Story
The story of Belfast City Hall
This grand building celebrates the moment Belfast became a city. In 1888 Queen Victoria granted Belfast city status, in recognition of its rapid growth and its booming linen, rope-making, shipbuilding and engineering industries – for a short time Belfast even overtook Dublin as the largest city in Ireland. The new city leaders felt their old town hall on Victoria Street was not impressive enough, so they decided to build a new one.
They chose the site of the White Linen Hall, once an important international linen exchange, and paid for the building with profits from the city's gas industry. The street running from the back door, Linen Hall Street, still recalls that history. Today City Hall stands in Donegall Square, facing north, dividing the city centre's shopping streets from its business district, and it is the home of Belfast City Council.
Walk around the grounds, then look up at the building that announced Belfast's arrival as a city.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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