Belfast
Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland. Its name means, "the sandy ford at the mouth of the river." Belfast is the largest city in Northern Ireland, and the second largest city on the island of Ireland.
Belfast was founded in the early seventeenth century when King James I of England granted land in the vicinity and the right to create a borough to Sir Arthur Chichester in 1611. As the small port developed its population grew from 2,500 in 1700 to 20,000 in 1800. The 19th century saw rapid industrialisation of the city. Industries included shipbuilding (most famously after 1862 by the yard of Harland & Wolff, builders of the RMS Titanic), linen weaving (which had begun in the previous century on a household basis but was organised in large factories and mills in the nineteenth), engineering and distilling. Beklfast was Ireland's main industrial centre in part because it could import coal cheaply from the coalfields of the west of Scotland. By 1901 the population had risen to 349,000.
In the twentieth century Belfast suffered from a decline in its staple industries. It was also badly affected by two major bouts of civil disturbance. The first of these occurred in the early 1920s, as the Irish War of Independence was taking place. The second took place from 1968 to 1997, part of 'the Troubles' that afflicted Northern Ireland at this time.
