Richard Hayward made a massive contribution to the cultural life of Ireland. He promoted and acted with the Ulster Literary Theatre and worked with Tyrone Guthrie as one of the first artists in broadcasting. He did much to revive the interest in Irish songs, anticipating the great revival in traditional ballads and airs of the 1960s and 70s. His films included 'The Voice of Ireland', 'The Luck of the Irish'and a cameo appearance in 'The Quiet Man'. His travel writings embrace the whole of Ireland and remain relevant today. This is apparent in his interest in local history and archaeology and also his enthusiasm and respect for the Irish language, place names, folklore and dialects. None of this he found incompatible with his interest in Orangeism and his membership of the Orange order, thus placing him in the long tradition of Irishmen who could love and respect their county, without denigrating the traditions of others.

Offbeat, charming, and filled with humour and insight, Beyond Belfast is the story of one man’s misguided attempt at walking the Ulster Way, “the longest waymarked trail in the British Isles.” It’s a journey that takes Will Ferguson through the small towns and half-forgotten villages of Northern Ireland, along rugged coastlines and across barren moorland heights, past crumbling castles and patchwork farms.From IRA pubs to Protestant marches, from bandits and bad weather to banshees and blood sausage, he wades into the thick of things, providing an affectionate and heartfelt look at one of the most misunderstood corners of the world. As the grandson of a Belfast orphan, Will also peels back the myths and realities of his own family history—a mysterious photograph, rumours of a lost inheritance. The truth, when it comes, is both surprising and funny …

“For those puzzled by Northern Ireland, Belfast Diary offers a well-written, sympathetic and clear-eyed view” of life during the Troubles (New York Times Book Review) In the late 1960s, the ongoing conflict between the Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists of Northern Ireland—divided by their stance on the country’s constitutional position as part of the United Kingdom—escalated to new, terrifying heights. Chicago journalist John Conroy was there on the frontlines, living among the people most affected by it. In Belfast Diary, Conroy offers a street-level view of life in a Catholic Ghetto in West Belfast, painting vivid portraits of its citizens and the violence they faced during the Troubles: bomb threats, murder, police brutality, and more. Conroy’s recounting of this tumultuous moment in Northern Irish history has been hailed as the best explanation of the more than twenty-five-year conflict. Now with a new afterword, Belfast Diary conveys an understanding that is an essential prerequisite to peace: the resolution of intractable problems around the world requires understanding ordinary people as well as leaders.

Understanding the past - where we have come from and what has molded us - is important everywhere, and nowhere more so than in Northern Ireland's largest city.

The historian A. T. Q. Stewart once remarked that in Ireland all history is applied history—that is, the study of the past prosecutes political conflict by other means. Indeed, nearly twenty years after the 1998 Belfast Agreement, "dealing with the past" remains near the top of the political agenda in Northern Ireland. The essays in this volume, by leading experts in the fields of Irish and British history, politics, and international studies, explore the ways in which competing "social" or "collective memories" of the Northern Ireland "Troubles" continue to shape the post-conflict political landscape. The contributors to this volume embrace a diversity of perspectives: the Provisional Republican version of events, as well as that of its Official Republican rival; Loyalist understandings of the recent past as well as the British Army's authorized for-the-record account; the importance of commemoration and memorialization to Irish Republican culture; and the individual memory of one of the noncombatants swept up in the conflict. Tightly specific, sharply focused, and rich in local detail, these essays make a significant contribution to the burgeoning literature of history and memory. The book will interest students and scholars of Irish studies, contemporary British history, memory studies, conflict resolution, and political science. Contributors: Jim Smyth, Ian McBride, Ruan O’Donnell, Aaron Edwards, James W. McAuley, Margaret O’Callaghan, John Mulqueen, and Cathal Goan.

This book vividly reconstructs the social world of upper middle-class Belfast during the time of the city's greatest growth, between the 1830s and the 1880s. Using extensive primary material including personal correspondence, memoirs, diaries and newspapers, the author draws a rich portrait of Belfast society and explores both the public and inner lives of Victorian bourgeois families. Leading business families like the Corrys and the Workmans, alongside their professional counterparts, dominated Victorian Belfast's civic affairs, taking pride in their locale and investing their time and money in improving it. This social group displayed a strong work ethic, a business-oriented attitude and religious commitment, and its female members led active lives in the domains of family, church and philanthropy. While the Belfast bourgeoisie had parallels with other British urban elites, they inhabited a unique place and time: 'Linenopolis' was the only industrial city in Ireland, a city that was neither fully Irish nor fully British, and at the very time that its industry boomed, an unusually violent form of sectarianism emerged. Middle-Class Life in Victorian Belfast provides a fresh examination of familiar themes such as civic activism, working lives, philanthropy, associational culture, evangelicalism, recreation, marriage and family life, and represents a substantial and important contribution to Irish social history.

Marking the four-hundredth anniversary of Belfast's foundation, Belfast 400 offers a new history of one of the world's most fascinating—and misunderstood—cities. Drawing on a wide range of research by several scholars, S. J. Connolly shows how Belfast grew to become a place of contested identity and economics and why it would become one of the main theaters of Irish independence and the many violent events that would define it. Belfast and its history are full of contradictions. It was a significant part of Great Britain's rise to industrial greatness, but it is located not on the island of Great Britain, but in Ireland. While it was central to the establishment of a unique Irish identity, its politics and industrial character set it wholly apart from other Irish cities. An important part of the history of Ireland and the United Kingdom both, Belfast has never fit neatly into the accepted narrative of either. Belfast 400 gets beneath these complexities by raising crucial questions at every post along its history. Why, with its seemingly unfavorable position—a waterlogged river mouth—did it become one of the first human settlements in the area? How did it evolve from a minor outpost to a major city, and how did it expand into one of the world's largest centers of shipbuilding and textile manufacturing? What did this industrial development and the eventual decline of manufacturing mean for the people who lived there? Finally, how can Belfast—still managing fraught political relationships between its own citizens—redefine its identity and face the new challenges of the twenty-first century? By raising these and many other questions, Belfast 400 sheds new light on one of the most complex cities in northern Europe.