The famous Linen Hall Library Belfast
The Linen Hall Library is located at 17 Donegall Square North, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the oldest library in Belfast and the last subscribing library in Northern Ireland.
Up until today I had never really noticed or ever ventured into this hidden gem of tranquility and contemplation found right in the heart of Belfast! The things often staring you in the face that you do not know or have not discovered about your own city! Amazing!
The Linen Hall Library is a truly unique institution. Founded in 1788, it is the oldest library in Belfast and the last subscribing library in Ireland.
It is renowned for its unparalleled Irish and Local Studies Collection, ranging from comprehensive holdings of Early Belfast and Ulster printed books to the 250,000 items in the Northern Ireland Political Collection, the definitive archive of the recent troubles.
The Library also boasts the Northern Ireland Theatre and Performing Arts Archive, a unique collection reflecting our rich cultural heritage. The Linen Hall has an illustrious profile as a centre of cultural and creative life and offers a varied programme of events ranging from monthly exhibitions to readings and lectures.
We provide: A full range of facilities at a city centre location
Unique Irish and Local Studies Collections
Extensive general lending collection, from bestsellers to classics
Free public reference use
Borrowing rights for members
Fast request service from helpful and expert staff
Access to daily newspapers, international magazines and journals
Extensive range of fine prints, publications and gifts for sale
Wide-ranging cultural programmes
Internet access
Coffee Shop
Saturday opening
Complete speech by former Irish President Mary McAleese at Linen Hall Library
On Monday 19 September former President of Ireland Mary McAleese visited the Linen Hall Library during her last official tour of Belfast. She spoke about how important the Library was to her while she attended university in Northern Ireland, and how special it is to the community and world at large.
Linen Hall Library Welcomes Former Irish President Mary McAleese
This is a shortened version of the speech former President of Ireland Mary McAleese gave during her visit to the Linen Hall Library on Monday 19 September.
Linen Hall Library Collections: Online Exhibition
CultureNorthernIreland visits the Linen Hall Library in Belfast with librarian John Killen, to find out about its history and to discover the treasures held within its collections. The library was founded in 1788 as the Belfast Reading Society and exists today as an independent subscription library.
Welcome to the Linen Hall Library
In fulfillment of one of my MA courses at Queen's University as a Fulbright mtvU student, I have been participating in an internship at the Linen Hall Library, a place considered by many to be a national library for Northern Ireland because of its historical gems, its abundant collections, and its consistency as a powerful source of enlightenment to the people of Northern Ireland and the world. Many thanks to Lucy Kerr on Irish harp.
For more outstanding Northern Irish music please visit and post a comment to show support for the Voices of Northern Ireland.
Bernard MacLaverty on Belfast Public Library
Belfast Public Library and Central Reference Library is one of the set piece buildings of Royal Avenue. Bernard MacLaverty talks about its importance to the city and its writers.
Linen Hall Library of Belfast - The Story of the Library founded by Thomas Russell
Poem on the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, founded by Thomas Russell, it was ran by William Bruce who would have been the direct opposite in politics of Russell.
However, each in their time was instumental in the survival of the Library which preserved the music of the Irish nation so we can enjoy it today.
The amazing City Hall of Belfast, Northern Ireland
At the central Donegall Square are the Town Hall (ground breaking ceremony in 1898, opening in 1906, be visited as part of guided tours) and the Linen Hall Library, a public library that was founded in 1788. Here the interested parties to all armed struggle of the IRA and the peace process.
Linen Hall Belfast
Stevie
Former President of Ireland Professor Mary McAleese opens Queen's University's Riddel Hall
Former President of Ireland Professor Mary McAleese has opened Queen's University's Riddel Hall campus, which has been transformed into a 21st century portal for the economic development of businesses across the island of Ireland.
Riddel Hall, which was endowed to the University by Eliza and Isabella Riddel almost 100 years ago, is also the venue for the launch of an ambitious £140m fundraising campaign by Queen's Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Peter Gregson. The campaign is dedicated to helping Queen's provide the ultimate student experience and address some of the greatest challenges facing society today.
Places to see in ( Belfast - UK )
Places to see in ( Belfast - UK )
Belfast is Northern Ireland’s capital. It was the birthplace of the RMS Titanic, which famously struck an iceberg and sunk in 1912. This legacy is recalled in the renovated dockyards' Titanic Quarter, which includes the Titanic Belfast, an aluminium-clad museum reminiscent of a ship’s hull, as well as shipbuilder Harland & Wolff’s Drawing Offices and the Titanic Slipways, which now host open-air concerts.
Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, the second largest on the island of Ireland, and the heart of the tenth largest Primary Urban Area in the United Kingdom. Belfast was a centre of the Irish linen, tobacco-processing, rope-making and shipbuilding industries: in the early 20th century, Harland and Wolff, which built the RMS Titanic, was the world's biggest and most productive shipyard. Belfast played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, and was a global industrial centre until the latter half of the 20th century. It has sustained a major aerospace and missiles industry since the mid 1930s. Industrialisation and the inward migration it brought made Belfast Ireland's biggest city at the beginning of the 20th century.
Today, Belfast remains a centre for industry, as well as the arts, higher education, business, and law, and is the economic engine of Northern Ireland. The city suffered greatly during the Troubles, but latterly has undergone a sustained period of calm, free from the intense political violence of former years, and substantial economic and commercial growth. Additionally, Belfast city centre has undergone considerable expansion and regeneration in recent years, notably around Victoria Square.
Belfast is served by two airports: George Best Belfast City Airport in the city, and Belfast International Airport 15 miles (24 km) west of the city. Belfast is a major port, with commercial and industrial docks dominating the Belfast Lough shoreline, including the Harland and Wolff shipyard, and is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city.
Alot to see in ( Belfast - UK ) such as :
Botanic Gardens
Grand Opera House, Belfast
Ulster Museum
SS Nomadic
Belfast City Hall
Golden Mile
Cavehill
Belfast Castle
Albert Memorial Clock, Belfast
St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast
Waterfront Hall
Belfast Zoo
Carrickfergus Castle
Mount Stewart
Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park
Ulster Hall
Divis
Northern Ireland War Memorial
Belfast Exposed
RISE
Irish Republican History Museum
Milltown Cemetery
Titanic Belfast
HM Prison Crumlin Road
Titanic Quarter
W5
Ulster Folk and Transport Museum
Stormont Estate
Ormeau Park
St George's Market
Colin Glen Forest Park
Victoria Park, Belfast
Wallace Park
Linen Hall Library
The Big Fish
Lagan Valley
Titanic's Dock And Pump House
Game of Thrones Tours Ltd Coach Pick Up
Stormont Castle
St George's Market
National Trust - The Crown Bar
Belvoir Park Forest
Peace Wall Belfast
Clonard Monastery
HMS Caroline
St Peter's Cathedral, Belfast
The Palm House
Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum
Titanic Boat Tours
Scrabo Tower
( Belfast - UK) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting the city of Belfast . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Belfast - UK
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Places to see in ( Lurgan - UK )
Places to see in ( Lurgan - UK )
Lurgan is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and in the north-eastern corner of the county. Lurgan is about 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population of about 23,000 at the 2001 Census. It is within the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon district.
Lurgan is characteristic of many Plantation of Ulster settlements, with its straight, wide planned streets and rows of cottages. It is the site of a number of historic listed buildings including Brownlow House and the former town hall.
Historically the town was known as a major centre for the production of textiles (mainly linen) after the industrial revolution and it continued to be a major producer of textiles until that industry steadily declined in the 1990s and 2000s. The development of the 'new city' of Craigavon had a major impact on Lurgan in the 1960s when much industry was attracted to the area. The expansion of Craigavon's Rushmere Retail Park in the 2000s has affected the town's retail trade further.
Lurgan sits in a relatively flat part of Ireland by the south east shore of Lough Neagh. The two main formations in north Armagh are an area of estuarine clays by the shore of the lough, and a mass of basalt farther back. The earliest human settlements in the area were to the northwest of the present day town near the shore of the lough. When the land was handed to the Brownlow family, they initially settled near the lough at Annaloist, but later settled where the town was eventually built. The oldest part of the town, the main street, is built on a long ridge in the townland (baile fearainn) of Lurgan. A neighbouring hill is the site of Brownlow House, which overlooks Lurgan Park.
Lurgan has historically been an industrial town in which the linen industry predominated as a source of employment during the Industrial Revolution, and is said to have employed as many as 18,000 handloom weavers at the end of the 19th century, a figure significantly higher than the town's resident population at the time.
Lurgan town centre is distinctive for its wide main street, Market Street, one of the widest in Ireland, which is dominated at one end by Shankill Church in Church Place. A grey granite hexagonal temple-shaped war memorial sits at the entrance to Church Place, topped by a bronze-winged statue representing the spirit of Victorious Peace. A marble pillar at the centre displays the names of over 400 men from the town who lost their lives in the First World War.
