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Interface Area
Interface area is the name given in Northern Ireland to areas where segregated nationalist and unionist residential areas meet. They have been defined as "the intersection of segregated and polarised working class residential zones, in areas with a strong link between territory and ethno-political identity". Characteristics Interface areas are sometimes bounded by the defensive barriers known as peace lines, and can be identified at their perimeter by painted kerbs or flags, demarcating the territorial affiliation of the area. However, this is not always the case, so people not local to the area are not always aware of the existence of interface areas. They are sometimes the sites of sectarian violence, when they have become known as "flashpoints". Key interface areas North Belfast North Belfast is home to a number of interface areas. One of the most famous is Holy Cross in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, which was the site of significant disputes in 2001 and 2002. Another ...
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Holy Cross Dispute
The Holy Cross dispute occurred in 2001 and 2002 in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast, Northern Ireland. During the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles, Ardoyne had become segregated – Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics lived in separate areas. This left Holy Cross, a Catholic primary school for girls, in the middle of a Protestant area. In June 2001during the last week of school before the summer breakProtestant Ulster loyalism, loyalists began Picketing (protest), picketing the school, claiming that Catholics were regularly attacking their homes and denying them access to facilities. The picket resumed on 3 September, when the new school term began. For weeks, hundreds of loyalist protesters tried to stop the schoolchildren and their parents from walking to school through their area. Hundreds of riot police, backed up by British Army, British soldiers, escorted the children and parents through the protest each day. Some protesters shouted sectarianism, sectarian abuse ...
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Belfast Peace Line Cupar Way
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel. It is the second-largest city in Ireland (after Dublin), with an estimated population of in , and a metropolitan area population of 671,559. First chartered as an English settlement in 1613, the town's early growth was driven by an influx of Scottish Presbyterians. Their descendants' disaffection with Ireland's Anglican establishment contributed to the rebellion of 1798, and to the union with Great Britain in 1800—later regarded as a key to the town's industrial transformation. When granted city status in 1888, Belfast was the world's largest centre of linen manufacture, and by the 1900s her shipyards were building up to a quarter of total United Kingdom tonnage. Sectarian tensions existed with the Irish Catholic population that was drawn by mill and factory employment fro ...
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Tiger's Bay
The Shore Road is a major arterial route and area of housing and commerce that runs through north Belfast and Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland. It forms part of the A2 road, a traffic route which links Belfast to the County Antrim coast. History The Shore Road is one of Belfast's oldest roads and is mentioned in the first census of the city – taken in 1757 – as being home to a colony of "Papists". At the time the Shore Road name was applied to a larger area, including what is today known as York Street. The York Street-York Road and lower Shore Road experienced growth during the Industrial Revolution as a number of factories were located in the area. One of the main factories on York Street was Gallaher's Tobacco factory. It is no longer in operation and the building has been demolished. One of these few industrial buildings still standing is the Jennymount Mill, off the York Road. The building, renamed the Lanyon Building after its architect Charles Lanyon, was reopened ...
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Orange Order
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, as well as in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. The Orange Order was founded by Ulster Protestants in County Armagh in 1795, during a Armagh disturbances, period of Protestant–Catholic sectarian conflict, as a fraternity sworn to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. The all-island Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland was established in 1798. Its name is a tribute to the Dutch-born Protestant king William III of England, William of Orange, who defeated the Catholic English king James II of England, James II in the Williamite War in Ireland, Williamite–Jacobite War (16891691). The Order is best known for its Orange walk, yearly marches, the biggest of whi ...
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Ormeau Road
Ormeau Road is a road in south Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. Ormeau Park is adjacent to it. It forms part of the A24. History The road, as currently laid out, dates from the first decades of the 19th century when a bridge was built connecting Newtownbreda village to Belfast. This route was known more commonly as the ''New Ballynafeigh Road'' before eventually taking on the name of Ormeau House, the Marquess of Donegall's residence. Ravenhill Road was the Old Ballynafeigh Road. ''Ballynafeigh'' is the name of the townland through which most of the Ormeau Road runs. It is an anglicisation of the Irish meaning 'townland of the lawn or green'. Areas of the Ormeau Road Start of the road The area at the start of the Ormeau Road is not known by a single name but contains a number of features. Close to the Markets area is the site of the former Belfast Gasworks, originally built in the 19th century and remaining open for its original purpose until 1988. The area has ...
