| Lisburn | |
|---|---|
 Irish Linen Museum and Christ Church Cathedral | |
  Lisburn Location withinNorthern Ireland | |
| Population | (2021 Census)
|
| • Belfast | 8 miles |
| District | |
| County | |
| Country | Northern Ireland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LISBURN |
| Postcode district | BT27, BT28 |
| Dialling code | 028 |
| Police | Northern Ireland |
| Fire | Northern Ireland |
| Ambulance | Northern Ireland |
| UK Parliament | |
| NI Assembly | |
| |
Lisburn (/ˈlɪzbɜːrn,ˈlɪsbɜːrn/LIZ-burn,LISS-burn;Irish:Lios na gCearrbhach[1][ˌl̠ʲɪsˠn̪ˠəˈɟaːɾˠ(ə)wəx]ⓘ) is a city inNorthern Ireland. It is 8 mi (13 km) southwest ofBelfast city centre, on theRiver Lagan, which forms the boundary betweenCounty Antrim andCounty Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with the arrival of FrenchHuguenots in the 18th century, the town developed as a global centre of the linen industry.
In 2002, as part ofQueen Elizabeth'sGolden Jubilee celebrations, the predominantlyunionist borough was grantedcity status alongside the largelynationalist town ofNewry. With a population of 45,370 in the 2011 Census,[3] Lisburn was the third-largest city in Northern Ireland. In the 2016reform of local government in Northern Ireland Lisburn was joined with the greater part ofCastlereagh to form theLisburn City and Castlereagh District.[4]
The town was originally known asLisnagarvy (also speltLisnagarvey orLisnagarvagh) after thetownland in which it formed. This is derived from Irish Lios na gCearrbhach 'ringfort of the gamesters/gamblers'.[5]
In the records, the nameLisburn appears to supersede Lisnagarvey around 1662.[6] One theory is that it comes from the Irishlios ('ringfort') and theScotsburn ('stream').[5] Some speculate that-burn refers to the burning of the town during theIrish Rebellion of 1641, but there is evidence of earlier use. An English soldier later recalled the rebels having entered the town of Lisnagarvy at "a place called Louzy Barne".[6] In the town's early days, there were possibly two ringforts: Lisnagarvy to the north and Lisburn to the south, and the latter may simply have been easier for the English settlers to pronounce.[6]
Lisburn's original site was a fort located north of modern-day Wallace Park.[7] In 1609James I granted Sir Fulke Conway, a Welshman ofNorman descent,[8][9] the lands of Killultagh in southwest County Antrim.
In 1611George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes remarked: "In our travel fromDromore towardsKnockfargus, we saw in Kellultagh upon Sir Fulke Conway’s lands a house of cagework in hand and almost finished, where he intends to erect a bawn of brick in a place called Lisnagarvagh. He has built a fair timber bridge over the river of Lagan near the house."[10] In 1622 the first impressions of Sir Fulke's brother and heir, Edward Conway, was of "a curious place ... Greater storms are not in any place nor greater serenities: foul ways, boggy ground, pleasant fields, water brooks, rivers full of fish, full of game, the people in their attire, language, fashion: barbarous. In their entertainment free and noble."[11]
Management of the Conways' Irish estate fell largely toGeorge Rawdon, aYorkshire man, who laid out the streets of Lisburn as they are today: Market Square, Bridge Street, Castle Street and Bow Street. He had amanor house built on what is now Castle Gardens, and in 1623, a church on the site of the current cathedral. In 1628,King Charles I granted a charter for a weekly market, which is still held in the town every Tuesday.[12] To populate the town, Rawdon, hostile to the Presbyterian Scots already moving into the area, brought overEnglish andWelsh settlers.[13]
In 1641 the Irish, rising in the first instance against English, and not Scottish, settlers,[14] were driven back three times from the town. A herd four hundred head of cattle driven against the gates failed to batter them down. The town nonetheless burned.[15] In 1649 the town was secured by forces loyal toCromwell'sEnglish Commonwealth, routing an army of ScotsCovenanters, and theirRoyalist allies, in theBattle of Lisnagarvey.[16]
The Presbyterians, despite their loyalty to theCrown, upon itsRestoration continued to be penalised as "dissenters" from theestablished Anglican church, theChurch of Ireland. It was not until 1670 that they were permitted a meeting house in town, and that had to be of "perishable materials [...] dark, narrow and devoid of any pretensions to art and comfort.[11] Their support forKing William (whose forces wintered in the town) and the"Protestant cause" in 1690 likewise failed to win them equal standing. Like the Roman Catholics, who had to wait another 60 years for a "Mass House", Presbyterians were discouraged from exerting their presence. The First Presbyterian Church built in 1768 was screened (until 1970) from Market Square by shops.[17]