At the junction of Market Street and Union Street is the former Lurgan Town Hall, a listed building erected in 1868. It was the first site of the town's library in 1891, was temporarily used as a police station in 1972 when it was handed to the Police Authority, and is today owned by the Mechanics' Institute and is available for conferences and community functions.
Lurgan railway station opened by the Ulster Railway on 18 November 1841, connecting the town to Belfast Great Victoria Street in the east and Portadown and Armagh in the west. The Great Northern Railway of Ireland provided further access to the west of Ulster which was then closed in the 1950s and 1960s from Portadown railway station. Presently Lurgan railway station is run by Northern Ireland Railways with direct trains to Belfast Great Victoria Street and as part of the Dublin-Belfast railway line. The Enterprise runs through Lurgan from Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central, and a change of train may be required at Portadown to travel to Newry or Dublin Connolly.
( Lurgan - UK ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting Lurgan . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Lurgan - UK
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N. IRELAND: IRISH PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE VISITS OMAGH
English/Nat
Irish President Mary McAleese arrived in Omagh on Sunday to visit the friends and family of those injured or killed in yesterday's bomb blast which claimed the lives of 28 people.
The Irish president arrived at the Omagh leisure complex just minutes after Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness had entered the building.
The car bomb was the single most devastating terrorist attack in the last thirty years of Northern Ireland's bloody history, and the finger is being pointed at a dissident republican group opposed to the Good Friday agreement.
Mary McAleese saw for herself the extent of the devastation caused by yesterday's bomb that ripped through the busy high street in Omagh.
The clean up operation has started in earnest to clear up the debris from the blast that left 28 people dead and injured over 220.
Northern Irish police have already set up a task force to hunt down the bombers, who struck on the 29th anniversary of the first deployment of British troops on the streets of Northern Ireland.
The President expressed her horror at the bombing which she said occurred in spite of a majority vote for peace and diplomacy and a rejection of violence.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
To talk about them, these are...I said just a moment ago on another radio programme that if they are capable of what they accomplished yesterday I think it's important for all of us to understand that they are capable of anything. These are people...there are no markers, try and measure them against standards of human decency, they are off the scale, they are off the Richter scale, and so I don't know what they are capable of. Omagh yesterday gives me some chilling, absolutely terrifying insight into what they are capable of, all I do know is they absolutely have to be stopped, they have to be stopped now, I don't know what they are planning for tomorrow, any more than you do Dennis, but it scares me what they could be planning, and they are planning in the teeth of a country North and South which committed itself to consensus based politics, committed itself to a decent way forward, which said in the referendum just gone past that we were going to try to work together in partnership, to honour each other, to respect each other to find a new decent way of living together, and these people whoever they are, whatever their number yesterday in the most callous and brutal way, they gave us their answer, now I think we have to give them their answer by stopping them. There are people who know who they are and the simplest way of stopping them is for those people to surrender their names to the authorities.
SUPER CAPTION: Mary McAleese, Irish President
She then went on to visit friends and family of those killed or injured who are gathered inside the town's leisure complex awaiting news of their loved ones from the various hospitals in the area.
Earlier the leader of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams visited the scene and said he unreservedly condemned the terrorist bombing and urged people to move on and keep alive their hopes for real peace.
In the past Adams has categorically refused to condemn violence by the I-R-A or any other republican group.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
What happened here was wrong I have condemned it without any equivocation whatsoever. It's now time to show solidarity with the families of the bereaved, of the injured, of the people of this town, the people of County Tyrone, and that's what we're here to do and it's a matter of I think getting political action, moving on, trying to ensure that the great expectation that people have in their hearts is not reduced by what has happened here
SUPER CAPTION: Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein.
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NORTH IRELAND BELFAST Oct 2015
Walk around Belfast from Central Station, St Georges Market, Waterfront, May Street, City Hall, Linen Hall Library, St Peters cathedral, Ann Street, Peace Wall, Falls Leisure Centre, Shankill Leisure Centre, Central Library, Grand Opera House, Queens University, Several Museums, Botanic Garden and area. just ask and you will get a guide to any place in central Belfast. See more video nearby.
Commercial Buildings, Waring Street, Belfast
Built by public subscription of 200 shares at £100 each, the Commercial Buildings provided an excellent commercial hotel, a spacious and handsome news-room and...a piazza for the use of...merchants. The building, with its robust classical front elevation of grey Dublin granite, was the only premises in Bridge street to survive the 1941 Blitz. Former residence of the Northern Whig Newspaper, this B+ building was unoccupied during the 1990s before being turned in a public bar and offices.
