1.
Baroque Revival architecture
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The Baroque Revival, also known as Neo-Baroque, was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture which displays important aspects of Baroque style, barbaras Church, Brooklyn, New York, United States St. John Cantius Church, Chicago, United States Church of St. A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Oxford University Press
2.
Donegall Square
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Donegall Square is a square in the centre of Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. In the centre is Belfast City Hall, the headquarters of Belfast City Council, each side of the square is named according to its geographical location, i. e. Donegall Square North, South, East and West. It is named after the Donegall family, other streets to bear their name in Belfast are Donegall Road, Donegall Pass and Donegall Street. Donegall Place, the main shopping street, runs from the north side of the square. Many of the above have their Northern Ireland headquarters on the square, the Northern Bank robbery occurred at the banks headquarters on Donegall Square West. In addition, it is the home to many leading Law Firms including, Millar McCall & Wylie, Sullivans, Rice & Company, McGriggors LLP, notable buildings on the square include the Linen Hall Library and the Scottish Provident Building, now a five-star serviced office business centre. The Ten Square Hotel on Donegall Square South was originally a Victorian linen warehouse and its exterior features carved portholes, with the faces of George Washington, Isaac Newton, Michelangelo and William Shakespeare protruding
3.
Belfast
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Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, the second largest on the island of Ireland, and the heart of the tenth largest Primary Urban Area in the United Kingdom. On the River Lagan, it had a population of 286,000 at the 2011 census and 333,871 after the 2015 council reform, Belfast was granted city status in 1888. Belfast played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, and was an industrial centre until the latter half of the 20th century. It has sustained a major aerospace and missiles industry since the mid 1930s, industrialisation and the inward migration it brought made Belfast Irelands biggest city at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, Belfast remains a centre for industry, as well as the arts, higher education, business, and law, additionally, Belfast city centre has undergone considerable expansion and regeneration in recent years, notably around Victoria Square. Belfast is served by two airports, George Best Belfast City Airport in the city, and Belfast International Airport 15 miles west of the city. Although the county borough of Belfast was created when it was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1888, the site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Giants Ring, a 5, 000-year-old henge, is located near the city, Belfast remained a small settlement of little importance during the Middle Ages. The ONeill clan had a presence in the area, in the 14th century, Cloinne Aodha Buidhe, descendants of Aodh Buidhe ONeill built Grey Castle at Castlereagh, now in the east of the city. Conn ONeill of the Clannaboy ONeills owned vast lands in the area and was the last inhabitant of Grey Castle, evidence of this period of Belfasts growth can still be seen in the oldest areas of the city, known as the Entries. Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries, industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, and at the end of the 19th century, Belfast briefly overtook Dublin as the largest city in Ireland. The Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, in 1886 the city suffered intense riots over the issue of home rule, which had divided the city. In 1920–22, Belfast became the capital of the new entity of Northern Ireland as the island of Ireland was partitioned, the accompanying conflict cost up to 500 lives in Belfast, the bloodiest sectarian strife in the city until the Troubles of the late 1960s onwards. Belfast was heavily bombed during World War II, in one raid, in 1941, German bombers killed around one thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless. Apart from London, this was the greatest loss of life in a raid during the Blitz. Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since its establishment in 1921 following the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and it had been the scene of various episodes of sectarian conflict between its Catholic and Protestant populations. These opposing groups in conflict are now often termed republican and loyalist respectively. The most recent example of conflict was known as the Troubles – a civil conflict that raged from around 1969 to 1998
4.