The town was destroyed once again in 1707: the accidental conflagration giving rise to the town's mottoEx igne resurgam --"Out of the fire I shall arise". Conway'sManor House was not restored (part of the surrounding wall and its gateway with the date 1677 engraved still stands on the south and east side of Castle Gardens). The Anglican church, designated byCharles II asChrist Church Cathedral in 1662, was rebuilt retaining the tower and the surviving galleries in the nave. The distinctive octagonal spire was added in 1804.[18]
One of the few buildings spared in the fire of 1707 was theFriend's Meeting House.Quakerism had been brought to the town in 1655 by a veteran of Cromwell's army, William Edmundson. In 1766, a prosperous linen merchant, John Hancock, endowed what is now the grammar school known asFriends' School Lisburn.[19]
John Wesley first visited Lisburn in 1756, and thereafter he returned to preach biannually until 1789. The first Wesleyan Methodist Preaching House was established in the town in 1772.[20]
Lisburn prides itself as the birthplace ofIreland's linen industry. While production had been introduced by the Scots, the arrival in 1698 of Huguenot refugees from France brought more sophisticated techniques, and government support.[21] Even as it raisedduties on Ireland's successful woollen trade (with the concurrence of the subordinateIrish Parliament),[22] theEnglish Parliament removed them on all Irish articles ofhemp and flax, and the government gaveLouis Crommelin, "overseer of the royal linen manufacture of Ireland", money to promote their production.[23]
The Huguenot retained their own place of worship, the "French Church" in Castle Street, until 1820. The last of its pastors, Saumarez Dubourdieu, was 56 years Master of the Classical School of the Bow Street. His students subscribed to his memorial and bust on the south interior of the cathedral.[24]
Large scale manufacture began in 1764 when William Coulson established his first linen looms close by is now the Union Bridge. His mill supplieddamask to the royal courts of Europe and, in the early nineteenth century, was to draw celebrity visitors, among themGrand Duke Michael of Russia,Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden,Louis Napoléon Lannes duc de Montebello, theDuke of Wellington andLord John Russell.[25]
To carry the town's new trade, construction of the Belfast-Lisburn section of theLagan Canal began in 1756. Despite problems of low water levels during the summer, the canal (extended in 1794 to Lough Neagh) continued to carry bulk cargoes until 1958.[26]
In 1784, the Scotsman John Barbour began spinning linen thread, and in 1831 his son William moved production to what had originally been Crommelin'sbleach green at Hilden. By the end of the century Barbour's Linen Thread Company was the largest mill of its kind in the world employing about 2000 people to work 30,000 spindles and 8,000 twisting machines. The company had built a model village for the workers, with 350 houses, two schools, a community hall, children's playground and a village sports ground.[27]
Mechanisation, tied first to water, and then to steam, power, drove the growth of industry, but displaced independent weavers. In 1762, over 300 paraded through Lisburn brandishing blackthorn sticks as a protest against the threat of unemployment.[26] In the 1780s they were gripped by the spirit of "combination"—the formation, in defiance of the law, of unions to press for higherpiece rates. This brought workers into a sometimes uneasy relationship with the Volunteer militia.[28]
TheVolunteer militia movement, formed in response to the defence emergency caused by French intervention in theAmerican War of Independence, served the town's merchants and tradesmen as an opportunity to protest (with their kindred in the American colonies) the restrictiveEnglish Navigation Acts and to insist on the independence of theIrish Parliament inDublin. In 1783William Todd Jones,[29] a captain of the Lisburn Fusilier Corps of Volunteers, took this patriot programme (approved at aconvention in Dungannon) a step further. He successfully challenged the parliamentary nominees of the town and district's principal landlord, the Hertfords, on a platform of a representative reform to include votes for Catholics.[30]
