Introduction

Ballysillan is an area of Belfast with an interesting history and I have started this blog to record some of that history.  That is why I have called it The Ballysillan Story.

274 Ballysillan Road

I grew up at 274 Ballysillan Road, just two doors up from my constituency office, and I can remember the area as it was in the 1950s and thereafter. 

There was still the little cottage on the Oldpark Road at Cliftondene and the thatched cottages in Sunningdale Park.  They were a reminder that at the start of the 20th century this was still a predominantly rural area.

Carr's Glen was one of our playgrounds and a place for family walks.  At that time there were still plenty of traces of the old mills and the industrial history of Carr's Glen.

There were also long walks up round the Horseshoe Bend and then on up the Hightown Road and the hills.  Those hills were another natural playground and we collected frog spawn in the disused quarries.

Each summer we built our bonfire on the ground beside St Bride's church hall, where the rectory now stands, and we built it without pallets and tyres.

Prior to that, back in the 1940s, my mother had a butcher's shop at the bottom of the Ligoniel Road, so the family connection with the area goes back quite a few years.

My wife's father's family came from the Shankill but her grandfather owned one of the little whitewashed cottages above Ligoniel.

However I want to take the story back to much earlier times and over the coming months I intend to trace the history of the Ballysillan area, especially from the 17th century onwards.