Falls Road, Belfast

World Travel Diary — By NikhilBhide on January 25, 2010 at 04:19

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History The Falls Road was originally a country lane leading from the city centre but the population of the area expanded rapidly in the nineteenth century with the construction of several large linen mills. All of these have now closed. The housing in the area developed in the nineteenth century and was organised in narrow streets of small terraced back-to-back housing. Many of these streets were named after characters and events in the Crimean War (1853-1856) which was occurring at that time. These included Raglan Street – named after Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War, Alma Street – named after the Battle of Alma, Balaklava Street – named after the Battle of Balaklava, Suomenlinna Street – named after the Battle of Suomenlinna in Finland, Inkerman Street – named after the Battle of Inkerman, and Sevastopol Street – named after the Siege of Sevastopol. By the 1960s the buildings in the area had decayed considerably and the Belfast Corporation introduced a major development plan which involved wholescale demolition of much of the area and its replacement with a series of flat complexes. The high point of this redevelopment was Divis Tower. [edit]Politics Bobby Sands mural on the Falls Road As a predominantly working-class community, the Falls Road has historically had a strong socialist tradition but prior to the 1970s and 1980s had also been less militantly nationalist than many other areas of Northern Ireland. So while James Connolly, the Irish socialist, resided in the upper Falls for a period in the early 20th century and was involved in organizing the workers in the linen mills[citation needed] the area was generally seen as a bedrock of the Irish Parliamentary Party: famously Eamon De Valera lost heavily here in the 1918 UK General Election. Connolly’s secretary Winifred Carney also lived on the Falls. The past century has seen an ongoing contest between various versions of labour/socialist and nationalist/republican for electoral leadership in the area. In the 1929 election to the new Northern Ireland Parliament, the Belfast, Falls constituency was won by the Nationalist Richard Byrne after a very bitter contest with William McMullen, a strong supporter of Connolly. In the 1945 election, Harry Diamond won the seat standing for the Socialist Republican Party. He held the seat until 1969, when he was defeated by Paddy Devlin standing for the Northern Ireland Labour Party. Devlin, who had once been a member, alongside Diamond, of the Belfast branch of the Irish Labour Party, became a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1970 and remained the member until the Parliament was prorogued in 1972. In 1964, Billy McMillen stood as a Republican candidate for the Belfast West constituency in the Westminster election. His office was in Divis Street and the Irish tricolour alongside the Starry Plough of James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army in was displayed in the window. The public display of the flag of the Republic of Ireland was banned by the Northern Ireland government at that time. Protestant preacher Ian Paisley insisted that the Royal Ulster Constabulary remove the flag or he would organise a march and remove it himself.[1] The police feared a backlash from Loyalists, and removed it. There was unrest and rioting from the Catholic community. In the late 1960s, many Catholics from across Northern Ireland began to campaign for civil rights. This included an end to religious discrimination in housing and jobs. Loyalists opposed the Civil Rights movement. They raided Catholic areas. Several streets around the Falls Road were burnt out by loyalists in August 1969. In response to the worsening situation, the British Government deployed the British Army on to the Falls Road. The troops were initially welcomed by the Falls residents, who trusted them to act in an unbiased manner. This attitude, however, quickly turned to anger as they came to see the British Army as an occupying force. In 1970, the road was the scene of what became known as the Falls Curfew. After an attack by the Provisional IRA, 3000 British troops sealed off the streets around the Falls road, home to about 10,000 people, setting off CS gas. The British actions were opposed by the Official IRA, who engaged them in a vicious gun battle. Over the course of the weekend, four Catholic civilians were killed by the British. Ninety rifles were recovered.[2] This event is widely regarded as the end of the British army’s “honeymoon” period with the nationalist community in Northern Ireland.[3] For the following thirty years the British Army maintained a substantial presence on the Falls Road, with a base on top of the Divis Tower. This was removed in August 2005 as part of the British government’s Normalisation programme following the IRA’s statement that it was ending its armed activities. In the intervening period, the Falls Road area saw some of the worst violence of the Troubles.

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