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Rathcoole (Belfast)
Rathcoole () is a housing estate in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It was built in the 1950s to house many of those displaced by the demolition of inner city housing in Belfast city. Rathcoole is within the wider Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough. Its approximate borders are provided by O'Neill Road on the north, Doagh Road on the east, Shore Road on the south and Church Road and Merville Garden Village on the west. History Housing developments In the 1940s and 1950s, a number of new large-scale housing schemes were planned for Northern Ireland including Craigavon and Rathcoole. These plans were informed by attempts by successive UK governments and the local parliament at Stormont to use large-scale social engineering to reduce underlying sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland. In common with other such areas, Rathcoole's design included self-contained facilities such as a cinema, youth centre, a shopping centre and schools. In spite of these planned facilitie ...
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Whitewell Road
The Whitewell Road is an interface area in north Belfast and Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, and historically the site of occasional clashes between nationalists and loyalists. The Whitewell Road and the surrounding area is a residential community in the Greencastle parish. The Whitewell area is considered a working class area. For much of its length the Whitewell Road runs parallel to the M2 and also provides a direct link between the A2 ( Shore Road) and the A6 ( Antrim Road). The beginning of the White City residential estate on the upper Whitewell Road marks the boundary between the Nationalist and Loyalist communities there. A peace line runs the length of Serpentine Gardens. The road generally had a high level of community integration until 1997 when the Drumcree conflict polarised the two communities in the area and led to increased tension, violence and segregation. In 2012, as part of an effort to tackle sectarian divisions, the Catholic-run Greencastle CEP and ...
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Newtownabbey
Newtownabbey ( ) is a large settlement north of Belfast city centre in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is separated from the rest of the city by Cavehill and Fortwilliam golf course, but it still forms part of the Belfast metropolitan area. It surrounds Carnmoney Hill, and was formed from the merging of several small villages including Whiteabbey, Glengormley and Carnmoney. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census, Metropolitan Newtownabbey Settlement had a population of 67,599, making it the List of localities in Northern Ireland by population, third largest settlement in Northern Ireland and seventh on the Island of Ireland. It is part of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council. History Founding Newtownabbey Urban District was founded on 1 April 1958 to cover seven villages north of Belfast: Carnmoney, Glengormley, Jordanstown, Monkstown, County Antrim, Monkstown, Whiteabbey, Whitehouse and Whitewell. Before this, the area fell under the jurisdiction of Belfast Rura ...
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Billy Hutchinson
Billy "Hutchie" Hutchinson (born December 1955) is a Northern Irish Ulster Loyalist politician and activist who served as leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) from 2011 to 2023, now serving as party president. He was a Belfast City Councillor, representing Oldpark from 1997 to 2005, and then Court from 2014 to 2023. Hutchinson was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast North from 1998 to 2003. Before this, he had been a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and was a founder of their youth wing, the Young Citizen Volunteers (YCV). UVF activity A native of the Shankill Road, Belfast, Hutchinson took part in a series of riots in the area, during which Shankill dwellers clashed with residents of the neighbouring nationalist Unity Flats area. Members of the UVF fired shots at Unity Flats and it was around this time Hutchinson became a member of the organisation, describing his part in the rioting as "my initiation" into the UVF. A ...
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Progressive Unionist Party
The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) is a minor unionist political party in Northern Ireland. It was formed from the Independent Unionist Group operating in the Shankill area of Belfast, becoming the PUP in 1979. Linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Red Hand Commando (RHC), for a time it described itself as "the only left of centre unionist party" in Northern Ireland, with its main support base in the loyalist working class communities of Belfast. Since the Ulster Democratic Party's dissolution in 2001, the PUP has been the sole party in Northern Ireland representing paramilitary loyalism. The PUP has one elected representative on the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, Russell Watton, the party's current leader. History The party was founded by Hugh Smyth in the mid-1970s as the "Independent Unionist Group" given the dissolution of the 1974 Volunteer Political Party. In 1977, two prominent members of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, David Overend and ...
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Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook Timeline of Ulster Volunteer Force actions, an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is a proscribed organisation and is on the List of designated terrorist organizations, terrorist organisation list of the United Kingdom. The UVF's declared goals were to combat Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitaries – particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and to maintain Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom. It was responsible for more than 500 deaths. The vast majority (m ...
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Shankill Road
The Shankill Road () is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill. The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast and is lined, to an extent, by shops. The residents live in the many streets which branch off the main road. The area along the Shankill Road forms part of the Court district electoral area. In Ulster-Scots it is known as either ''Auld Kirk Gate'' ("Old Church Way"), or as ''Auld Kirk Raa'' ("Old Church Road"). In Irish, it is known as "" ("the road of the old church"). History The first Shankill residents lived at the bottom of what is now known as Glencairn: a small settlement of ancient people inhabited a ring fort, built where the Ballygomartin and Forth rivers meet. A settlement around the point at which the Shankill Road becomes the Woodvale Road, at the junction with Cambrai Street, was known as Shankill from the Irish ''Sean ...
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