEENS UNIVERSITY 24 JUNE 2014
When I photographed this in June 2014 I was unable to locate any information relating to this sculpture but a few years I came across the following information:
This Reclining Figure by Frederick Edward McWilliam (1909-92) was relocated from the quadrangle at the David Keir building to the main Quadrangle at the Lanyon Building Queen’s University in 2013 and it took me five years to find any information relating to this interesting bronze sculpture.
Frederick Edward McWilliam CBE RA (30 April 1909 – 13 May 1992), was a Northern Irish surrealist sculptor, born in Banbridge, County Down. He worked chiefly in stone, wood and bronze.
Commissions included the Four Seasons Group for the Festival of Britain exhibition in 1951. McWilliam exhibited at Waddington Galleries, London, and had a major retrospective show at the Tate Gallery in 1989.
In 1964 he was awarded an Honorary D.Litt. from the Queen’s University Belfast. In 1966 he was awarded a C.B.E. and in 1971 he won the Oireachtas Gold Medal. McWilliam is represented in many public collections, including MOMA (New York) and Tate Britain.
The Queens University estate comprises more than 250 buildings, 98 of which are listed. The Lanyon Building, which opened in 1849 and is named after its architect Sir Charles Lanyon, is the centrepiece of the estate.
This was my first to explore Stranmillis area of Belfast in detail. I visited again in 2021 and 2022.
I photographed this attractive church in June 2016 and I was in as really bad humour as it rained all day and when I tried to gat a bus from Stranmillis I had to stand at the bus stop for more than an hour and on arriving in the city centre I realised that I could have walked in less time than I waited for the bus.
There is an amazing number of churches in Belfast but in many cases it is difficult to discover their history. All that I can find out about this church is that it may have been built in 1931 or 1932 and that it is Church Of Ireland [Note: 1926 Tenders invited for New Church Builidngs, St Bartholomew’s Parish]. The Church of Ireland is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion which has 70 million members in 164 countries. The Diocese of Connor, in the Province of Armagh, is one of 12 dioceses on the island of Ireland.
I visited their website and on selecting the History Tab found no information relating to the past.
Stranmillis (from Irish an Sruthán Milis) is an area in south Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is also an electoral ward for Belfast City Council, part of the Laganbank district electoral area. As part of the Queen’s Quarter, it is the location for prominent attractions such as the Ulster Museum and Botanic Gardens. The area is located on Stranmillis Road, with Malone Road to the west and the River Lagan to the east. Its name, meaning “the sweet stream” in Irish, refers to the Lagan, whose waters are still fresh at this point, before becoming brackish as the river flows onward toward its mouth in Belfast Lough.
Stranmillis Road begins at the junction of University Road, Malone Road and College Gardens, heading uphill and southwards past Friar’s Bush Graveyard and a small shopping district, before descending towards the River Lagan. The route then swings to the west around the outside of Stranmillis College and uphill again, before rejoining the Malone Road. The north end of Stranmillis Road contains many shops and restaurants, while the south end of the road is mainly housing.
The Malone and Stranmillis Historic Urban Landscape featured on the 2010 tentative list of sites proposed for addition to the List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom, as an area of architectural interest featuring examples of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
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