In the wake of theFrench Revolution the cause of religious equality and representative government for Ireland was taken up in a still less compromising form by theSociety of United Irishmen. The society won support of working men in the town, and of its leading Catholic family, the Teelings of Chapel Hill, wealthy linen manufacturers.Bartholomew Teeling (destined to hang) and his brotherCharles, were an important connection between the largelyPresbyterian "United men" and CatholicDefenders in rural areas.[31] It is likely, however, that the greater strength in the district was the fraternalOrange Order, newly formed in defence of theProtestant [Church of Ireland] Ascendancy. In 1797 the Order paraded 3,000 loyalists in the town before the British commanderGeneral Lake.[32]
The neighbouring military camp at Blaris, ensured that when in 1798 the United Irishmen, decided upon insurrection, there could be no rebel demonstration in the town.[33] Blaris supplied troops that helped ensure defeat for the forces of the "Republic" to the north of the town at theBattle of Antrim on June 7, and to the south at theBattle of Ballynahinch on June 12 where the "Croppies" had been under the command of the Lisburn linen draper,Henry Munro. For over a month, the severed heads of Munro and three of his lieutenants were displayed on pikes, one on each corner of the Market House.[34]
The county-by-county record of pre-Famine Ireland,Hall's Ireland: Mr and Mrs Hall's Tour of 1840, found Lisburn recognisable as the settlement Rowden had formed more than two centuries before. Believing that between Drum Bridge andLough Neagh the people were "almost exclusively" of English and Welsh extraction, the Halls ventured that in no town in Ireland were "the happy effects of English taste and industry more conspicuous".[35] With the formation in 1836 of theLisburn Cricket Club, the Halls might have noted that English taste also extended to sport and leisure.[36]
To the visitors the town still appeared in 1840 to consist "principally of one long street" (Bow Street) at the Market Square end of which stood the cathedral. An "interesting and picturesque church", it contained "two very remarkable monuments". One is of "the great and goodJeremy Taylor" (1613–1667), sometimeBishop of Down and Conor (reputed "Shakespeare of the Divines" and former chaplain toCharles I).[37] The other is to the memory of Lieutenant William Dobbs killed in the capture of his vessel,HMSDrake, by the American privateerJohn Paul Jones[35] (an engagement inBelfast Lough in 1778 that spurred formation of the Volunteer movement).[38]
The Halls would have been able to proceed the eight miles to Belfast on the newly completedUlster Railway line. The line from Belfast was continued toPortadown and, with the completion of theBoyne Viaduct, connected with Dublin in 1855. A junction out of Lisburn at Knockmore, established further service toBanbridge andNewcastle and toAntrim andDerry.Lisburn's present railway station, built for theGreat Northern Railway Company, dates from 1878.[39]
The new transportation links encouraged further industrial growth. In 1889, newspapers reported a rival to Barbour's factory: a "splendid new mill" by Robert Stewart & Son to employ over a thousand hands, with the novelty of electric lighting and "toilets on every floor".[40]
As had other Protestant-majority districts, Lisburn quickly reconciled to theunion with Great Britain that followed the1798 rebellion. Support for the Union, seen both as a guarantee of free trade and as security against Catholic-majority rule, spurred the further growth in the town of theOrange Order and helped return Hertford-approvedConservative candidates to theWestminster parliament. The political loyalty of tenants (who were to enjoy a secret ballot only from 1871) was further secured by the relative beneficence of the 3rd Marquess of Hertford. Despite a reputation of being "the most thoroughgoing rove in the kingdom" and spending almost all of his life on the continent,[41] when cholera struck in 1832Francis Seymour-Conway (1777–1842) erected a hospital and distributed medicines, blankets, clothing and other necessities throughout the estate.[25]
In 1842, CaptainRichard Seymour-Conway (1800–1870), the4th Marquess of Hertford, inherited 10 by 14 mile Lagan Valley estate on which some 4,000 tenants (and many more sub-tenants) provided an income of £60,000 (or £5 million in today's money).[42] Yet he was to visit it but once, and then with the wish that, "pray God!", he should never have to do so again.[43] When the edge of theGreat Irish Famine reached the valley in 1847 and 1848, the Marquess declined to join the mill owners in subscribing to the relief efforts.[44][11] London'sWallace Collection, named after his illegitimate Parisian son and heirSir Richard Wallace, is testimony to his chief passion, the acquisition of art.
