Why did Belfast become a major industrial city?

In investigating this question, the following facts should be considered:

• The long-established Ulster linen trade provided skills and knowledge, and capital for reinvestment in new industry.
• The cotton industry established early in the nineteenth century could not compete with its rivals in the long term, but it provided experience of factory methods.
• In Ulster the structure of land ownership and the influence of the domestic linen trade provided the conditions for a middle class to emerge, committed to commerce.
• Ulster did not have plentiful supplies of coal and iron, but Belfast was conveniently placed facing eastwards to import them cheaply from England.
• Improvements to Belfast as a port allowed its products to be exported more easily to British markets.
• Belfast quickly established close business and commercial links with industrial cities in Britain.
• Once shipbuilding was established alongside linen, a range of subsidiary industries grew up to support them.
• Dublin was the only other Irish city to grow rapidly in the nineteenth century; but its main industries were more to do with its administrative importance and its agricultural hinterland than to new developments.

Concluding Activity

A traveller’s view of Belfast (1841):

(Mr & Mrs SC Hall, 1841.)

What made Belfast different from other Irish towns?

Question 2

Why, by the 1880s, were most Protestants in Ireland in favour of the Union?

In Programmes 1 and 2 we saw that at the end of the eighteenth century significant numbers of Protestants, from the north and south, Anglican and Presbyterian, supported the idea of Ireland having some form of government of its own. By the time of the First Home Rule Bill in 1885, most Protestants were strong supporters of the union with Britain. When considering why, take these points into account:

• The bloody events of 1798 and their aftermath, combined with the threat of a French invasion, made many Protestants see British involvement in Ireland as important to protect their interests.
• The use of the Catholic Church to promote the Emancipation and Repeal movements, and later the Church’s close association with Irish nationalism, made many Protestants fear that their religious freedom would not be protected by a parliament in Dublin.
• Most Protestants outside Ulster belonged to the landlord class, and increasingly the nationalist cause seemed to them to be directed against its position and privileges in society.
• In Ulster industrial growth tended to strengthen existing social and cultural links with Britain.
• Although north-east Ulster had a good base for industrial growth prior to 1800, the Protestant business class noted that commerce had flourished in the first half of the century and they felt this was due to the Union.
• The existence of an Irish parliament might bring an end to free trade with Britain.

Concluding Activity

Here are four reasons why most Protestants wanted to keep the Union:

• They feared that rule from Dublin would threaten their religion and culture.
• They feared that Home Rule in Ireland would lead to the break-up of the British Empire.
• Under the Union, landlords had the best chance of holding on to their land and position.
• They associated the Union with economic prosperity.

Rank these arguments according to how strongly you think they influenced Protestants.

Rank the arguments according to how well-founded you think they were.

Is the order the same in each case?

Question 3

How did the growth of Belfast affect the lives of its citizens?

In investigating this question, the following facts should be considered:

• In the nineteenth century Belfast grew faster than any other city in the United Kingdom.
• In 1800, relations between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast were generally considered to be good.
• Belfast’s rapid growth caused major problems in the provision of decent housing, drainage and sewerage.
• By the middle of the century the average mortality rate in the UK was 1 in 50 deaths per capita per year; in Belfast it was 1 in 35.
• Belfast had the highest death rate of any town in Ireland; taking into account infant mortality, life expectancy has been estimated at 9 years.
• Wages in Belfast mills were lower than in other textile cities in Britain.
• The ‘linen barons’ built their families’ mansions along the shores of Belfast Lough.
• Newcomers from the countryside tended to settle along the roads by which they arrived, near relatives, thus creating areas of mainly one or the other religious group.
• They brought the conflicts of the countryside with them, and at times of tension like the 12 July parades, ill feelings often led to violence.
• At such times people living in mixed areas often retreated into their own communities for protection.
• Protestants and Catholics often competed for houses and jobs; Protestants tended to dominate the more skilled trades.
• In the 1850s the leading churches led religious crusades among the working classes; these heightened the religious fears of both communities.
• Attitudes on both sides became much more fixed during the Home Rule Campaign of 1885.

Concluding Activity

The growth of unionist sentiment amongst all classes of Protestants owed much to wider developments, especially:

• Increasing industrial prosperity in eastern Ulster.
• Support for emancipation, repeal, and then Home Rule by large numbers of Catholics.
• Unrest in the countryside and attacks on landlords’ privileges.

Explain how each factor was likely to strengthen unionist sentiment among a section of the Protestant community.

Create a similar list of factors for nationalism. How did each contribute to its growth?