Andersonstown

Andersonstown
Scots: Andersontoon[1]
Irish: Baile Andarsan or
Baile Mhic Aindréis

Andersonstown Road, 2007
Population (2001 Census)
OS grid referenceNW4190927083
Irish grid referenceO003360
DistrictBelfast City Council
CountyCounty Antrim
CountryNorthern Ireland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Postcode district BT11
Dialling code 028
EU Parliament Northern Ireland
UK ParliamentBelfast West
NI AssemblyBelfast West
List of places
UK
Northern Ireland
Antrim

Andersonstown is a suburb in west Belfast, Northern Ireland. The area was originally known as Whitesidetown after the family that owned the land but they were dispossessed for the support they gave to the Society of United Irishmen, resulting in a change of name.[2] The district is sometimes colloquially referred to as "Andytown" or "A Town".

History

Andersonstown sits at the bottom of the Black Mountain and Divis Mountain and contains a mixture of public and private housing. It is largely populated by Irish nationalists/Irish Catholics. Andersonstown is an electoral ward of Belfast. The consensus view is that the area begins at the tip of the upper Falls Road, where it becomes the Andersonstown Road, close to the junction with the Glen Road. It is bounded at the western end by Shaw's Road, forming a large triangle.

The area rapidly expanded during the 1950s and 1960s as the local housing authority built hundreds of houses for people who were rehoused during the redevelopment of the lower Falls Road. Holy Child School and La Salle Secondary School were built, along with a library. As the population of the area increased Twinbrook and Poleglass housing estates were built further out of Belfast.

The Troubles

During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s the area was a major centre of civil disturbances during the social-political conflict known as The Troubles. During this period a large British army fort – known as Silver City was built in the central Broom Hill part of Andersonstown.[3] However there was generally less strife than in, for instance, neighbouring districts such as Lenadoon, which in 1972 saw clashes between the IRA and Ulster Defence Association and a subsequent demographic shift in the estate from Protestant to Catholic,[4] and Ballymurphy, the scene of the Ballymurphy massacre and Springhill massacre.

On 5 April 1979 two British Army soldiers were shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) whilst closing security gates at Andersonstown joint Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army base by Republican Freedom Fighters.[5] The PIRA in Andersonstown was part of the First Battalion of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade.[6]

On 26 June 1980 Miriam Daly, a lecturer at Queens University Belfast and an Irish Republican Socialist Party activist, was found tied up and shot dead at her home in the area. Widely blamed on loyalist paramilitaries, no group ever claimed responsibility for the murder.[7]

Kieran Doherty, a Teachta Dála who was one of the ten republican prisoners to die during the 1981 Irish hunger strike, was a native of Andersonstown.[8]

Features

According to the 2008 estimate the Andersonstown ward has a population of 5,064.[9] It remains a predominantly working-class area. There has been considerable effort to attract employment to the area and to improve the physical infrastructure. It has four Catholic churches: St Agnes', St Teresa's, St Michael's and St Matthias'.

Sport

Casement Park, the main Gaelic Athletic Association stadium for Antrim GAA is located in Andersonstown.[10]

Donegal Celtic F.C., an association football club, play their home games at Donegal Celtic Park on Suffolk Road on the outskirts of Andersontown. In 1990 an Irish Cup game between Donegal Celtic and Linfield F.C., a club with a mainly Protestant following, was moved away from the area on the orders of police due to fears that violence would break out. The game was played at Windsor Park but despite the move a riot broke out anyway.[11]

On the Glen Road, the path that leads into the mountains known as Glen Road Heights is home to both Sport & Leisure Swifts F.C. and St. Teresa's GAC, with the two clubs grounds being almost adjacent to one another.

Culture and media

The local newspaper named Andersonstown News voices an Irish Republican viewpoint.[12] Produced by the Belfast Media Group, which also publishes papers in other areas of the city, editions appear on Mondays and Thursdays.[13]

The district is also the subject of the novel Titanic Town by Mary Costello and the movie adaptation by Anne Devlin.

