Belfast, County Antrim : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Belfast. You may be able to find further references to Belfast in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Belfast parliamentary and municipal borough, manufacturing and seaport town Bartholomew
BELFAST a sea-port, borough, market-town, and parish Lewis:Ireland
Belfast, Lower and Upper 2 baronies Bartholomew

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Belfast within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Arthur Young 21st to 31st July 1776: Down, Armagh and Antrim 23
Arthur Young Sections 1-4: Extent of Ireland; Soil, Climate; Rental; Products 3
Arthur Young 1st to 10th August 1776: Antrim, Londonderry and Donegal 2
Arthur Young Sections 13-16: Tythes, Church Lands; Absentees; Population; Public Works 2
Arthur Young Appendix, Itinerary 2
John Wesley 1771-3: Windsor Park; Wesley as Art Critic; Glasgow and Perth; Preaches to 30,000 People 1
Arthur Young 11th to 19th October 1776: Tipperary and Waterford 1
Arthur Young Sections 5-6: Of the Tenantry of Ireland; Of the Labouring Poor 1
Arthur Young Section 18: Corn Trade of Ireland, Bounty on Inland Carriage 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Ballymacarret 0 2
Springfield 0 1
Falls Upper 0 1
Shankill 0 1
Ballyhackamore 0 1
Knockbreda 0 2
Newtownbreda 0 2
Ligoniel 0 1
Whitehouse 0 2
Holywood 0 2
Dunmurry 0 2
Dundonald 0 2
Drumbeg 0 1
Whiteabbey 0 2
Drumbo 0 2
Miltown 0 1
Carryduff 0 1
Carnmoney 0 2
Derryaghy 0 2
Castlereagh 0 1

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Belfast. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
BELFAST John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
Samuel Lewis A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London: S. LEWIS & Co., 1837).
BELFAST LOWER AND UPPER John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.