The famous, heritage listed Victorian pub The Crown in Belfast on our last afternoon there:
Tag Archives: Belfast
Belfast 1630
Here is the oldest tavern in Belfast, where we had lunch yesterday. It is from 1630.
Belfast Fire
Here is the poor historical Primark building, which burnt down last week. There are still major disruptions in the city because the structure might not be sound, and you can still smell the fire in the air.
Titanic Belfast
Today in Belfast: the Titanic museum and the SS Nomadic, which is the only White Star Line vessel that still exists. Titanic was built in the city, and was a pride and joy of the locals. The museum has won international awards.
Victorian Belfast
Today in Belfast: the gorgeous Victorian Catholic church of St Malachy, which was very nearly destroyed by the Nazis in World War Two.
On this day…
On this day: the Irish government stands up to the Catholic Church
On the 12th of March, 1985, the government of the Republic of Ireland finally stood up to the powerful Catholic Church and legalised contraception.
Women leave Dublin on their protest journey to Belfast.
The 1970s saw feminists travelling to Belfast in Northern Ireland and returning home with contraceptives, risking arrest for importing illegal products. They were met by protestors upon their arrival home.
Illegal in the Republic in all circumstances until 1980, a new law allowed some contraception to be dispensed by a pharmacist to people with a doctor’s prescription.
This highly restrictive law was finally changed five years later, despite conservative opposition.
Some Americans were so outraged that “Holy Ireland” now allowed contraception, they wrote to the Prime Minister to complain.
Even so, advertising of contraceptives was still banned, and Ireland continued to have one of the highest birth rates in the developed world.
On this day: the launch of the RMS Olympic
The RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the Titanic, was launched in Belfast, Ireland on the 20th of October, 1910.
As was common in the era of black and white photography, the hull of the ship was painted light grey so that the lines could be seen better when shown in pictures.
Sheila, Denise and the Belfast Blitz.
Belfast was heavily bombed by the Nazis in April and May of 1941, with some 900 people dying.
There were fears of animals at the zoo escaping and stampeding, so orders were given to shoot some of them.
A woman named Denise Weston Austin, one of the zoo’s first female zookeepers, decided to save a baby elephant named Sheila.
Because she had high walls around the back of her house, she knew she could hide the animal at night.
Every night after the zoo closed, she sneaked the elephant home on foot, and then returned her in the morning.
Sheila survived the war, but died in 1966.
Austin died in 1997, but the identity of the “Elephant Angel” was not discovered until 2009, when a public appeal was launched to find her.
Picture sources:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/homefront/elephant_1371301c.html
On this day: Northern Ireland’s parliament opened in 1921
On the 22nd of June, 1921, Robinson and Cleaver Department Store in Belfast was photographed decorated for the State Opening of the first Northern Ireland parliament.
In Times Gone By... 