Northern Ireland
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Northern Ireland is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom in the north-east of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the total population. Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by an act of the British parliament, Northern Ireland has historically been the most industrialised region of Ireland. After declining as a result of the political and social turmoil of the Troubles, its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17. 2% in 1986, dropping to 6. 1% for June–August 2014,58. 2% of those unemployed had been unemployed for over a year. Prominent artists and sports persons from Northern Ireland include Van Morrison, Rory McIlroy, Joey Dunlop, Wayne McCullough, some people from Northern Ireland prefer to identify as Irish while others prefer to identify as British. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, in many sports, the island of Ireland fields a single team, a notable exception being association football. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. The region that is now Northern Ireland was the bedrock of the Irish war of resistance against English programmes of colonialism in the late 16th century, the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland had been declared by the English king Henry VIII in 1542, but Irish resistance made English control fragmentary. Victories by English forces in war and further Protestant victories in the Williamite War in Ireland toward the close of the 17th century solidified Anglican rule in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the victories of the Siege of Derry and their intention was to materially disadvantage the Catholic community and, to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian community. In the context of open institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in communities in the region and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. Following this, in an attempt to quell sectarianism and force the removal of discriminatory laws, the new state, formed in 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was governed from a single government and parliament based in London. Between 1717 and 1775 some 250,000 people from Ulster emigrated to the British North American colonies and it is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the US. By the close of the century, autonomy for Ireland within the United Kingdom, in 1912, after decades of obstruction from the House of Lords, Home Rule became a near-certainty. A clash between the House of Commons and House of Lords over a controversial budget produced the Parliament Act 1911, which enabled the veto of the Lords to be overturned. The House of Lords veto had been the unionists main guarantee that Home Rule would not be enacted, in 1914, they smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary organisation opposed to the implementation of Home Rule
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Belfast City Council
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Belfast City Council is the local authority with responsibility for part of the city of Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The Council serves a population of 333,871, the largest of any district council in Northern Ireland. The Council is made up of 60 councillors, elected from nine district electoral areas across the city, most representing the heavily populated north. It holds its meetings in the historic Belfast City Hall, the current Lord Mayor is Brian Kingston of the Democratic Unionist Party. As part of the 2014/2015 reform of government the city council area expanded. The number of councillors increased from 51 to 60, elections to the expanded city council took place on 22 May 2014. Belfasts modern history can be dated back to the Plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century which brought significant numbers of Protestant Scottish and English settlers to Ulster, the town gradually developed to become a major industrial centre, in particular in the areas of linen and ship building. In recognition of this growth Belfast was granted city status in 1888 and by 1901, the citys importance was evidenced by the construction of the lavish City Hall, completed in 1906. The body now known as Belfast City Council has its origins in the defunct Belfast Corporation, originally it was intended that there would be 52 wards. However, local enquiries meant that the proposed Tullycarnet ward became instead the Castlereagh Borough Council wards of Tullycarnet and Gilnahirk, from the late 18th century onwards, the citys Roman Catholic population gradually increased, although the city was still dominated by its mostly Ulster Protestant majority. The 2011 census findings confirmed this significant change in demographics, in the Belfast City Council area, the proportion of people who were Catholic or brought up Catholic is larger than those who were Protestant or brought up Protestant for the first time. The city of Belfast has the Latin motto Pro tanto quid retribuamus and it is also translated as In return for so much, what shall we give back. The Queens University Students Union Rag Week publication PTQ derives its name from the first three words of the motto and this heraldic language describes a shield that is divided in two horizontally. The top of the shield is silver, and has a triangle with a repeating blue-and-white pattern that represents fur. There is also a red square in the top corner on which there is a silver bell and it is likely that the bell is an example here of canting heraldry, representing the first syllable of Belfast. In the lower part of the shield there is a sailing ship shown sailing on waves coloured in the actual colours of the sea. The supporter on the side is a chained wolf, while on the sinister side the supporter is a sea-horse. The crest above the shield is also a sea-horse and these arms date back to 1613, when King James I granted Belfast town status
7.
Belfast Corporation
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Belfast City Council is the local authority with responsibility for part of the city of Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The Council serves a population of 333,871, the largest of any district council in Northern Ireland. The Council is made up of 60 councillors, elected from nine district electoral areas across the city, most representing the heavily populated north. It holds its meetings in the historic Belfast City Hall, the current Lord Mayor is Brian Kingston of the Democratic Unionist Party. As part of the 2014/2015 reform of government the city council area expanded. The number of councillors increased from 51 to 60, elections to the expanded city council took place on 22 May 2014. Belfasts modern history can be dated back to the Plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century which brought significant numbers of Protestant Scottish and English settlers to Ulster, the town gradually developed to become a major industrial centre, in particular in the areas of linen and ship building. In recognition of this growth Belfast was granted city status in 1888 and by 1901, the citys importance was evidenced by the construction of the lavish City Hall, completed in 1906. The body now known as Belfast City Council has its origins in the defunct Belfast Corporation, originally it was intended that there would be 52 wards. However, local enquiries meant that the proposed Tullycarnet ward became instead the Castlereagh Borough Council wards of Tullycarnet and Gilnahirk, from the late 18th century onwards, the citys Roman Catholic population gradually increased, although the city was still dominated by its mostly Ulster Protestant majority. The 2011 census findings confirmed this significant change in demographics, in the Belfast City Council area, the proportion of people who were Catholic or brought up Catholic is larger than those who were Protestant or brought up Protestant for the first time. The city of Belfast has the Latin motto Pro tanto quid retribuamus and it is also translated as In return for so much, what shall we give back. The Queens University Students Union Rag Week publication PTQ derives its name from the first three words of the motto and this heraldic language describes a shield that is divided in two horizontally. The top of the shield is silver, and has a triangle with a repeating blue-and-white pattern that represents fur. There is also a red square in the top corner on which there is a silver bell and it is likely that the bell is an example here of canting heraldry, representing the first syllable of Belfast. In the lower part of the shield there is a sailing ship shown sailing on waves coloured in the actual colours of the sea. The supporter on the side is a chained wolf, while on the sinister side the supporter is a sea-horse. The crest above the shield is also a sea-horse and these arms date back to 1613, when King James I granted Belfast town status
8.