Wallace (1818–1890) was createdbaronet in 1871 and was the Conservative andUnionistMember of Parliament (MP) forLisburn from 1873 to 1885 (when Lisburn was incorporated into the newSouth Antrim constituency).[45] His bequests to the people of Lisburn includedWallace Park, grounds for the Intermediate and University School (later renamed in his honour,Wallace High School), and a remodelling of the Market House.[46] (The large residence he built on Castle Street, but never occupied, today houses offices of theSouth Eastern Regional College). In 1872 he donated 50"Wallace" drinking fountains (cast from a sculpture ofCharles-Auguste Lebourg), to Paris (on whose humanitarian relief during theGerman siege of 1870–1871 he had already spent a considerable fortune)[47] and five to Lisburn where one is still to be found in Castle Gardens and another in Wallace Park.[48] The town responded with a memorial to Wallace In Castle Gardens.[49]
In 1852, Lord Hertford's agent, the Reverend James Stannus, the Rector of Lisburn Cathedral, had occasion to write to him suggesting a general increase in rents as punishment for the tenants both for an attack on his person and for their defiance in voting for a dissident Conservative, a free-trade "Peelite". The following year the tenants sent a delegation to Hertford in Paris in a vain protest.[41] In 1872, charges of "high-handed management of the estate" (the arbitrary fining and eviction of tenants, interference in elections, and discrimination against non-Anglicans) prompted Stannus's son and successor to sue the Belfast paper, theNorthern Whig for defamation. The Dublin jury found for the plaintiff only under pressure from the judge, fixing the damages at £100.[42]
Together with failing agricultural prices, a willingness even of Orangemen to join theIrish National Land League helped turn the tables: in the 1880s agents were proposing to appease tenant with rent reductions. Under the later marquesses, and as their legal powers to dictate terms diminished, tenant-landlord relations improved.[41]
By the new century theIrish Land Acts had effectively retired the great proprietors and their agents from the scene. In a departing gesture, in 1901,Sir John Murray Scott, heir of Lady Wallace, gave the Market House with its Assembly Rooms to Lisburn Urban District Council, for "the benefit of the inhabitants of the town".[46] The Hertford Rent Office in Castle Street was closed in 1901 and becameLisburn Town Hall.[50]
In July 1914, in the first of many acts of political violence Lisburn was to experience in the new century, the chancel ofLisburn Cathedral was destroyed by a bomb.[51] It had been placed byLilian Metge as part of a broader campaign on behalf of women's suffrage, co-ordinated byDorothy Evans of theWomen's Social and Political Union. The previous year, explosives having been found in her Belfast apartment, Evans had created uproar in court when she demanded to know whyJames Craig, who at that point had overseen the arming of theUlster Volunteers (UVF) with smuggled German munitions, was not appearing on the same charges.[52]
Lisburn and neighbouring communities raised three battalions of the UVF, the South Antrim Volunteers. They were a token of the determination of local people (in the words ofUlster's Solemn League and Covenant) "to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the presentconspiracy to set up aHome Rule Parliament in Ireland".[53] TheUnited Kingdom declaration of war upon Germany (August 3), paused resolution of theHome Rule Crisis, and many of Lisburn's Volunteers would go on to serve with the36th (Ulster) Division.[54]
On July 12, 1916, for the first time since 1797 there was no Orange demonstration of any kind to celebrate theWilliamite victory at the Boyne. The customary midnight drumming parade was abandoned, and no arches or flags were displayed. Most of the mills and factories were closed.[55] The town responded to the news that on the first day ofSomme offensive, July 1, the Ulster Division had lost 5,000 men wounded, 2,069 killed.[56]
In 1920, Lisburn saw violence related to theIrish War of Independence andpartition of Ireland. On 22 August, theIrish Republican Army (IRA) assassinatedRoyal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Inspector Oswald Swanzy in Lisburn's Market Square, as worshippers left Sunday service in the cathedral.[57] Swanzy was among those a coroner's inquest in Cork had held responsible for the killing ofTomás Mac Curtain, the city's republicanLord Mayor.[58]
Over the next three days and nights Protestantloyalist crowds looted and burned practically every Catholic business in the town, and attacked Catholic homes.[59] There is evidence that Ulster Volunteers had helped organise the burnings.[60] Rioters attacked firemen who tried to save Catholic property,[61] and lorries of British soldiers sent to help the police.[59] Brigadier-GeneralWilliam Pain (a former Ulster Volunteer leader) had troops guard the Catholic church and convent, but failed to take strong action to quell rioting elsewhere.[59] The parochial house was looted, burnt out and daubed with sectarian slogans.[62] Some Catholics were severely beaten, and a Catholic pub owner later died of gunshot wounds.[59] A charred body was found in the ruins of a factory.[63]
Lisburn was likened to "a bombarded town in France" during the war.[64] About 1,000 people, a third of the town's Catholics, fled Lisburn.[65] Many were forced to take the mountain road to Belfast where troops were already blocking off streets with barbed wire cordons, a prelude to still greater violence. Fires soon raged across Belfast and in the next few days thirty people were killed in the city (seeBelfast Pogrom).[66] As a result of the violence, Lisburn was the first town to recruit thespecial constables who went on to become theUlster Special Constabulary. In October, about thirty special constables faced charges for involvement in the "Swanzy riots".[67] The lastChief Secretary for Ireland,Sir Hamar Greenwood, admitted that "some hundred special constables in Lisburn threatened to resign" in protest.[68] Charges were not pursued.[67]
On the day that a 700-year English presence in the south of Ireland ended with the formal hand over ofDublin Castle to the government of theIrish Free State, 16 January 1922, Lisburn celebrated the centenary of the local "hero ofthe Indian Mutiny",John Nicholson (1822–1857).[69] Under a marble relief of his final assault onDelhi's Kashmir Gate, a memorial in the Cathedral credited Nicholson with dealing a "death blow to the greatest danger that ever threatened the British Empire".[70] ForJames Craig, now the first prime minister ofNorthern Ireland, and for other dignitaries speaking at the unveiling of a new statue in Market Square, theEast India Company Brigadier (depicted with both sword and gun in hand) was "a symbol of the defence of Empire in Ireland as well as India.[71]