Part of the Cathedral Quarter Tour App
Image Acknowledgements:
• Photographs and engravings of Commercial Buildings , Deputy Keeper of Records, PRONI D1732/2/19, T1129/316
• Plan of Belfast by James O'Hagan with engravings of public buildings 1848, Linenhall Library map no: 2
• Facsimile of an Ancient Map Showing the Extent and Suburbs of Belfast 1791, Linenhall Library [map no. 4, 1791]
Mary McAleese acceptance speech at the 2016 Tolerancia Awards in Titanic Belfast
Mary McAleese the 8th President of Ireland accepting the Tolerantia Award in Titanic Belfast on 25th October 2016.
I am now a grandmother to two very small boys. I want them to grow up in peace and in a fair and decent world where the entire architecture of homophobia and of anti-LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersexed) attitudes and practices has been completely dismantled and consigned to history.
That will not happen by chance but by change.
She said Ireland's Yes vote to marriage equality last year sent a signal of goodness and decency.
The Belfast-born former head of state claimed LGBTI rights campaigners were making history.
You are turning the tide of hurt and hatred, country by country, culture by culture, heart by heart.
It is helping our world to experience the liberating joy that comes from taking down the edifice of homophobia brick by brick, the bricks of tradition, doctrine, dogma, beliefs, attitudes, practices and laws.
Only when that edifice has crumbled like the walls of Jericho will we vindicate the generations of countless LGBTI men and women, whose lives were only half-lived and whose dreams of acceptance and full equality were never realised.
Author JD Fennell found inspiration for debut novel from living in Belfast
Copyright belongs to Clipstorm/ The Belfast Telegraph
By Kirsten Elder
Belfast-born author J.D. Fennell has released his debut young adult novel Sleeper - the first in a series of thrillers, that were heavily influenced by the city.
Author J.D. Fennell grew up in Belfast in the 70’s, at the peak of the Troubles, he said, Growing up in Belfast, I spent a lot of my youth in libraries in the Falls Road, Linen Hall and Glengormley. I buried myself in books and was encouraged to write to help make sense of the spiraling sectarian madness that seemed forever present. In writing, I found solace and a form of expression. This is something that I have passionately pursued into adulthood with the publication of my debut novel ‘Sleeper’.
The adventure novel features teen agent Will Starling and is perfect for fans of Alex Rider and Jason Bourne.
‘Sleeper’ follows the tale of 16-year-old Will in 1941 who is pulled from the sea with no memory of who he is or was.
Will’s memory slowly starts to come back to him and he soon realises he no ordinary teenager.
With the help of M15 agent-in-training Anna Wilder and Belfast man, WW1 and Easter Rising veteran, Eoin Heane, Will finds himself in a race against time to discover who is he and to save lives.
You can pick up a signed copy of ‘Sleeper’ from Waterstones and Amazon.
Linenopolis Launches at the Linen Hall
Launching 1 July 2019, Linenopolis is an exciting, new exhibition which celebrates Belfast's linen heritage.
North Street, Belfast
Depicted on the 1685 Philips’ map, the then residential street was known as Goose Lane; the street along which geese were driven out into the fields. By the mid 19th century, North Street was a bustling commercial street with an array of small businesses. It has continually changed to reflect the changing commercial conditions of the city and the business needs of its residents and it now contains a mixture of 19th and 20th century buildings in a range of styles and materials.
Part of the Cathedral Quarter Tour App
Image Acknowledgements:
• Photograph of North Street car park c1980s, Deputy Keeper of Records, PRONI ENV/25/2/7/8B
• Photograph 1896 T. Young, Leather Merchant, Deputy Keeper of Records, PRONI T1129/287
• Professional photograph of North Street, by R. Welch, Deputy Keeper of Records, PRONI T1898/5
• Rear of buildings in North St. Belfast, Deputy Keeper of Records, PRONI T1129/291
• Plan of Belfast by James O'Hagan, 1848, Linenhall Library [map no. 2]
• 1685 map from ‘A history of the town of Belfast from 1799 till 1810’ by George Benn, Linenhall Library
Off To The Linen Hall
Laurence Collyer
The Diamond Family Archive
MMXII
Off To The Linen Hall (Hand Me Down My Petticoat) - Dominic Behan