Irish language
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Irish, also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people. Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland and it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. The fate of the language was influenced by the power of the English state in Ireland. Elizabethan officials viewed the use of Irish unfavourably, as being a threat to all things English in Ireland and its decline began under English rule in the 17th century. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a decrease in the number of speakers. Irish-speaking areas were hit especially hard, by the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers have been in the minority, efforts have been made by the state, individuals and organisations to preserve, promote and revive the language, but with mixed results. Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates of native speakers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000 people. In the 2011 Census, these numbers had increased to 94,000 and 1.3 million, there are several thousand Irish speakers in Northern Ireland. It has been estimated that the active Irish-language scene probably comprises 5 to 10 per cent of Irelands population, there has been a significant increase in the number of urban Irish speakers, particularly in Dublin. In Gaeltacht areas, however, there has been a decline of the use of Irish. Údarás na Gaeltachta predicted that, by 2025, Irish will no longer be the language in any of the designated Gaeltacht areas. Survey data suggest that most Irish people think highly of Irish as a marker of identity. It has also argued that newer urban groups of Irish speakers are a disruptive force in this respect. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil the name of the language is Gaeilge, before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled Gaedhilge, originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Irish. Older spellings of this include Gaoidhealg in Classical Irish and Goídelc in Old Irish, the modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge, whereas Goidelic languages, used to refer to the language family including Irish, comes from Old Irish
9.
Ulster Scots dialects
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Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots, also known as Ullans, generally refers to the dialects of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster in Ireland. Some definitions of Ulster Scots may also include Standard English spoken with an Ulster Scots accent and this is a situation like that of Lowland Scots and Scottish Standard English with words pronounced using the Ulster Scots phonemes closest to those of Standard English. Ulster Scots has been influenced by Hiberno-English, particularly Mid-Ulster English, as a result of the competing influences of English and Scots, varieties of Ulster Scots can be described as more English or more Scots. The earliest Scots writing in Ulster dates from time, and until the late 20th century. While once referred to as Scotch-Irish by several researchers, that has now superseded by the term Ulster Scots. Speakers usually refer to their vernacular as Braid Scots, Scotch or the hamely tongue, occasionally, the term Hiberno-Scots is used, but it is usually used for the ethnic group rather than the vernacular. During the middle of the 20th century, the linguist R. J. Gregg established the boundaries of Ulsters Scots-speaking areas based on information gathered from native speakers. Ulster Scots is spoken in east Antrim, north Down, north-east County Londonderry and it is also spoken in the Laggan district and parts of the Finn Valley in east Donegal and in the south of Inishowen in north Donegal. Other estimates range from 35,000 in Northern Ireland, to a total of 100,000 including the Republic of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland,16,373 people stated that they can speak, read, write and understand Ulster Scots and 140,204 people reported having some ability in Ulster Scots. Enthusiasts such as Philip Robinson, the Ulster-Scots Language Society and supporters of an Ulster-Scots Academy are of the opinion that Ulster Scots is a language in its own right. That position has been criticised by the Ulster-Scots Agency, a BBC report stating, other linguists treat it as a variety of the Scots language, Caroline Macafee, for example, writes that Ulster Scots is clearly a dialect of Central Scots. The Concise Ulster Dictionary writes that Ulster Scots is one dialect of Lowland Scots, the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure considers Ulster Scots to be the local variety of the Scots language. It has been said that its status varies between dialect and language, the North/South Co-operation Northern Ireland Order 1999, which gave effect to the implementation bodies incorporated the text of the agreement in its Schedule 1. The Good Friday Agreement recognises Ulster Scots as part of the wealth of the island of Ireland. This reflects the wording used in the St Andrews Agreement to refer to the enhancement and development of the Ulster Scots language, heritage, there is still controversy on the status of Ulster Scots. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one, literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland. W. G. Lyttle, writing in Paddy McQuillans Trip Tae Glesco, uses the typically Scots forms kent and begood, now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream Anglic forms knew, knowed or knawed and begun
Media related to Belfast City Hall at Wikimedia Commons