In April the following year crowds gathered again to dedicate the Victory Memorial in Castle Gardens.[72] Had he not been assassinated by the IRA on his London doorstep, it would have been unveiled bySir Henry Wilson, formerChief of the Imperial General Staff andMP for North Down.[73]
As the linen industry was hugely dependent on the export market, Lisburn and the surrounding area was hit hard in the 1930s by theworldwide economic depression. The pattern of unemployment, half-time contracts and reduced wages was fully reversed only by new wartime mobilisation. While some of the town and region linen mills helped produce material for uniforms, boot laces, kit bags, bandages, tents, and parachutes, others were converted to churning out munitions, with women undertaking much of the work.[74]
TheSecond World War struck close to Lisburn with theBelfast Blitz of April and May 1941. The town and the surrounding area was flooded by thousands of evacuees all of whom, as one member of the Lisburn Women's Voluntary Service recalled, had to be "fed, housed, deloused, marshalled, bathed, clothed, pacified and brought back to normal".[75]
In the post-war decades the demand for linen declined (precipitously after World War Two) in response to new textiles and changing fashion. With a workforce reduced to just 85, the Barbour mill in Hilden finally closed in 2006.[27]
The population of Lisburn, which in 1951 was still just 15,000, nonetheless continued to grow. In part this was a consequence of the expansion of the town boundary lines in 1973, and of a dramatic increase in public authority housing with overspill from Belfast. As stock improved, the town retained few examples of the terraced housing built by the mill owners in the nineteenth century. Development did see the loss of some historic landmarks: the Victorian Court House in Railway Street, the Sacred Heart of Mary Grammar School in Castle Street and, in Linenhall Street, theIndependent Order of Good Templars hall and the weaving factory of William Coulson.[76]
The opening of the M1 motorway in 1962 further integrated Lisburn into the greater Belfast commercial and residential area.[77]
In 1989 the new edge-of-townSprucefield retail park opened.[78] The centre was virtually destroyed in January 1991 in aProvisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) incendiary attack.Marks and Spencer, the principal anchor was spared, but the three other major stores were destroyed.[79]
On what was once known (because of the production of sulphuric acid bleach) asVitriol Island in the middle of the River Lagan, the last remnants of the Island Spinning Company were demolished in the early 1990s. The Lagan Valley Island Complex was officially opened byQueen Elizabeth II, accompanied by theDuke of Edinburgh, in November 2001.[80]
A borough since 1973, Lisburn was grantedcity status in 2002 as part ofQueen Elizabeth II's Golden jubilee celebrations.[81]
First built in 1940,Thiepval Barracks is a large military complex on the edge of town was named after the village ofThiepval in Northern France, the site of the Ulster Division's heaviest losses in 1916 onthe Somme.[82]
In early 1970 the Thiepval Barracks became home to39 Infantry Brigade[83] and provided the headquarters for the locally recruitedUlster Defence Regiment.[84] From August 1969, the Brigade, as 39 Airportable Brigade, was involved inThe Troubles in Northern Ireland, eventually taking on responsibility, underHQ Northern Ireland, for an area includingBelfast and the eastern side of the province, but excluding the South Armagh border region. From September 1970, it was commanded by (then)BrigadierFrank Kitson.[85]
In Lisburn's last casualties of the conflict, a soldier was killed and 31 people were injured when the(IRA) explodedtwo car bombs in the barracks on October 7, 1996.[86]
The barracks remain home to 38th (Irish) Brigade.[87]
With communities across Northern Ireland, from the end of the 1960s Lisburn suffered through three decades of political violence, "The Troubles". For Lisburn the first killings came in 1976: in the course of the year, five Catholic residents died as a result of gun and bomb attacks by theUlster Defence Association and (a new)Ulster Volunteer Force, loyalist paramilitary groups that subsequently entered their own feud.[88] In 1978 the IRA murdered aRoyal Ulster Constabulary officer at his home in front of his family.[89] It was the first in a series of targeted assassinations of security-force personnel in the town that culminated in the1988 Lisburn Van Bombing: five off-duty British soldiers killed at the end of a charity run in Market Square.[90][91] The Troubles in the town claimed a total of 32 lives.[92]
As elsewhere, private investment in Lisburn has shifted employment away from traditional industries toward services. Just under 10% of the town and district's workforce remains in manufacturing,[93] but it is a dynamic sector that includes precision-engineering exporters.[94] Recent decades have seen very considerable public investment and new public service jobs, now accounting for a third of the district's overall employment.[93]
After receiving city status in 2008, in the 2016reform of local government in Northern Ireland Lisburn was combined with residential areas of broadly similar social and political complexion bordering Belfast to the south and east. The fusion producedLisburn City and Castlereagh District.[4] According to measures devised by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, the district ranked among the least socially and economically deprived in the province.[95]
In the third election to new 40-seatLisburn and Castlereagh City Council, in May 2023, the twelve seats representing Lisburn returned a reduced unionist majority: four seats for theDUP (a loss of one) and two for theUUP (a loss of two) and an independent unionist. The cross-communityAlliance Party held gained one to hold three; the moderate nationalistSDLP retained a seat, and for the first time Lisburn returned aSinn Féin councillor.[96] Following the election, in June 2023 Gary McCleave, who was re-elected to represent the Killultagh DEA became "the first ever Sinn Féin councillor to hold a mayoral position in Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council":[97] he was named deputy mayor.
