Belfast Vacations, Belfast Vacation Reviews, Tourism Guide

First records in the 14th century speak of a Norman castle on a ford of the Farset river to defend the route into county Down. No trace of this structure remains but it is thought to have stood on the current Castle Place. The city's name first appears in English records referring to a 'Castle built at Belfaste' in 1476. The place didn't grow until lands & the derelict castle passed to Sir Arthur Chichester in 1603. He was rewarded for suppressing the Clandeboye O'Neills with extensive lands including almost all of the existing town. He worked hard to develop his estates & was rewarded in 1613 with the issuing of a royal charter making the town a borough with the right to two members to the Irish parliament in Dublin. This laid the basis for the slow but inexorable growth into the Georgian port & centre for shipbuilding, Linen manufacture & export - the cradle of the industrial revolution on the island of Ireland.
From the end of the 18th century the city was a hotbed of political ferment. The United Irishmen Movement grew in response to democratic demands for access to power for the middle & commercial classes drawing inspiration from the French Revolution. Violently suppressed this rebellion set the fault lines of conflict for the next 200 years. Irish Republicans chart their origins from this time, as does the Orange Order. The political & religious fallout sent dissenters to the Americas where they played significant roles in politics & military affairs.