Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [505]
THE ENTRIES
The oldest part of Belfast, around High St, suffered considerable damage from WWII bombing. The narrow alleyways running off High and Ann Sts, known as the Entries, were once bustling commercial and residential thoroughfares: Pottinger’s Entry, for example, had 34 houses in 1822.
Joy’s Entry is named after Francis Joy, who founded the Belfast News Letter in 1737, the first daily newspaper in the British Isles (it’s still in business). One of his grandsons, Henry Joy McCracken, was executed for supporting the 1798 United Irishmen revolt.
The United Irishmen were founded in 1791 by Wolfe Tone in Peggy Barclay’s tavern in Crown Entry, and used to meet in Kelly’s Cellars (1720; Click here) on Bank St, off Royal Ave.
White’s Tavern (1630; Click here), on Wine Cellar Entry, is the oldest tavern in the city and is still a popular lunchtime meeting spot.
Cathedral Quarter
The district north of the centre around St Anne’s Cathedral, bounded roughly by Donegall, Waring, Dunbar and York Sts, has been promoted as Belfast’s Left Bank, a bohemian district of restored red-brick warehouses and cobbled lanes lined with artists studios, design offices, and stylish bars and restaurants. It’s home to the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.
Built in imposing Hiberno-Romanesque style, St Anne’s Cathedral (Map; 9033 2328; www.belfastcathedral.org; Donegall St; admission free, donations accepted; 10am-4pm Mon-Fri) was started in 1899 but did not reach its final form until 1981. As you enter you’ll see that the black-and-white marble floor is laid out in a maze pattern – the black route leads to a dead end, the white to the sanctuary and salvation. The 10 pillars of the nave are topped by carvings symbolising aspects of Belfast life; look out for the Freemasons’ pillar (the central one on the right, or south, side). In the south aisle is the tomb of Unionist hero Sir Edward Carson (1854–1935). The stunning mosaic of The Creation in the baptistry contains 150,000 pieces of coloured glass; it and the mosaic above the west door are the result of seven years’ work by sisters Gertrude and Margaret Martin.
A 10-minute walk northwest from the cathedral along Donegall and Clifton Sts leads to Clifton House (Map; 2 N Queen St, Carlisle Circus), built in 1774 by Robert Joy (Henry Joy McCracken’s uncle) as a poorhouse. The finest surviving Georgian building in Belfast, it now houses a nursing home.
South of the cathedral at the end of Donegall St lies the elegant Georgian Commercial Building (Map; 1822), easily identified by the prominent name of the Northern Whig Printing Company, with a modern bar on the ground floor. Opposite is the Northern Bank Building (Map), the oldest public building in the city. It started life as the one-storey Exchange in 1769, became the Assembly Rooms with the addition of an upper storey in 1777, and was remodelled in Italianate style in 1845 by Sir Charles Lanyon, Belfast’s pre-eminent Victorian architect, to become a bank.
The most flamboyant legacy of Belfast’s Victorian era is the grandiose Ulster Bank Building (Map; 1860), now home to the Merchant Hotel. This Italianate extravaganza has a portico of soaring columns and sculpted figures depicting Britannia, Justice and Commerce, and iron railings decorated with the Red Hand of Ulster and Irish wolfhounds.
To the west of the cathedral, at the junction of Royal Ave and North St, is the Bank of Ireland Building (Map; 1929), a fine example of art-deco architecture. The former Sinclair Store (Map; 1935), diagonally opposite the bank, is also in deco style.
Laganside & Lanyon Place
The ambitious Laganside Project (www.laganside.com) to redevelop and regenerate the centre of Belfast saw the building of the Waterfront Hall, British Telecom’s Riverside Tower and the Belfast Hilton in the 1990s. Projects completed since then include several clusters of riverside apartments, the Lanyon