Following the decision of the sitting DUPMP and party leader,Jeffrey Donaldson, not to stand in the2024 United Kingdom general election, Lisburn'sLagan Valley constituency returned for the first time a non-unionist, a woman, and a person from a Catholic community background, the Alliance Party'sSorcha Eastwood.[98][99]
Lisburn is the administrative centre ofLisburn and Castlereagh City Council area.[100]
In elections for theWestminster Parliament the city falls mainly into theLagan Valley constituency.[101]
Two District Electoral Areas cover the city and surrounding areas. Lisburn North (Derriaghy, Harmony Hill, Hilden, Lambeg, Magheralave, Wallace Park) and Lisburn South (Ballymacash, Ballymacoss, Knockmore, Lagan Valley, Lisnagarvey, Old Warren). In the2023 local elections the following were elected to represent the two DEAs:
| Current council members | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| District electoral area | Name | Party | |
| Lisburn North | Paul Burke | Sinn Féin | |
| Jonathan Craig | DUP | ||
| Nicola Parker | Alliance | ||
| Pat Catney | SDLP | ||
| Nicholas Trimble | UUP | ||
| Gary Hynds | Independent | ||
| Lisburn South | Andrew Ewing | DUP | |
| Amanda Grehan | Alliance | ||
| Alan Givan | DUP | ||
| Peter Kennedy | Alliance | ||
| Tim Mitchell | UUP | ||
| Paul Porter | DUP | ||
The headquarters of theBritish Army in Northern Ireland at Thiepval Barracks and the headquarters of theNorthern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service are located in the city.[102]
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
|---|---|---|
| 1821 | 4,684 | — |
| 1831 | 5,745 | +22.7% |
| 1841 | 6,284 | +9.4% |
| 1851 | 6,533 | +4.0% |
| 1861 | 7,462 | +14.2% |
| 1871 | 7,876 | +5.5% |
| 1881 | 10,755 | +36.6% |
| 1891 | 12,250 | +13.9% |
| 1901 | 11,461 | −6.4% |
| 1911 | 12,388 | +8.1% |
| 1926 | 12,406 | +0.1% |
| 1937 | 13,042 | +5.1% |
| 1951 | 14,781 | +13.3% |
| 1961 | 17,700 | +19.7% |
| 1966 | 21,522 | +21.6% |
| 1971 | 31,836 | +47.9% |
| 1981 | 82,091 | +157.9% |
| 1991 | 99,458 | +21.2% |
| 2001 | 71,465 | −28.1% |
| 2011 | 45,370 | −36.5% |
| 2021 | 51,447 | +13.4% |
| Figures for 1981 and 1991 are the census figures for Lisburn City Council, which covered a larger area than the former county borough. The figure for 2001 is for Lisburn Urban Area. The figures for 2011 and 2021 are for Lisburn City Settlement.[3][103][104] | ||
On Census Day (27 March 2011) the usually resident population of Lisburn City Settlement was 45,370 accounting for 2.51% of the NI total.[105]
Respondents could indicate more than one national identity.
