More Belfast history.
The old Robinson and Cleaver building in Belfast, standing on the prominent corner of Donegall Place and Donegall Square North, was constructed between 1886 and 1888 as the Royal Irish Linen Warehouse for the successful department store founded by Edward Robinson and John Cleaver.
Tudor Revival Architecture, with a story of Ambition, Survival, and Superb Craftsmanship.
Tucked just a short walk from Belfast City Hall on Alfred Street stands one of the city’s most distinctive buildings: St Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church. From the outside it looks almost like a miniature Tudor castle, all red brick, castellated parapets and octagonal turrets. Step inside, however, and the contrast is dramatic. The interior opens into an ornate, intimate space crowned by a fan-vaulted ceiling that many visitors compare to a wedding cake turned inside out. Completed in 1844, the church is the third-oldest continuously used Catholic church in Belfast (after St Mary’s and St Patrick’s) and one of the finest examples of Tudor Revival architecture in Ireland.
Chapel Lane Belfast
As a boy of 12 or so years of age, so, in the late 1960s, a real treat was a Saturday afternoon in Belfast City Centre with my grandfather, – for although he seemed to spend ages browsing through the stock in various tool and equipment stores, – what would probably be known now as DIY shops. But the compensation for this period of boredom would be when we eventually got to Smithfield, the old ‘shambles’ style covered market in between Royal Avenue and Millfield, off Gresham Street. Smithfield wasn’t a market with stalls, nor a modern style shopping centre, but a unique shambles of musty run-down outlets packed with books, records, tools, second hand furniture, bric-a-brac and much much more, including a popular ‘joke shop’ – every small boy’s favourite.
To get to Smithfield from the city centre bus stops required a walk along Queen’s Street, and then along Chapel Lane, and past the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary, and its strange and imposing Marian shrine. To a small boy, not of the Catholic persuasion, and unused to Catholic piety, the shrine appeared mysterious, unwelcoming and even frightening. We hurried past it with eyes looking away and heads bowed.
