Belfast is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel. It is the second-largest city on the island of Ireland, with an estimated population of 348,005 in 2022, and a metropolitan area population of 671,559.
Derry, officially Londonderry, is the largest city in County Londonderry, the second-largest in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. The old walled city lies on the west bank of the River Foyle, which is spanned by two road bridges and one footbridge. The city now covers both banks.
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is a proscribed organisation and is on the terrorist organisation list of the United Kingdom.
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of the participants of the Troubles. Its declared goal was to defend Ulster Protestant loyalist areas and to combat Irish republicanism, particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In the 1970s, uniformed UDA members openly patrolled these areas armed with batons and held large marches and rallies. Within the UDA was a group tasked with launching paramilitary attacks that used the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) so that the UDA would not be outlawed. The British government proscribed the UFF as a terrorist group in November 1973, but the UDA itself was not proscribed until August 1992.
The peace lines or peace walls are a series of separation barriers in Northern Ireland that separate predominantly Irish republican or nationalist Catholic neighbourhoods from predominantly British loyalist or unionist Protestant neighbourhoods. They have been built at urban interface areas in Belfast and elsewhere.
The Shankill Road is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill.
The Irish People's Liberation Organisation was a small Irish socialist republican paramilitary organisation formed in 1986 by disaffected and expelled members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), whose factions coalesced in the aftermath of the supergrass trials. It developed a reputation for intra-republican and sectarian violence as well as criminality, before being forcibly disbanded by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1992.
The Falls Road is the main road through West Belfast, Northern Ireland, running from Divis Street in Belfast City Centre to Andersonstown in the suburbs. The name has been synonymous for at least a century and a half with the Catholic community in the city. The road is usually referred to as the Falls Road, rather than as Falls Road. It is known in Irish as the Bóthar na bhFál and as the Faas Raa in Ulster-Scots.
The Short Strand is a working class, inner city area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist enclave surrounded by the mainly Protestant and unionist East Belfast.
Billy "Hutchie" Hutchinson is a Northern Irish Ulster Loyalist politician and activist who served as leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) from 2011 to 2023, now serving as party president. He was a Belfast City Councillor, representing Oldpark from 1997 to 2005, and then Court from 2014 to 2023. Hutchinson was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast North from 1998 to 2003. Before this, he had been a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and was a founder of their youth wing, the Young Citizen Volunteers (YCV).
Ormeau Road is a road in south Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. Ormeau Park is adjacent to it. It forms part of the A24.
Interface area is the name given in Northern Ireland to areas where segregated nationalist and unionist residential areas meet. They have been defined as "the intersection of segregated and polarised working class residential zones, in areas with a strong link between territory and ethno-political identity".
Taughmonagh is a small housing estate in south west Belfast, Northern Ireland, within the civil parishes of Drumbeg and Shankill, and barony of Belfast Upper. Taughmonagh has become known for being a staunchly loyalist estate.
Henry Patrick McDonald was a Northern Irish journalist and author. He was a correspondent for The Guardian and Observer, and from 2021 was the political editor of The News Letter, one of Northern Ireland's national daily newspapers, based in Belfast.
The Shore Road is a major arterial route and area of housing and commerce that runs through north Belfast and Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland. It forms part of the A2 road, a traffic route which links Belfast to the County Antrim coast.
The Springfield Road is a residential area and road traffic thoroughfare adjacent to the Falls Road in west Belfast. The local population is predominantly Irish nationalist and republican. Along parts of the road are several interface area with the neighbouring Ulster loyalist areas of the Greater Shankill. The Springfield Road includes the Ballymurphy and New Barnsley districts and is overlooked by Black Mountain and Divis.
Musgrave Park is a public park in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The Irish National Liberation Army Belfast Brigade was the main brigade area of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The other Brigade areas were in Derry which was split between two battalions, the first in Derry City, and the second battalion in south County Londonderry, and County Armagh which was also split into two battalions, a south Armagh and a north Armagh battalion, with smaller units in Newry, east and west County Tyrone and south County Fermanagh.
Woodvale Park is a park in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Opened in 1888 and run by the city council, it provides a venue for association football and bowls as well as a children's play area and landscaped areas for walking. The park is home to the Peace Tree, an oak planted in 1919 to commemorate the end of the First World War, which was voted Northern Ireland's Tree of the Year for 2015. The European War Memorial honouring those from all sides killed during the First World War was unveiled in the park in 2014.
Fernhill House is a grade B2 listed building in Glencairn Road, Belfast. It was built in 1864 for the local butter merchant John Smith, with outbuildings added to the north in 1880. It was sold by Smith's family to businessman Samuel Cunningham in 1898. He was a staunch unionist who used the grounds to train members of the Ulster Volunteer Force and to store weapons during the 1912 Home Rule Crisis. Cunningham also kept racing horses in the house's stables, including Tipperary Tim, which won the 1928 Grand National. The estate was purchased by the Belfast Corporation in 1962 and opened to the public as Glencairn Park. The house housed the municipal parks department between 1975 and 1990. Fernhill House was selected by the Combined Loyalist Military Command as the site for their 1994 ceasefire declaration, which presaged the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. From 1996 to 2008 the building housed a museum exhibiting items of local history, Ulster's military history and relating to the Orange Order. The building has since stood vacant and is listed as being at risk. The building and outbuildings were separately granted listed building protection in 2016.