Adjacent areas

Andersonstown is the main area beyond the Falls Road although it is bordered by several other areas that form the Upper Falls District Electoral Area. On the south side of the Andersonstown Road the main district is Ladybrook, which is approximately bordered by Finaghy Road North (which leads to the Finaghy area and the Upper Lisburn Road) and the M1 motorway. Ladybrook is adjacent to the Blacks Road area which is the only predominantly loyalist section of what is otherwise a mostly republican locality. The area, also known as Suffolk, the name of the townland, is home to around 800 Protestants and is represented by the Suffolk Community Forum, a group which since 1996 has co-operated in the Suffolk Lenadoon Interface Group with its Catholic neighbours.[14] The close proximity of Suffolk to neighbouring republican areas has led to the development of an interface area at the junction with the Stewartstown Road (which the Andersonstown Road merges at the junction with Shaw's Road).[15][16] The interface, which is close to the fortified Woodbourne Police Service of Northern Ireland barracks, has seen numerous clashes between youths from the areas.[17]

The barracks are on the site of the former Woodbourne House Hotel, which was destroyed in the earliest days of the Troubles.

To the north of the Stewartstown Road is the Lenadoon area, which is bordered by Shaw's Road. Lenadoon includes an eponymous public park which was redesigned in 2000.[18] Lenadoon was previously a mixed area and indeed in the early stages of the Troubles the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) was active in the area but following the street violence of the early 1970s and the subsequent alleged sectarian ethnic cleansing by the IRA the Protestants moved out and the area became almost wholly Catholic.[19] The Suffolk Road area lies further west and is home to Donegal Celtic. Suffolk includes Blacks Road and as a result is a source of conflict between rival gangs of youths.[17]

The area around Suffolk Road was previously considered part of the Protestant Suffolk area (and a Church of Ireland church stands on the corner of the Stewartstown Road here) with Lenadoon Avenue forming an interface. In 1972 this street was the scene of violence that brought an end to a short-lived Provisional IRA ceasefire. Several houses were left empty in the street until the IRA accompanied a Catholic family into one after the family's move had been approved by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. This attracted a crowd of UDA members and supporters who attacked the houses and before long the British Army arrived on the scene. A stand-off followed for several days until the IRA decided to accompany another removal lorry with another Catholic family into the street but at the last moment the army, fearing a riot, rammed the vehicle with an armoured car. The republican supporters erupted in an angry display, resulting in the soldiers firing rubber bullets, CS gas and water cannons. The Provisionals accused the army and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland WIlliam Whitelaw of going back on earlier negotiations and favouring the loyalists. By the evening of the event the IRA announced an end to its ceasefire as a direct response to events at Lenadoon and a gun battle with the army and UDA ensued.[20]

The Glengoland area, which borders on Colin Glen Forest Park between the Stewartstown Road and the Glen Road, represented the western edge of the Belfast City Council area. After the Suffolk Road junction Stewartstown Road entered the jurisdiction of Lisburn City Council, heading towards Poleglass and the surrounding areas. However following the reform of local government in Northern Ireland that preceded the 2014 local elections these areas were absorbed into an expanded Belfast City Council.[21]

References

  1. ↑ Language/Cultural Diversity – Irish Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.
  2. ↑ Belfast History From Joe Graham The Belfast History Man
  3. ↑ Peter Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin, Bloomsbury, 1998, p. 193
  4. ↑ Tim Pat Coogan, On the blanket: the inside story of the IRA prisoners' "dirty" protest, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 64
  5. ↑ "A Chronology of the Conflict – 1979". Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 29 January 2010.
  6. ↑ J Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA 1916–1979, Poolbeg, 1990, p. 374
  7. ↑ F. Stuart Ross, Smashing H Block: The Popular Campaign Against Criminalization and the Irish Hunger Strikes 1976–1982, Liverpool University Press, 2002, p. 81
  8. ↑ Brendan O'Brien, The long war: the IRA and Sinn Féin, 1985 to today, Syracuse University Press, 1993, p. 123
  9. ↑ Ward Information for Andersonstown ward 95GG01
  10. ↑ Casement Park
  11. ↑ Tara Magdalinski, Timothy Chandler, With God on Their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion, Routledge, 2002, p. 32
  12. ↑ John Horgan, Irish media: a critical history since 1922, Routledge, 2001, p. 176
  13. ↑ BMG
  14. ↑ SLIG About Us – Introduction
  15. ↑ Interface No.2: Stewartstown Road, Suffolk (1970s) Archived 24 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  16. ↑ Interface No.3: Oranmore Drive – Malinmore Park, Suffolk Archived 24 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. 1 2 Loyalist attack
  18. ↑ Lenadoon Millennium Park Archived 9 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
  19. ↑ Kevin Kelley, The longest war: Northern Ireland and the IRA, Lawrence Hill, 1988, pp. 182–183
  20. ↑ Gary MacEoin, Northern Ireland: Captive of History, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974, p. 270
  21. ↑ Local government reform

Coordinates: 54°34′42″N 5°59′38″W / 54.57833°N 5.99389°W / 54.57833; -5.99389

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