AND THE DERELICT CARLISLE MEMORIAL METHODIST CHURCH
I photographed these buildings back in March 2019 but did not get the opportunity to process and publish the images until 14 October 2022. I visited the area again in 2021 and 2022 and will publish more recent photographs within the next few weeks.
The large Orange Hall on Clifton Street in Belfast first opened in 1886. It was designed and built by William Batt, a local architect who also designed many houses and villas around Malone, and the now demolished front gate lodge of Botanic Gardens. Many of the original features of this Victorian style building can still be seen today.
The building contains meeting rooms, a museum, and facilitates for educational tours to showcase the political and religious aspects of the Order.
It is the largest purpose built Orange Hall in the world, and the bronze statue on the roof (unveiled in 1889) is the only one of King William III on any Orange Hall in Ireland.
The Indian Community Centre is next door.
Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church was designed in the Gothic Revival style by noted architect W. H. Lynn and completed in 1875, the church was home to one of the largest Methodist congregations in Belfast. The sandstone and limestone exterior of the building was renovated in 1966, but the church ceased to be used as a place of worship by 1982, a consequence of the declining congregation and its location at a major interface between Catholic and Protestant populations. Previous plans to convert the church to public housing did not come to fruition. Now derelict for close to 20 years, Carlisle Memorial has suffered extensive physical degradation, and the need for action is at hand. Despite its religious associations, the building is now perceived as neutral territory in a deeply polarised area and holds symbolic potential for North Belfast in particular and the city as a whole.
THE PROTESTANT AND ORANGE HALL AT UPPER RATHMINES ROAD
This has been used as a Gospel Hall since 1965 and even though many of my family live in the area I never noticed the building until I photographed it in January 2022.
It took a lot of research but it would appear that the building was known locally as the “Protestant Hall” but it was opened in November 1890 as the ‘Orange and Protestant Hall’ or the Rathmines Loyal Orange Lodge No. 1505. The Grand Master was George Lyster.
Throughout the nineteenth century Dublin City and and County hosted a number of Lodges. These Lodges were to be found in areas such a Rathmines, South Circular Road, North Strand and Kingstown, (Dun Laoghaire). Following the First World War the Orange Order in Dublin began its decline mainly due to losses in the Great War, emigration and national politics.
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