On Census Day, in Lisburn City Settlement, considering the population aged 3 years old and over:
On Census Day (2021) the usually resident population of Lisburn City Settlement was 51,447:
The Classical School in Bow Lane, founded 1756 and mastered for fifty-six years by the Huguenot and Anglican cleric and scholar Saumaurez Dubourdieu, was the first school of note in Lisburn.Friends' School, founded for Quaker children, followed in 1774. Comparable grammar-school education was not provided for Catholic children until the Convent of the Sacred Heart of Mary started boarding pupils in a house in Castle Street in 1870, and not for other children in the town until 1880 when Sir Richard Wallace founded the Intermediate and University School on the Antrim (renamed Wallace High School in his honour in 1942).[108][109]
The first Lisburn school which did not ask pupils whether they attended church, chapel or meeting was that founded on the Dublin Road by John Crossley in 1810. Known then as the Male Free School, it was the first free school in Ulster to be based on theBell and Lancaster monitorial system.[108]
A school for poor children, established by Jane Hawkshaw in 1821 with the support of the 3rd marquess,[25] taught no catechism and made no attempt at religious instruction. It adopted that principle that "while so great diversity prevails on this subject, it [is] best to separate religion from the instructing in reading, writing, arithmetic and sewing". Religious instruction was to be left to "the parents, with the assistance of their respective teachers".[110] It is a principle that the government tried, but in the face of church opposition failed, to realise in its original 1830 plans for an Irish system ofNational Schools.[111]
Another exception to control by the church education authorities was Hilden School, established under mill management by William Barbour in 1829.[108]
Today, Fort Hill Primary andFort Hill College make a conscious effort to surmount principal sectarian divide in the town through a system of "integrated education". Children from Catholic and Protestant homes in Lisburn are otherwise taught, with limited exception, separately on a pattern that, by the mid-nineteenth century, had been established throughout Ireland.[112]
Lisburn Central Primary School (54°30′25″N6°02′56″W / 54.5070°N 6.0489°W /54.5070; -6.0489) is aneco-school andnursery unit. The school was established in 1934 when the first Lisburn Presbyterian Church School and the Christ Church, Church of Ireland Nicholson School united to form one school[113] Lisburn Central was awarded aGreen Flag award in 2023 for its publicly accessible park and open spaces.[114]
In 2012,Scoil na Fuiseoige, the firstIrish-language-medium primary school, serving the Lisburn area, opened inTwinbrook.[115]
South Eastern Regional College is a successor to the Lisburn Technical Institute established in 1914.[116] On its enlarged Castle Street campus, it offers courses and apprenticeships in Bio-Sciences, Computing, Electronic Engineering, Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering, Media, Music, Photography, Sport and Recreation, Travel and Tourism, Construction, Animal Management, Creative Industries and Performing Arts.[117]
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Lisburn is notable for its large number of churches, with 132 churches listed in the Lisburn City Council area.[118]Christ Church Cathedral (from 1708), commonly referred to as Lisburn Cathedral, is the diocesan church for theChurch of Irelandbishopric of Connor.[119]
The principal Roman Catholic Church in Lisburn is St Patrick's on Chapel Hill dedicated in 1900.[120] For Presbyterians the senior congregation remains that of the First Presbyterian Church, off Market Square, built in 1768, and enlarged and remodelled in 1873 and 1970.[121] For the Methodists, it is the Seymour Street Church opened on ground donated by Sir Richard Wallace in 1875.[122]
TheLisburn railway station was opened on 12 August 1839. Express trains taking 10–15 minutes to reach Belfast'sGreat Victoria Street. The train also links the city directly withNewry,Portadown,Lurgan,Moira andBangor. The station also has services toDublin Connolly in the city ofDublin, with three trains per day stopping at the station. All railway services from the station are provided byNorthern Ireland Railways, a subsidiary ofTranslink. The city is also served byHilden railway station.
Ulsterbus provides various bus services that connect the city with Belfast city centre, which lies eight miles northeast. These services generally operate either along Belfast'sLisburn Road or through theFalls area in west Belfast. In addition to long-distance services toCraigavon,Newry andBanbridge, there is also a network of buses that serve the rural areas around the city, such asGlenavy andDromara; as well as an hourly bus service 6:00 am – 6:00 pm Monday-Saturday to Belfast International Airport.[123]
The city has a network of local buses, serving the local housing developments and amenities. These are operated byUlsterbus.[124]
A new "Buscentre", provided by the regional public transport providerTranslink, opened on 30 June 2008 at the corner of Smithfield Street and the Hillsborough Road. It replaced the shelters that formerly stood in Smithfield Square.[125]
The city is located on the Belfast-Dublin corridor, being connected with the former by theM1 motorway from which it can be accessed through junctions 3, 6, 7 and 8. TheA1 road toNewry andDublin deviates from the M1 at the Sprucefield interchange, which is positioned one mile southeast of the city centre. An inner orbital route was formed throughout the 1980s which has permitted the city centre to operate a one-way system as well as the pedestrianisation of the Bow Street shopping precinct.[126] In addition to this, a feeder road leading fromMilltown on the outskirts of Belfast toBallymacash in north Lisburn, was opened in 2006. This route connects with the A512 and permits traffic from Lisburn to easily access the M1 at junction 3 (Dunmurry) thus relieving pressure on the southern approaches to the city.[127]
TheLagan Canal passes through Lisburn. This connected the port of Belfast toLough Neagh, reaching Lisburn in 1763 (although the full route to Lough Neagh was not complete until 1793). Prior toWorld War II the canal was an important transportation route for goods, averaging over 307,000 tons of coal per year in the 1920s. Following competition from road transport, the canal was formally closed to navigation in 1958, and grew derelict. A short stretch and lock in front of Lisburn Council offices was restored to use in 2001.[128]
Lisburn is served byNational Cycle Route 9, connecting the city withBelfast withNewry.[129]
Bow Street Mall, on Bow Street, houses over 60 stores, many eateries (including a food court).[130] Sprucefield Shopping Centre and Sprucefield Retail Park are two large retail parks located just outside the city centre.[131]
Townlands are traditional land divisions used in Ireland. As well as Lisnagarvy, Lisburn covers all or part of the following townlands.[132]
County Antrim:
County Down:
As with the rest of theBritish Isles, Lisburn experiences amaritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. The nearest officialMet Officeweather station for which online records are available is at Hillsborough.[147]
Averaged over the period 1971–2000 the warmest day of the year at Hillsborough will reach 24.3 °C (75.7 °F),[148] although 9 out of 10 years should record a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above.[149]
Averaged over the same period, the coldest night of the year typically falls to −6.0 °C (21.2 °F)[150] and on 37 nights air frost was observed.[151]
Typically annual rainfall falls just short of 900 mm, with at least 1 mm falling on 154 days of the year.[152]
Water can be supplied from Dams and nearby rivers thanks to the rainfall and mountains. In the 19th Century,Duncan's Dam provided the town with water and now serves as a free public park.[153]
| Climate data for Hillsborough climate station (91m elevation) 1981–2010 averages | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 14.7 (58.5) | 15.8 (60.4) | 19.4 (66.9) | 22.8 (73.0) | 23.8 (74.8) | 28.1 (82.6) | 29.5 (85.1) | 28.4 (83.1) | 24.5 (76.1) | 21.1 (70.0) | 15.8 (60.4) | 14.5 (58.1) | 29.5 (85.1) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 7.1 (44.8) | 7.3 (45.1) | 9.2 (48.6) | 11.4 (52.5) | 14.4 (57.9) | 16.8 (62.2) | 18.6 (65.5) | 18.2 (64.8) | 16.0 (60.8) | 12.6 (54.7) | 9.4 (48.9) | 7.4 (45.3) | 12.4 (54.3) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 1.7 (35.1) | 1.5 (34.7) | 2.7 (36.9) | 3.8 (38.8) | 6.2 (43.2) | 9.0 (48.2) | 10.9 (51.6) | 10.8 (51.4) | 9.1 (48.4) | 6.6 (43.9) | 3.9 (39.0) | 2.0 (35.6) | 5.7 (42.3) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −12.2 (10.0) | −7.8 (18.0) | −10.0 (14.0) | −4.9 (23.2) | −3.3 (26.1) | 0.0 (32.0) | 2.5 (36.5) | 1.8 (35.2) | −1.2 (29.8) | −4.5 (23.9) | −8.3 (17.1) | −11.5 (11.3) | −12.2 (10.0) |
| Average rainfall mm (inches) | 83.5 (3.29) | 58.9 (2.32) | 70.7 (2.78) | 59.1 (2.33) | 60.3 (2.37) | 67.8 (2.67) | 71.4 (2.81) | 85.4 (3.36) | 76.0 (2.99) | 92.8 (3.65) | 90.1 (3.55) | 85.6 (3.37) | 901.8 (35.50) |
| Average rainy days(≥ 1.0 mm) | 14.4 | 11.6 | 13.9 | 11.5 | 11.8 | 11.7 | 12.2 | 12.8 | 12.0 | 14.4 | 14.1 | 14.4 | 154.8 |
| Mean monthlysunshine hours | 46.0 | 71.9 | 105.9 | 151.7 | 195.4 | 165.3 | 158.3 | 151.1 | 123.0 | 96.5 | 61.3 | 38.4 | 1,364.8 |
| Source 1: metoffice.gov.uk[154] | |||||||||||||
| Source 2: KNMI | |||||||||||||
The main hospital in the city is theLagan Valley Hospital, which provides Accident and Emergency services to the area. The hospital lost its acute services in 2006. Residents now must travel to Belfast for acute surgery. The Lagan Valley lost its 24-hour A&E from 1 August 2011 due to a shortage of Junior Doctors. It will now instead be open 9:00 am – 8:00 pm and will be closed on weekends. This has caused much controversy as residents of the city will now have to travel to Belfast or Craigavon.[155] Primary care in the area is provided by the Lisburn Health Centre, which opened in 1977.[156] The city lies within the South Eastern Health and Social Care Board area.[157]
In November 2012 the Award of 2013 European City of Sport was officially handed over to Lisburn at a presentation ceremony at the European Parliament in Brussels.[158]
This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under theOpen Government Licence v3.0Archived 28 June 2017 at theWayback Machine. © Crown copyright.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "St. Clair Augustine Mulholland".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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